MBA Blog

MBA Candidates Lisa Manning and Jon Powell travel abroad this week for a business festival in India.  Lisa will share her travel journal with the Blog when she returns…here’s her pre-departure entry:

Pre-departure: Sunday, Nov. 9th

“Tomorrow I leave for Delhi, India to participate in a week-long international business school festival hosted by IIPM, Indian Institute for Planning and Management.  I will be traveling with second year, Jon Powell, and we both feel honored to represent GWSB in such a unique event.  This festival is an annual meeting ground for business management students around the globe to meet, exchange ideas, participate in events, and work towards a common goal - Unity and Harmony.

The festival begins November 11th with a welcoming reception that will bring together visiting teams, corporate heads of leading firms and select diplomats.  Jon and I will be two of six American business school students at the festival.  We have been asked to wear clothing representative of our country–I’ve packed an Obama tee-shirt, jeans and an American flag pin.

My flight itinerary is BWI to Newark to Delhi.  Door to door travel time is estimated to be 23 hours.  Luckily, I have some school assignments to keep me occupied!”

Stay tuned…more to come upon their return.

The Graduate Programs office is extremely busy implementing the new MBA curriculum and preparing to kick off the ’08-’09 admissions season.  I was able to pull Jason Kennedy, Associate Director of Admissions, away from his work for a quick interview.

MHS:     Jason, thanks for sitting down with the MBA Student Blog.  What’s the outlook for prospective MBA  candidates wishing to enter GWSB’s Class of 2011?

JK:     The class of 2010 raised the bar and it’s a challenge to students who join next year to meet those expectations.

MHS:    Ahh yes, thanks for the pat on the back…Seriously though, how does this year’s recruiting season look from your perspective?

JK:    This looks to be a very competitive year.  With the market conditions and all of the new advertising we’ve been doing, we anticipate it to be a record year for applications. I think it will be dramatically more competitive.

MHS:    How many applications do you usually receive? What about this year?

JK:    The typical number of applicants is around 650.  This year, we’re anticipating 1000 – 1500.

MHS:    When is the first deadline?

JK:    December 4th

MHS:    Our class is roughly 100 students, how many will be admitted to the class of 2011?

JK:    We intend to grow the class slightly, but final class size hasn’t been determined.

MHS:     Anything new to the admissions process this year?

JK:    We’re making first year students available to prospects. We think there are some questions that students can answer best as they have just gone through the same experience.

MHS:    What are you looking for in prospective students this year?

JK:    We are looking for a very diverse student body, both in professional and geographical background.  We are looking for folks who want to be a part of something that’s still very new and who want an MBA that has the values we’re stressing.

Edited by: Shalini Dua, MBA ‘10

The following is a Press Release for the NY Career Trek, which started October 22nd. Eran Goudes, MBA ‘09, is documenting the event with a terrific blog. Other contributers include Brianna Lux and Sherri Sokal, both MBA ‘10. Check it out at http://nytrek.wordpress.com

GW School of Business M.B.A. Students Take on New York City

September 18th and 19th brought the National Black MBA Association Conference and Career Fair to Washington, DC. The career fair is one of the largest MBA fairs in the country and is open to all students, whether or not they are members of NBMBAA.

While the fall career fairs are mainly for 2nd year MBAs, out looking for full-time jobs, our career center had us 1st years well-prepped and ready. We already completed initial self marketing strategies and resumes, so the fair was a great opportunity to get in front of recruiters, test our pitches, and get a feel for the recruiting process.

After the fair, I asked several of my colleagues to relay their NBMBAA experiences. At the end of this blog, I posted a few of their Career Fair Best Practices.

“A key factor that determines MBA Student success is the kind of job the student secures upon graduation. Knowing this, I wasn’t surprised to see literally thousands of almost identically dressed, well-spoken, highly motivated students line up at the NBMBAA Career Fair.

Being a skeptic, with core career interests in rather niche fields, I was unsure of what my personal outcome was going to be…truth is, the experience turned out far richer than expected. I was fortunate to find fairly strong leads with my target companies, as well as opportunities to briefly interview and attend receptions.

These events helped me fill in the career details and sharpen my career goals. Ultimately, the fair reaffirmed that the GW MBA curriculum does stand out from the very general, rigid concentrations most schools provide…”
Devika Modak, MBA 2010

“By Friday at 4pm, I interviewed formally with Medtronic and informally via information session with Goldman Sachs.

I already followed up with three of my top companies including Schering-Plough, Monsanto, and GE for GE Healthcare. I also received positive responses and dialogue with other companies including Roche, Genentech, and even Farmers Insurance Group - who proceeded to slightly grill me on probability.

My 6 years of government related work and training in biotechnology, public health, and foreign policy gave me an edge and good selling points. My interest is to go to healthcare and/or pharma and be channeled into an MBA management-training program.

For Goldman, I realized that my strong background mixing healthcare and defense knowledge was attractive to an investment firm. Their interview helped better my application towards the selection process in the real interview. We chatted a lot and the recruiter took a good look at my resume and offered me sage advice.

Lastly, it was interesting to meet different students from different schools. I chatted with a lot of people, at the coffee break, on the metro, standing in line, waiting at interviews, etc. It helped me learn what their goals were and the quality of students being churned out from various programs.”
Catherine Lee, MBA 2010

“I had a few reservations about attending the career fair because my interests are in corporate social responsibility and the exhibitors didn’t represent the CSR field. However, my career objectives didn’t discount my experience. I arrived at the career fair early and had an opportunity to build new relationships with recruiters from consulting firms Deloitte and Booz Allen Hamilton. They peaked my interests in government and public service consulting because of my previous advisory roles in the State of California and City of Los Angeles.

I specifically chose the George Washington University School of Business because the Global MBA Program offers a concentration in Strategic Management and Public Policy. I knew the concentration would give me a competitive edge, which was affirmed by the recruiters at the career fair.”
Jason Scott Park, MBA 2010

“NBMBAA was my first real opportunity to showcase GWSB’s new program and test its marketability among top Fortune 500 employers. Invariably, every HR manager asked the question, “Why did you choose GW over other schools?” In response, I was able to highlight the new 7-week class modules, which will accelerate my exposure to a wide variety of business disciplines throughout the first year. I also spoke about GW’s competitive advantages in international business - this year, our class will travel abroad to consult with a global company and tackle a live business issue that it faces in a foreign market. Employers were very impressed with these additions to the full-time program and they were excited to see so many GWSB students at the career fair.”
Chris Shybut, MBA 2010

Career Fair Suggestions:
1) Be early and be prepared: Try to beat the crowd and go there early. The recruiters become less available as lines start forming at their booths.  Make sure you know the companies that are being represented and do background research on those you are specifically interested in.

2) Be positive and smile: Having a good opening gambit in your first few words goes a long way.

3) Practice: Know what you are going to say to the company representatives and be as precise and accurate as you can.

4) Be realistic: You might not land your dream job by simply dropping off your resume at these events, especially if you are an international student with work permit restrictions…make sure you follow up with relevant people at companies you’re looking at. Keep yourself updated and watch out for more networking opportunities.

5) Go with an open mind. You want to do your research for the companies that you are interested in, but there might be additional career paths that you never knew about. Also, be open to job or internship relocations since many recruiters appeared glad to hear me say that I’m open to anywhere even overseas.

6) Don’t hesitate to talk about your achievements and successes. Keep some small-chat going, and formulate questions ahead of time. It is critical to know what you want and to sell yourself as to why you want it.

7) Take a card: Whether or not you leave your resume (some firms don’t take one at the fair), always ask for a business card or email address. I always ask so that I can send an email later, if I’m interested.

We first year MBAs just finished the initial Ethics portion of the Business Responsibility and Sustainability course. Tim Fort, Lindner-Gambal Professor of Business Ethics, brought the storied Notre Dame v. Michigan football rivalry into the classroom in a discussion of Total Integrity Management. Professor Fort sang a line from each school’s fightsong and used the example of their marching bands playing each other’s fightsong to illustrate trust. But is it enough just to play the other team’s fightsong if it lacks passion, even if it is done right and well?

Fort, a Notre Dame Alum and former UofM Ross School Professor didn’t seem convinced, though he loves the tradition.

For me, GWSB’s commitment to ethics education was a big draw. While simple moral ethics are often taken for granted, those that come up in the workplace are seldom straight forward. As a manager, I faced several issues that tested my ability to think about ethics in a consistent, reasoned, and unbiased way. The decisions were not easy to make, and I probably got them wrong more than I got them right.

Professor Fort’s teaching emphasizes building ethics into organizations so as to reduce the chances of an issue in the first place, and he provides a framework for dealing with the issues that do arise.

As for singing ethicists, Fort promises another tune before the end of the 1st Module.

-Mark

Check out the latest in the news about the curriculum:

Washington Post, Tuesday, September 16th.

Market Watch (Business Wire)

Welcome to the new MBA Blog format.  Martin Metodiev built the page in WordPress.  Martin, an MBA alum, also created the MBA Zone intranet that students have access to.  Many thanks Martin.

The 2010 GW Global MBA class kicked-off 1 month ago with the Global MBA Institute, a 2 week program that included seminars, a quant course, and career management modules (International students started one week before the U.S. students).  The Institute was a very rapid transition back to school, especially for those of us who’ve been out in the business world for a few years.  And aside from the kickstart, the Institute was a great opportunity to meet ‘n greet classmates.  It was good to see many familiar faces: people who I’d met at the Super Saturday event in February, on Facebook and for a few happy hours over the summer.

I’m just now getting into the swing of classes and homework.  So, I’ll start this new blog with a recap of its purpose, which I posted on the old site:

For better or worse, school websites are frequently the go-to information source for current and prospective students. I’m sure most of us relied heavily on school websites for info and to size up a program. Aside from rankings and reputation, the website is a key bellweather - and schools recognize this. The sites are pumped full of new information and content, new looks, and, increasingly, blogs. Admissions blogs, Dean’s blogs, student blogs…

From what I’ve seen, a good business school blog engages fellow students and promotes the school to prospectives.

For prospective students, a blog a portal that links you to the insights that are important for the decision making process. Rather than tediously document the next two years of my life, writing each day to be more interesting than the last, I will instead exhibit a series of student portraits and discuss notable current topics in the program.

In the coming weeks, I’ll post several points of view on the MBA Institute-what worked, what didn’t-from students and administrators.  Hopefully this will give prospective students a look at what to expect from their first week on campus.

Coming Soon: Interview with Gil Yancey, Executive Director of the F. David Fowler Career Center, on Career Management and the role of the Career Center.