in an LGO state of mind

Time to find a job

2011-10-27T05:26:00.000-07:00

Back when I was reading these blogs and thinking about applying to LGO, I wondered why there weren't many posts about the full-time recruiting process. I get it now. It's tough to write about because it's a hectic time, it's a very personal decision and there are some sensitivities to consider, such as exploring non-partner company opportunities. That said, I wanted to provide some perspective on what it's like going through the process, both good and bad.

The good

First, we are incredibly well-positioned coming out of a program like this. It's easy to get caught up in the stress of the process and lose sight of what is going on. Next week is our official recruiting week, and most of us have several interviews lined up for great positions at great companies. With most of our partner companies, getting an interview is as easy as clicking a button to sign up for a slot. That's awesome.

Second, the support network is invaluable. Between Sloan's Career Development Office and LGO staff, there are a lot of people who have a vested interest in helping us find the right job. In addition, the Sloan and LGO alum networks are fantastic. It's been easy to reach out to people at the companies I'll be interviewing with to learn more about the opportunities. People are extremely responsive and have been very generous with their time, particularly LGO alums.

The bad
Being away from Boston on internship makes recruiting difficult, especially with non-partner companies. In addition to the logistics issues of scheduling interviews, we can't attend on-campus events such as company presentations and practice interviews. Perhaps more importantly, we're just not in the recruiting mindset like most of our Sloan classmates.

It's one thing to be able to attend events and meet company representatives, but I think being in the frenzied recruiting environment on campus has other benefits as well - for example, you might overhear interesting facts or news about particular companies, and you can learn through others' experiences with interviewers. In general, it's much easier to be prepared. That being said, I think the one good thing about being away is that you can probably think clearly and avoid getting caught up in group-think, or "the game" (as one LGO alum who recently spoke to us called it) of chasing after the hot companies or opportunities.

Anyway, it's an exciting time. Within the next few months we'll all (hopefully) have some certainty as to what we'll be doing in in life. I'll try to write more about the process as I continue to go through it.

Where nobody knows your name...

2011-10-02T23:41:00.000-07:00

One of the main reasons I wanted to move abroad for my internship is because I've basically been in one place my entire life. For me, moving to Boston after living in New York for awhile was a big deal. But on a global scale, they're extremely similar places (sorry, it's true), especially considering the types of people with whom I would normally interact. On the other hand, Finland is a very different place. It has made this experience challenging but also eye-opening and rewarding in a lot of ways. Here are a couple of the more valuable lessons I'm taking away from this experience:

How to sell ideas to people who are different than you: When I was a freshman in college, a father of a friend of mine took a couple of us out to dinner. He had a very successful career in business, and his main piece of advice to us as we began our higher education lives was to soak in as much knowledge as possible, but to not underestimate the importance of sales skills (i.e. selling an idea). Since then, throughout my brief career and now in school, I've seen how true that is. You can do amazing and thorough analysis that leads to a groundbreaking idea, but if you can't sell that idea to the right people, it's basically useless.

A key part of selling an idea to someone is understanding how that person thinks and what that person finds important, which is relatively easy when you can relate to the person. In a foreign place, it's not easy at all. In Finland people tend to be naturally reserved and hide their emotions well. Determining what people value and how to effectively pitch ideas in this type of unfamiliar environment has been an immensely helpful part of the experience for me so far. I'm not even close to mastering this skill, but it's been valuable to have the opportunity to work on it.

Understanding a different way of life: In addition to the internship experience itself, it's a fascinating time to be living abroad with all that is going on in the world, and in particular the ongoing debates about effective systems of government and taxation. Finland is a welfare state with very high taxes and strong social programs, including free healthcare and education. Finland, along with most other Nordic countries, also has a relatively healthy economy, relatively low unemployment and consistently ranks extremely high on surveys that measure overall happiness and life satisfaction. It's been interesting to better understand the system here, why it apparently works in place like this, and the pros and cons of it. I wouldn't say that it has dramatically altered my views, but experiencing a different system firsthand certainly makes you re-think some basic notions you assumed to be true but never questioned.

In short, I'm glad I've had the opportunity to live abroad. It's been challenging at times, but it's also been an awesome learning opportunity. And, of course, traveling around Europe has been pretty cool too.

Midstream week

2011-09-28T01:17:00.000-07:00

Last week was our Midstream Review for us interns who are on-cycle (i.e. currently on our internships). It was great to be back in Boston and catch up with LGO and Sloan classmates who I haven't seen in awhile. The week was much busier than I expected, with internship presentations and recruiting-related events. The highlights:

Internship presentations: Each of us had to give a short presentation on the progress of our internship so far, followed by a poster session during which people could ask questions and provide feedback. It was really interesting to hear about my classmates' projects, and overall I was impressed with the quality of the projects and progress people have made in just 3 months. It's definitely motivating to be a part of a group of people who are so capable. The poster session was actually really helpful for me as well, as I got some great feedback from representatives of some of our partner companies as well as faculty.

Recruiting: I was sort of caught off-guard at how quickly the recruiting process is starting to ramp up for us. There were many company presentations, dinners and other events during the week, for both partner and non-partner companies. It was great to start to talk to people and get information about companies that I might be interested in. I've been delaying the decision process I need go through in terms of figuring out what I actually want to do in life, so it's been good to get that process going. It's a little overwhelming also, but mainly because there are just a lot of different options out there, which I guess is a good problem to have right now.

As an aside, it's clear and somewhat surprising that companies will still be recruiting pretty aggressively despite the broader economic environment. I think that says a lot about the value of Sloan and LGO.

Fun stuff: There wasn't a lot of time for socializing given how busy the week was. But there was definitely some excitement about seeing each other after being away for awhile, so we did our best to hang out a few times, including a two-class party at our old apartment that is now occupied by 3 guys in the class of 2013. It was also great to see some of the Sloanies at BHP, the standard Wednesday night Sloan bar.

Before getting back to our internships, just about all of us who are in Europe made a quick stop in Munich to check out Oktoberfest. I think that deserves a separate post, so more on that coming soon.

Does the US need to make things?

2011-08-30T22:52:00.000-07:00

Yes, says MIT president Susan Hockfield

Maybe not, says Ryan Avent in The Economist

I think these two articles present both sides of the ongoing debate - not really about whether the US needs to make things, but how important growth in manufacturing will be to an economic recovery. The articles don't entirely disagree; both acknowledge the importance of investing in R&D and education. The big question seems to be whether innovation follows manufacturing abroad or whether innovation moves abroad because the US doesn't offer the right incentives to keep it from moving abroad. Is invention and manufacturing a virtuous cycle, as the first article says, or can you continue to invent and innovate in one place and produce in another?

I agree more with first article. But it's a really interesting question, and it probably comes down to an industry-specific conclusion. I think if you're referring to advanced technology industries, as President Hockfield is doing, then innovation and manufacturing go hand in hand.

In any case, I like that this is a very prominent discussion right now.

Groupon: the ultimate case study

2011-08-26T00:41:00.001-07:00

If you haven't been following all the Groupon drama lately, it's been pretty awesome. The story in a nutshell - the company filed for an IPO, but critics say that they created this accounting metric called "adjusted consolidated segment operating income (ACSOI)," which excludes certain marketing and other costs, to intentionally mislead potential investors about underlying profitability. The company stopped using ASCOI but still defends it. The latest is an internal memo from the CEO defending the company.

In following the story, I can't help but think about how useful a case study this will be for business schools for a long, long time - in accounting, communications, marketing, and pricing. I'm also realizing that taking all of these classes has made me think about this situation very differently than I would have prior to going to school. I think that given my background, I probably would have focused solely on the accounting/valuation issues surrounding the IPO, and not really thought about other aspects of the business.

This is probably one of the under-appreciated benefits of some of the core b-school classes. They weren't all great classes, and I was disappointed in what I ended up getting out of a couple of them, but I'm pretty sure they are helping me think about businesses more holistically than I would have previously.

Implications of "Made in China"

2011-08-15T23:38:00.000-07:00

While doing some research for my internship, I came across this study that was published last week. It's not really relevant to my project but I think it's probably worth reading for people interested in global supply chains.

There are two surprising findings - first, Chinese imports account for less than 2% of all US consumer spending. That's a much lower number than I (and probably most people) would have guessed. Second, more than half (55%) of US spending on products labeled "Made in China" actually goes back to US companies. The authors claim that this suggests that the effect of domestic inflation in China should be negligible in the US. Seems to make sense to me.

I think there are a lot of ways to look at this data, but my key takeaways are -

1. For all the talk about globalization and in particular our dependence on China, the US is more of a closed, self-sufficient economy than most people think (granted, the 2% figure is slightly misleading because it includes spending on services, the vast majority of which are produced in the US of course).

2. Understanding global supply chains and where different companies add value is so much more complicated than it seems.

Data > Analysis?

2011-08-10T10:54:00.000-07:00

Here's a good article by Daryl Morey, Sloan alum, GM of the Houston Rockets and co-chair of the Sloan Sports Analytics Conference on the importance of data versus analysis.

I agree with him for the most part, but I think there's a finer line between data and analysis than is implied by the article. For example, in the case of Amazon that he refers to, I imagine that the way the company is able to use the vast data set it can collect given the breadth of its portfolio in product and pricing decisions is as important as the data itself. Also, unique analysis can often produce differentiated data, or maybe help discover what additional data is important.

In any case, I think he makes a good point - often times people take data sets as given and immediately begin to think about how to best analyze the data, when a better approach might be to question whether more comprehensive or even different data is more appropriate to use.

Sicily trip

2011-08-09T11:43:00.000-07:00

A few of us went to Sicily this past weekend. The routine there was pretty simple - eat, beach, nap, eat, party, sleep... repeat. It's really a beautiful island - lots of history, nice towns, good beaches.

The highlight was definitely the food. The first couple of meals were home-cooked at my classmate Leonora's family's beach house. We also tried out a few restaurants. Overall, the food was fantastic. People hype it up, and I can see why. I think it's primarily two things - one, the pasta was always incredibly fresh and cooked perfectly; two, there's something about the olive oil. They use a lot of it in everything, and it was delicious.

A few pictures -

inside the Teatro Greco in Taormina

best dinner ever - great wine, food and laughs

Esther and Mike in front of the Spanish fort in Milazzo (a small town where Mike's great-grandfather was from)

view from Teatro Greco in Taormino overlooking the city

LGO-fest in Switzerland

2011-08-03T22:54:00.000-07:00

This past weekend, most of the Europe LGO interns got together in Basel, Switzerland, where 3 of my classmates are doing their internships. It was awesome to see everyone again and catch up on each other's internships and our lives in Europe so far. It was my first time in Switzerland - what a beautiful country.

Highlights of the trip:

Fireworks for Swiss National Day: We camped out all day on Sunday along the Rhine River in Basel to watch the show. Since we were all in Europe on July 4th, we missed out on Independence Day festivities in the US. This definitely made up for that. It was a gorgeous day, and it was nice that the Swiss celebrate their independence day very similarly to what we're used to in the US - grilling, drinking beers and watching fireworks. The fireworks started pretty late - around 11:15 pm, as scheduled but a good hour and a half after it got dark. It was a long and impressive display, as expected I guess for a country that has money to spend.

the spread

Rheinschwimmen: The Rhine River flows through Basel with a surprisingly strong current. Apparently the thing to do is jump in and float/swim downstream. So on Sunday, prior to watching the fireworks show, a bunch of us walked about a mile upstream from where we had camped out and jumped into (or slowly entered) the river. It's a pretty cool experience floating down with the beautiful city on either side. The water is cold, having just melted from the snow-covered Alps a couple of days ago, but the weather was nice enough that it wasn't really an issue.

a group of Rheinschwimmers

Lake Constance: On Saturday during the day, a few of us went out to Lake Constance, which is surrounded by Germany, Austria and Switzerland. We hung out around the town and took a low-power motor boat on to the Lake for about an hour. The trip included a short swim in the lake, but it was slightly too cold for that. We also came across this rotating statue of a woman holding the pope in one hand and a king in the other which none of us knew what to make of. It turns out that the statue is called Imperia and refers to an interesting (disturbing?) short story.

cool rotating statue

I have to give props to my classmates in Switzerland for being awesome, accommodating hosts. Hopefully I'll be able to return the favor when they come visit Helsinki in a few weeks.

Next up: Sicily this weekend. Looking forward to the beaches of the Mediterranean Sea and some awesome food.

Job prospects

2011-07-22T07:30:00.000-07:00

With recruiting season coming up in a couple of months, the state of the job market is important to those of us who will be graduating in a year. And if you follow economic news at all, you know that the job market has been pretty shaky lately. I think LGOs are desirable job candidates, and I'm confident that all of us will end up with something good, but employment data as of late has been a little frightening.

What really stands out is the unbelievable dichotomy between corporate earnings and the "real" economy in the US. Unemployment is not declining despite the economic "recovery" that we've been in for the past 2 years, yet corporate earnings are very strong and companies are absolutely flush with cash. There's no clear explanation for why this is the case: economists on the left claim that the reluctance to invest and hire is due to the lack of customer demand, so the government should spend more; conservative economists blame economic uncertainty and anti-business government policies.

I don't have a strong opinion on this, but one of our partner company CEOs does. On the 2Q earnings call today, Caterpillar's CEO Doug Oberhelman was pretty clear as to why some businesses might be reluctant to invest in the US:

"Lack of clarity on a U.S. deficit reduction plan, trade policy, regulation, much needed tax reform and the absence of a long-term plan to improve the country's deteriorating infrastructure, do not create an environment that provides our customers with the confidence to invest."

It's frustrating to watch this play out - most large companies have a lot of money, and, with the right incentives, would want to invest in the US, and in particular in the types of jobs that would be great for LGOs and other manufacturing/operations people. I think that over time, the investment will happen, mainly because the US needs it to happen, and we will be in a good position to benefit when it does. But someone really needs to figure out what the right incentives are.

Education in Finland

2011-07-21T02:31:00.001-07:00

I just came across this interview with Harvard professor Tony Wagner, who has studied the education system in Finland and narrates a new documentary - "The Finland Phenomenon: Inside the World's Most Surprising School System." I haven't seen the documentary yet but will hopefully get my hands on it soon.

Based on the interview, it seems like the transformation of the school system here in Finland has a lot to do with elevating the respect level of the teaching profession. According to Prof. Wagner, "...teaching has become the most highly esteemed profession. Not the highest paid, but the most highly esteemed."

Based on my exposure to the country and people so far, I can see how such a reform would succeed here, and also why improving the K-12 public education system seems so hopeless in the US. Americans have an aversion towards the European-style socialist system that is present in Finland - and for a lot of good reasons - but one benefit is the cohesiveness it creates among people. I can see that attitude when I meet people - the lack of competitiveness, the sense that "what's good for you is probably good for me too." I think this type of culture is almost necessary to bring about the kind of education reform that Finland has seen.

Unfortunately, it seems like that type of change is impossible in the US for many reasons, such as the diversity of the country and huge economic disparities that exist. But I think it's mainly a cultural thing about people being unable to think about what's best for the country long-term. The obsession with test scores in schools is, to some extent, a reflection of a culture of short-term results and competition. It's ironic that some of the characteristics that have made America what it is - this individualism and competitive drive - are probably some of the biggest obstacles to much-needed changes in the education system. People definitely realize that better K-12 education is an absolutely necessary part of any solution to America's long-term challenges, but whether people can move beyond short-term political games is unclear.

Anyway, I digress. I'm sure that this documentary is interesting and highlights an eye-opening case of how a successful education system came to be. Hopefully it offers some helpful guidance on what could happen if more value is placed on teachers. But I wonder if it's just an isolated example of a very unique situation given the characteristics of Finland or an example that other countries, like the US, can actually learn from.

Leading vs. executing

2011-07-07T02:57:00.000-07:00

The 6-month internship is one of the most important factors when people are thinking about LGO versus other programs. It's a tough call: you miss an entire semester of business school and don't have complete control over where you may end up. On top of that, I think it's difficult to really understand the benefits of this type of experience until you go through it. A good friend of mine actually recently picked another program over LGO mainly because of the internship, and it was tough for me to come up with a strong argument in favor of the LGO internship structure. I figured that a longer internship would be a more valuable experience, but it's now becoming more clear why that is.

Although I've only been here for 3 weeks, I can already forsee that one of the biggest differences between this internship and my prior work experience is the degree to which I will lead versus execute. I can't really speak for everyone in my class since people are coming from very different industries and levels of seniority, but I'm sure this is true to some extent for most of my classmates as well.

The line between leading and executing (as I'm defining them) is definitely blurry. At my previous job, I did "lead" projects and various initiatives (at least according to my resume), but the end goal was always either very clear or at least easy to ascertain. There were certain leadership skills I needed to use - managing and motivating people, understanding and adapting to evolving project goals, etc. - but I'm now seeing that I was mostly just executing. Things are different when you have to lead a project, especially when the determining the end goal is part of the project itself.

I've always been good at executing because I tend to pick things up pretty quickly. But this experience has been humbling, as I'm starting to see that the types of skills involved in truly leading a project are different. You need to be able to connect with people, determine who key stakeholders are and what they really care about, and come up with creative solutions that may be outside the realm of what anyone has thought about before. It's about piecing together disparate pieces of information, getting the right people to buy in, and communcating ideas to those people effectively.

I think this is one of the big differences between the LGO internship and a traditional summer internship. In the 10 weeks or so of a traditional internship, it's difficult to do much beyond executing a certain set of tasks or a small project. I'm not saying that LGO internships always lead to lasting, impactful changes within an organization; there's obviously only a certain amount you can do even in 6 months. But I do see how leading a real project that's important to a company over an extended period will help me develop certain skills that I wouldn't otherwise work on but that I can see being really useful after I graduate.

Midsummer madness + Tallinn

2011-06-27T11:43:00.000-07:00

This past weekend was Juhannus, the annual celebration of the summer solstice and "official" beginning of the summer. In Finland it's a time to relax, drink, eat and just have a good time. I think the way people celebrate the holiday is pretty indicative of the culture here; rather than celebrate in a large public place, most people (or at least those with the option to do so) escape to private summer cottages away from the city with their families and close friends.

My classmate Ed was in town, so he and I went to a small island off the coast of Helsinki called Pihlajasaari. It's one of the more common destinations for the few people who choose to stay in the city. People just hang out and enjoy the sun, which didn't set until about 11 pm. There's also a big bonfire.

scaring away the summer solstice demons

While we were on the island, we saw a boat (more like a small cruise ship) called "Tallink" sail by. Upon further investigation, we discovered that it was a ferry service between Helsinki and Tallinn, Estonia. Since Helsinki was going to be pretty quiet because of the holiday, we decided that we should check out Estonia the next day.

It turned out to be a great decision, since Tallinn is a pretty awesome place (who knew?). We mainly wandered around the old part of town. It's picturesque, with narrow cobblestone streets and pastel-colored buildings, but also has a lot of bars, beer gardens and restaurants. It's unfortunate that we only got to spend a few hours there.

narrow cobblestone street and pastel-colored buildings

LGO '12s Ed and Ethan enjoying a beer at Estonia's first pub

I'm pretty sure I'll be heading back to Tallinn at some point to better enjoy all that it has to offer... I'm thinking probably in August when a couple of my friends from back home are coming to visit.

Land of the midnight sun

2011-06-22T04:40:00.001-07:00

I moved to Helsinki, Finland a week ago to start my 6-month internship at Nokia, where I'm working in the Sourcing and Materials Planning group on a project that has to do with supply chain risk management. It's an area that's been relatively under-studied, but has been getting more attention over the past few years. A lot of companies are either starting to devise or re-examine their supply chain risk management strategies in light of recent events such as the earthquake in Japan. The core of the issue is how companies strike the appropriate balance between efficiency and resilience within a supply chain. While I'm still trying to figure out the exact scope of my project, it will have something to do with the initial step of identifying and predicting risks as part of the company's overall risk management strategy. It seems like the project has the potential to have real impact, which is encouraging.

It's been an interesting experience so far, and I can already tell that it should be an awesome learning opportunity, certainly professionally but personally as well. Having spent my entire life in one area of the US, I've admittedly been a little nervous about moving to a foreign country, especially one where I would be forced to interact with people very different than what I'm used to. I figured it was something I needed to do at least once in my life, but wasn't sure about how I'd deal with the newness of it all. So far, I think I've settled in pretty nicely.

There's a lot I could write about at this point, but to keep it short, here is a quick summary of the good and the bad so far.

Good
The people: I heard that Finnish people are very business-like and serious, and not so keen on small talk and socializing with people they don't know well. It may be true to a certain extent, but I have been pleasantly surprised at how friendly and welcoming people have been. At work, people are eager to help and share their ideas. I've met some people outside of work as well who also definitely don't fit that stereotype.

The routine: This may sound weird, but I love the routine that I've settled into. It's my first time working "normal" hours (8-5), and it's awesome coming home and having the entire evening free. I can go to the gym, cook dinner, watch TV (already through 2.5 seasons of The Wire -- awesome show), all while not stressing about work. It's kind of ironic that I'm experiencing this normalcy for the first time in such a foreign place, but it's definitely been a highlight so far.

The city: Helsinki is a small city and seems to have a good balance of nice, quiet areas where I can go relax or unwind, but also lively areas to hang out and meet people. It's convenient as well, with good public transportation. The weather has been relatively nice so far, but I'm pretty sure that'll change before I leave here. And, of course, the days are really long right now, which is weird but pretty cool. Here's a picture of one of the more lively areas in town, which I took a few days ago around 11:15 pm.

Bad
Food: I actually haven't been to any restaurants yet, so maybe this isn't fair, but I am not excited about the food here. I think one of the locals here put it best when he said that it's not as if Finnish food might taste really bad, it probably just won't have any taste at all. Strangely, it also seems like there are kebab places everywhere, though I haven't tried any yet. The bad food could be a positive thing, because it's forcing me to learn to cook and because things aren't cheap. Which brings me to...

Cost of living: Yes, it's really expensive here, which is tough to deal with when you're not getting paid. The cost of living seems to be around 30% higher than I'm used to, and I'm comparing to New York and Boston, which are relatively expensive themselves. For the most part, things are priced in Euros what they would be priced in dollars, and of course the dollar isn't too strong right now.

That's it for now. I'm definitely looking forward to traveling around Europe while I'm here and have a few trips planned already- London next week and then Switzerland and maybe France in July. This weekend is Juhannus, which is the celebration of the summer solstice. My classmate Ed is coming to visit, so it should be a good time.

Encouraging Sign

2011-06-14T12:59:00.001-07:00

If you're considering applying to LGO, this is an encouraging sign (from the WSJ):

"Harvard Business School's incoming class will have a substantially smaller percentage of finance professionals than in previous years. Instead, a higher number of students will have manufacturing and technology backgrounds.

According to preliminary figures from Harvard's admissions department, about 25% of the 919 students in the class of 2013 are from finance industries— including private equity, banking and venture capital—compared with 32% last year."

I think some people would say that these types of changes occur every 10-15 years and it'll eventually reverse. I hope it will be different this time around given the magnitude of the financial crisis. In any case, having worked in finance, it was pretty easy to see that there were far too many capable people in that industry who could have been adding more value doing other things. I think the amount of criticism the industry has received is unfortunate (and a lot of it undeserved), because it serves such an important function and definitely needs smart, passionate people. But there's no doubt that this type of change is a good thing, both as a reflection of what students at top business schools want to do and what the schools themselves should be targeting.

I'm in Finland now, by the way... blog post on that coming soon.

2013s in the house

2011-04-07T09:12:00.000-07:00

On Thursday and Friday of last week we held the annual LGO Open House, where we welcome the admitted class. As one of the co-chairs of the event, I helped organize the two days of activities. I think the event has two main purposes: first, we want to help the new class with the stuff they need to know to be able to make the quick transition to Boston in just two months. For this, we had several information sessions about topics such as housing, medical insurance, and financial aid. Second, we wanted to give people a real sense for what it's like to be part of the LGO family. We had student panels, a "cultural traditions" presentation to highlight some of the fun customs that have developed within LGO, and some social events where the new class was able to interact in a more casual setting with current students and each other.

Even though LGO's yield (students who enroll/students admitted) is usually really high, there are always a bunch of people on the fence prior to Open House. We obviously want the students we accept to enroll, so there is definitely an element of trying to sell the program to people who are undecided. But, I think the real goal was to help people get answers to any questions or concerns they had so that they were able make a more informed decision. Hopefully we were able to do that.

On the first day, the 2013s participated in "The Game," where they basically had to walk around campus to different sites based on picture clues that they were given. Once they found all the sites, they could solve a puzzle which led them to the final stop- The Muddy Charles bar, where we were waiting for them with some beer. Here's a picture of me with Team 4, the winners:

Everyone's a winner in LGO

One of the highlights of the weekend was the 3-class party, which we hosted at our apartment. The 3-class party is awesome because it's really the only opportunity for all 3 classes to be in one place together, since the 2nd years will graduate before the new class arrives. Like a lot of LGO events, it ended with a dance party. I think the 2013s have some decent moves, though I'm not sure they can really compete with our class on the dance floor.

Overall, I think the event went really well. Hopefully the 2013s felt the same way. Fortunately, the Open House that the 2011s organized for us was great, so we had a pretty good foundation to start with in planning the event. I'm also really glad I was involved in organizing. It gave me the opportunity to meet a lot of the new class. My initial impression is that they're a great group and should be able to carry the LGO torch successfully.

Matched

2011-03-07T06:18:00.001-08:00

Most of our class found out our internship matches a couple of weeks ago. Despite the anxiety leading up to it, I think overall it worked out pretty well for the class. It's always a little difficult because a few people will inevitably end up with projects that weren't necessarily one of their top few choices. I think there were fewer of those situations in our class than usual, probably because both the projects and student interests were pretty diverse this year. In any case, I think the experience is more dependent on who you end up working with and what you make of it than anything else.

I'll be working at Nokia in Finland, which I'm pretty excited about. I've never lived abroad for an extended period of time, so it should be a cool experience.

My classmate Eddie put together this map of how our internships are distributed geographically. There will be 10 of us in Europe, so I'm sure we'll take advantage of that and take some weekend trips together. I've been to Europe a couple of times, but there's a lot I haven't yet seen.

(click for larger version)

Also, I think admissions decisions for the new class go out this week. I remember how exciting it was to find out that I got in. Congrats to the class of 2013!

Back to it

2011-02-04T13:22:00.000-08:00

The spring semester is officially underway. So much has happened over the past few weeks, including our plant trek, interviews for on-cycle internships and InterviewFest for the LGO Class of 2013. My classmates Patrick and Chris wrote about these; I'd recommend checking our their blogs for more details.

The internship interview process is pretty interesting. We have 15-20 interviews over the course of just a few days, and then rank the different projects based on our preferences. The companies rank us, and then a magic matching algorithm does the rest. It sounds pretty exhausting, but it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought. For the most part, I found the interviewers to be pretty friendly and helpful in clarifying what the internship projects would involve. Now, we wait a couple weeks to find out where we'll live for 6 months of our lives. It's kind of exciting to think that a few months from now, I could be in Europe, Texas, Chicago, California, Brazil.... who knows? I like that.

Anyway, this semester I'm taking 6 classes-

Managerial Accounting- learning about how accounting impacts business decisions and how to interpret the many grey areas within accounting, given that it often can be very subjective. I like the professor a lot, and it seems interesting so far.

System Dynamics- A classic Sloan class. The field deals with thinking about organizations as complex systems, where outcomes are affected by so many factors that lie beyond our standard mental models of how the world works.

Supply Chain Planning- A required class for the Engineering Systems track in LGO. I've never taken a supply chain class before, so I'm pretty excited about it.

Airline Management- A random engineering class I'm taking just because it sounds interesting. It involves learning about how airlines plan their fleets, design networks, and deal with pricing and revenue management.

Pricing- This class doesn't start until the second half of the semester. It's a marketing class that focuses on pricing strategies. It's supposed to be a really cool class and great professor.

Tiger Teams- Also known as Operations Lab. It's a semester-long project where teams of students act as consultants for small- or medium-size businesses within the area. My team is going to work with a start-up company in the energy industry. I don't think I can say much more than that right now, but hopefully I'll write more about this as the semester goes on.

Between classes and a few big extracurricular commitments - planning Open House for the LGO Class of 2013, the Sloan Sports Conference, and choreographing a dance for the South Asian C-Function, I think the first half of the semester will be pretty busy. I like being back in a routine though. Break was nice, but I felt pretty useless after a couple of weeks of not really having any responsibilities or making any real decisions. That definitely changed pretty quickly.

Thoughts on the fall semester

2010-12-20T07:43:00.001-08:00

The semester's over, and I'm back home now in NJ for winter break. I'm going to relax and spend some time with family and friends in NJ and NY before heading back to Boston in time for our domestic plant trek in January.

As you may have inferred by the lack of posts from my classmates and me over the past few weeks, December was a busy month. And as much as you try to spread the workload out over the semester (which I didn't), the last few weeks are pretty hectic with final projects and final exams. But now that we're done for a few weeks, I wanted to write about how the semester went.

Overall, it's been a great experience so far, I'm glad I decided to come to MIT, and I'm really looking forward to the remaining 1.5 years of the program.

My main thoughts on the fall semester-

Yes, business school is soft. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. One of the things I was least looking forward to about school was having to take "soft" classes like communications or organizational processes. I like structure, numbers and analysis, which these subjects don't have for the most part.

After the first two semesters, I feel a little differently about it. I didn't love those classes and probably would still rather spend my time learning more tangible skills, but I can see why they should be included as part of the core curriculum at business schools. At some point, I'll (hopefully) be running a group or organization, and there are certain softer skills that you absolutely need as a manager. I think these classes really do provide you with some solid tools to use and think about as your career progresses. What I really didn't expect, though, was how helpful it was to hear about my classmates' thoughts and experiences. With so many different backgrounds within the Sloan class, the perspectives people brought to discussions were sometimes beyond the scope of anything I would have thought about.

That being said, I still feel like the curriculum and overall attitude is a little too soft. Sloan is known to be one of the more analytically rigorous among the top b-schools. Even still, there were certain classes (like econ and marketing) that I thought could have benefited from being more quantitative, but for some reason the professors started to get apologetic when we had to use math. Come on, it's MIT! It bothers me that business school is sometimes viewed from the outside as a place where you learn few real skills other than how to network and recruit for jobs. I totally disagree with that view, but I can see why it exists.

Being an LGO amongst Sloanies is tricky. As a few of us have written about before, it's really easy as an LGO to get caught up in the program and the LGO class and not fully take advantage of what other Sloanies have to offer. I thought I did an OK job balancing the two this semester. My Sloan score team was fantastic, and I got to know them and a few others pretty well. Beyond that, I probably didn't interact enough with others in the class. I realized this towards the end of the semester at a few section-wide and Sloan-wide events, where I felt like I was meeting people for the first time despite being in the same classes all semester.

The extent to which LGOs choose to integrate into the Sloan class varies significantly. If you choose to do so, it can be a little difficult since our schedules are different than theirs. We take a couple of more classes, but most of them are constantly focused on internship recruiting. Also, I've noticed that a lot of Sloanies don't have the most favorable view of LGOs. We're known to hang out only with each other and often have to miss meetings or other core team commitments because of schedule conflicts. Whether or not you choose to integrate is a personal decision and depends on what you're trying to get out of the program. But I really think it's a bad choice to not venture outside of LGO at all. I'm going to try to do a better job of it next semester.

Breadth > depth, for me. One of the tougher decisions you have to make as an LGO student is what type of school-life balance you want to maintain. For me, despite taking 7 classes, it was important to be social, participate in a few extracurricular activities, go to the gym pretty regularly, get away from Boston for a couple weekends, and of course get enough sleep. Other than during the last few weeks of the semester, it wasn't difficult at all to maintain that balance. However, one of the big trade-offs was that I couldn't give every class 100% effort. This wasn't easy to accept, since it goes against what I'm used to. I really wish I could have devoted more time to one of my engineering classes in particular, which was difficult but really interesting.

Thinking to next semester and how I want to do things, I thought about whether it would be better to take fewer classes so that I could devote more time to each one, and especially focus on those that I particularly enjoy. For now I've decided to load up once again. These last two springs semesters will be my last opportunities (probably ever) to take classes, so I'd rather be exposed to a lot of different things. I'm not sure this is the best route to take, and I can see why people want to do it differently. It's one of the tougher calls you have to make in school and especially in the LGO program.

That's all for now. This was a long post, so if you've made it this far, thanks and happy holidays. And to prospective students who just submitted applications, good luck. I hope this blog's helpful as you decide whether or not LGO is right for you.

New York (Giants) Trek

2010-11-15T17:24:00.000-08:00

I took a trip to NY this weekend for a sports trek organized by the Entertainment, Media and Sports (EMS) Club. We went to see the NY Giants, the NFL and the NBA.

A few of the highlights of each:

New York Football Giants- Easily the best part of the trip (full disclosure: I'm a Giants fan). We got a full behind-the-scenes look of the new Meadowlands Stadium, hosted by Mike Stevens, an SVP and Chief Marketing Officer of the Giants, and Mary Musca, Project Executive for the new stadium. They first gave us a comprehensive - and surprisingly honest - overview about the business of sports and the thought process behind building the new stadium. I had figured that building a $1.6 billion stadium was a complex project, but there are a lot of factors that needed to be managed that I hadn't really thought about: the partnership with the Jets, who co-own the stadium, the relationship with existing season ticket holders, who weren't thrilled about the move, the new season ticket structure, advertisers, etc.

After that, we went on a tour of the stadium and got to see all of the different options customers have to enjoy the game experience. The evolution of sports stadiums over the past 20 years in incredible- it used to be about just watching the game, but given how much the at-home experience has improved, stadiums now have to be now full blown entertainment venues in order to continue to get people off their couches. There are HD video screens everywhere, including 4 massive displays inside the "bowl" (which collectively have greater surface area than the huge screens in the new Cowboys stadium... take that Jerry Jones), bars, restaurants and even some super high-end suites and lounges for the real ballers. In addition to the amenities, we also saw how applications of more traditional operations strategy went into designing the stadium - the corridors are almost twice as wide as the old stadium, there are 40% more bathrooms, and how the parking lot is designed to get people in and out faster.

on the field at the new Meadowlands Stadium

The coolest part, though, was when we got to walk from the locker room on to the field - the same route the Giants take before every home game.

in the end zone

NFL- We met with three people - one works on sponsorship and advertising, one on special events (i.e., the Super Bowl) and one who works with officiating. It was cool to hear about their different roles and perspectives on what it's like to work in the NFL. It seems like the NFL is fairly lean organization, and so people get a lot of responsibility pretty early on in their careers if they are capable of handling it. I also thought it was interesting how different their backgrounds were. I had the impression that since so many people would presumably love to work for the NFL, it must be that everyone who works there always wanted to be there, but that wasn't true at all.

NBA- Again, we met with three people, all pretty recent MBA grads. They work in a variety of roles at the NBA, such as developing the league's expansion strategy internationally to helping teams with business analytics. The business analytics discussion was the most interesting to me. Teams are increasingly using analytical tools to manage their stadium operations, but it's still pretty new and under-used throughout the league.

For me, the trip was more an excuse to go back to New York and visit the Giants than for recruiting reasons. The leagues are also dealing with some complicated collective bargaining negotiations right now, so it's tough to say how much they'll be hiring in the near-term, but it was cool to hear about the different types of jobs that are out there.

Sloan Sports Conference

2010-10-28T16:06:00.001-07:00

"Statistics are like bikinis. They're really nice to look at but they don't tell you the whole story" - Brent Barry, former NBA player

Alright, so enough about operations. Why am I really here?

I first read about the Sloan Sports Analytics Conference a couple years ago in a Bill Simmons column on ESPN.com. It's an event where a bunch of people in sports, media and academia get together to talk about all sorts of topics related to the business of sports. Specifically, one of the main goals of the conference is to have a forum to discuss the role that data analysis is increasingly playing in sports. And, as Brent Barry was getting at in his gem of a quote above (which might be stolen), the conference is also meant to help answer the important question of how to balance data analysis with the more "gut feel" type measures that make sports so appealing to follow.

The conference is only a few years old but already one of the premier events at Sloan. In addition to the Sports Guy, the 2011 conference (March 4-5) will include Malcolm Gladwell, Mark Cuban, Jeff Van Gundy and a lot of other big names. Last year Michael Lewis moderated the keynote panel, which also included Bill Polian and Jonathan Kraft.

Sloan students play a major role in putting together the conference. We work very closely with the two co-chairs, Daryl Morey (a Sloan alum and currently GM of the Houston Rockets) and Jessica Gelman (HBS grad; currently VP of Consumer Marketing & Strategy for the Kraft Sports Group). There are a lot of ways for us to get involved, from helping organize the logistics of the event to planning and coordinating the different panel discussions.

As part of the conference, people from the academic and business world also submit research papers on different sports analytics topics, which is the part I'm most directly involved with. We're currently going through this year's initial round of abstract submissions to determine which we think should submit final papers and perhaps present at the conference itself.

It's really cool to read about all of the new ways that sports-following nerds are trying to analyze sports data- everything from owner economics to selecting the best fantasy teams to better ways to analyze player performance. The analytical rigor of the papers also varies significantly, from relatively simple regression analysis to all sorts of complicated math that I don't understand. Last year, the paper that made the biggest splash was one that improved upon the adjusted +/- technique to analyze NBA players (check it out). I think in just a year a lot of NBA teams have adopted it or are looking to use it.

This year the number of submissions is up pretty substantially from last year. We definitely have a lot of cool ideas, which should make for some interesting and popular presentations at the conference. I think that order for a paper to have widespread appeal, it needs to be unique and analytically sound, though not so complicated that someone without a PhD in statistics can't understand the basic idea.

Stepping back a bit, it's obviously not easy to decide what activities you should get involved with and how much time to devote to them, because there is so much you can potentially do here. Should you spend time on activities that will help you find a job, things you're generally interested in, or both? I think it's worth exploring a lot of different options, but ultimately deciding on a very small number of things that you can actually devote time to. This conference is a no-brainer for me, just because it's such an interesting topic. I don't know if I'll ever pursue a career in sports, but I think it'll be an awesome experience regardless.

Applying

2010-10-25T16:42:00.001-07:00

Today was LGO Ambassador Day, a full-day event for potential applicants. The day consisted of a couple of student/alum panels, some presentations about the program, and an opportunity for prospective students to sit in on an engineering or b-school class. We had a pretty good turnout, and I'm glad that I had the opportunity to meet a few people who will make up the class of 2013 (or 2014). A few of them actually read this blog (nice!).

It's hard to believe that I was in that position just a year ago. Not actually, because I didn't go to Ambassador Day, even though I should have. But I was going through the application process.

For those who are considering applying, that's awesome. You should. I just wanted to write something about the process and some of the more common questions I've been getting, both today and in general. I don't have a ton of advice to give beyond what you've probably already heard. The one area in which I can probably help is for those not coming from a technical background. Having worked only in finance, I was a little concerned that my experience wouldn't be relevant enough to be considered for the program, or that the admissions committee would doubt my seriousness about wanting to go into an operations role after graduation.

Instead of letting that hurt my application, I tried to use my differentiated background to my advantage. In my essays I talked about how I'm fortunate to have been exposed to the business world, given that finance and sales skills are essential to managerial roles in any industry. I also tried to highlight the ways in which I sometimes brought in a unique quantitative or engineering perspective to what was a pretty traditional finance role. Of course, it probably helped that I had an Operations Research undergrad degree, but I don't think that was necessary.

A couple of other things-

Recommendations: it seems pretty obvious, but make sure the people writing your recommendations know how you're pitching yourself. It helps when they all tie together. I actually still haven't read any of mine, but I was told during my interview that they were all similar, which was surprising given that the people who wrote them have very different personalities. I think it helped that I had honest conversations with all of them about what I wanted to do and why.

Essays: Yes, they're important. I think the most useful way to think about them is to fill out whatever profile you want to get across with things that can't be inferred from your resume/transcript/test scores/recommendations. For example, analytical skills are obviously very important, but if you've done really well in the engineering classes you've taken and on the quant part of the GMAT, maybe it'd be better to emphasize something else in your essays.

Other than that, I don't have a lot to add. Based on my classmates' and my own experience with the application, it's clear that people approached the process very differently. Some people started working on it months in advance, and some waited until right before it was due (so yes, it is still possible to apply if you haven't started the application yet, but you should probably get started right now). Just do whatever works for you.

If you have any questions, feel free to post them here.

Good luck!

The Fall

2010-09-14T15:08:00.000-07:00

Yes, I've been slacking a little bit with these blog posts. Sorry. I'll try to make up for it by posting more frequently over the next couple of weeks, including hopefully some words about the application process for all of the prospective students.

As you may have gathered by reading some of the other blogs, we've started our first (and probably only) fall semester here. This means the other ~325 students in our Sloan class (along with the Sloan 2011 class) are on campus. It's a little weird, given that the 48 of us LGO 2012s basically owned the place over the summer. Overall, though, it's cool to meet such a diverse group of pretty interesting people. I think Chris did a great job describing orientation week and the new dynamic with the Sloanies here. I'll just add two things- first, I think it's great to already have a bunch of good friends within the LGO class to turn to with everything going on. Second, here's a picture from a party on a boat we had during orientation week:

Can you find the non-LGOs?

As I mentioned in a previous post, I'm taking 7 classes this semester- the 4 core Sloan classes, Marketing, and 2 engineering electives. Coming from a finance background, I was admittedly not looking forward to my Sloan classes (in particular accounting and econ) much, as I figured they'd be extremely repetitive and pretty boring. I'm a little more encouraged now, though. The professors are solid and the focus seems to be on practical and quantitative applications of the subjects as opposed to just learning theory. But, we'll see.

Of my engineering classes, I'm really excited about Logistics and Transportation Planning Methods. The class is about applications of Operations Research (probability, queueing theory, etc.) to urban transportation systems. For some reason I'm really drawn towards this kind of stuff, and the professor is great, so it should be an awesome class.

Finally, I should mention something about clubs at Sloan. I think there's about 70 of them all together, ranging from cultural to professional to general interest. I hope to become pretty involved with at least 2 of these- the Sloan Energy and Environment club, which is a community of people at Sloan interested in energy issues, including everything from traditional energy to renewables to energy entrepreneurship, as well as the Entertainment, Media and Sports club (the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference is really why I came to Sloan, after all). Anyway, 70 is certainly a lot of clubs. It's just one example, though, of all of the things you can be involved with within LGO, Sloan and MIT broadly. It's overwhelming right now, but I think (or at least I'm told) that once you figure out where you really want to focus your energy, it gets better.

That's it for now. Apologies that this post was a little all over the place since I haven't written in awhile. I'll try to keep them more focused from now on.

The Plant Treks

2010-08-03T07:01:00.000-07:00

One of the cool things about the LGO Program is the plant treks, where the class goes to a manufacturing or distribution facility to see how companies operate in real life. During the summer most of the class goes on 3-4 of these. Our big 2-week domestic (including Puerto Rico, hopefully) plant trek is next January, and there's also an optional international plant trek during spring break.

So far this summer there have been treks to a Staples distribution facility, a Gorton's food processing plant (Paul wrote about this), a Raytheon plant, an Amgen plant, and a Pratt & Whitney (part of UTC, a partner company) manufacturing center. Overall it's really interesting stuff to be able to see how these companies build, assemble and distribute products that people use everyday.

The most recent trek was to Pratt & Whitney's plant in Middletown, CT a couple days ago, where the company assembles and distributes jet engines for commercial and military aircraft. It started out with an overview of the company and the plant, including a couple of videos on how they test the engines against bird impacts and blade liberation... pretty cool stuff.

We then went on a tour of the plant, during which the plant manager told us about the different types of engines they produce, some of the new technologies they're working on, and the assembly process from start to finish. I don't think you have to be into engineering at all to appreciate a jet engine up close- they're just enormous and awesome. Coming from a non-manufacturing background, one of the really surprising things to me so far has been how clean and well-organized most of the plants have been. It really tells you a lot about how operations plays a huge role in how manufacturing companies differentiate themselves these days.

The day ended with a Q&A session, where we got to ask questions to some senior executives. It was helpful to hear about their experiences with the company, how the business has evolved recently and where they see it going. All in all, a very cool experience.

In other news, the summer is over in 2 weeks. It flew by a little too fast I think.

High Class Problems

2010-07-25T15:56:00.000-07:00

A few words about classes...

During the first summer, all first-years in the LGO program take the same 6 classes: Organizational Leadership, Systems Optimization, Probability & Statistics, High Velocity Organizations, Operations Management and Lean/Six Sigma Methods. Basically the summer is designed to give students an introduction to operations and basic technical skills you'll need regardless of the engineering discipline you choose to pursue.

It's now about time to make the first real decision as to what classes to take. It's sort of new to me, since as an undergrad at Columbia I had very little room for electives within my schedule. Almost all of the classes I took fulfilled requirements for my engineering major, econ minor and/or the core curriculum.

This fall, LGOs join the incoming Sloan class and take 4 of the 5 required Sloan core classes (we're taking one of them this summer). On top of that, most LGOs take an additional 2-3 classes, which can be some combination of additional Sloan electives and Engineering electives. There are no strict rules, though most people take at least one of each.

So why load up and take 7 classes when you can get by with 6 and still have plenty of time to fulfill all of the requirements? Well, as great as I think the LGO program is, one of the downsides is that most people only have one fall semester here (next year from June-December most of us will be working full time at one of our partner companies). If we want to take a class that is only offered in the fall, this upcoming semester might be our only opportunity to do so.

For me, that makes the decision pretty easy. When I sat down and listed all of the engineering classes I'd want to take, I came up with about 6 or 7 that seemed really interesting. Yes, it's a good problem to have, but it's a problem nonetheless. Given that I'm coming from a finance/business background and since this is probably the only chance I'll get to take engineering classes at MIT, I think I need to take as many as I can (while trying to have some sort of a life, of course). So my plan is to take 7- the four Sloan core classes, two engineering classes, and Marketing.

One of my regrets as an undergrad is that I probably cared a little too much about grades and not enough about taking advantage of opportunities to learn cool stuff. So I'm trying to approach this experience differently. It might get a little intense at times, but I'll give it a shot.

Why school? Why LGO?

2010-07-21T13:37:00.000-07:00

Good questions. I feel like I could write/copy and paste a whole essay about this, but I'll just write the short version here.

I really had an awesome time in NYC, first as an undergrad at Columbia and then working on Wall Street. Goldman Sachs is a great company to work for, and I definitely learned some valuable things about finance, business and sales that I wouldn't have if I had gone straight into a more technical career. More importantly, perhaps, the experience opened my eyes to the energy industry (I worked in the Research division covering oil and natural gas companies). But I eventually realized that something about finance just doesn't fit my personality. I think I need to solve tangible problems, which finance usually doesn't allow you to do.

So, like many people a few years out of school, I tried to figure out what I really wanted to do. When I think back to undergrad, I really enjoyed my Operations Research (OR) classes. Unlike in a lot of other engineering fields, in OR there is a very strong connection between the theoretical stuff you learn inside the classroom and the application of the material to the real world. At this point you may be wondering, "What exactly is OR?" That's beyond the scope of this post but something I'll get into as this blog (hopefully) progresses. For now, let's just say I wanted to go back into it.

By then it was pretty easy to figure out that I could connect my new interest in the world of energy with my "roots" in engineering. The direct applications of OR within the energy world are pretty clear in terms of energy delivery and infrastructure. Even indirectly, though, the operations of most companies and organizations will increasingly be affected by the scarcity of traditional energy sources. I just needed a way to learn more about how to really tie the two together. That's where LGO came in.

I don't remember exactly how I learned about the program, but I know that it seemed pretty ideal when I did. Basically, the positives (taking engineering classes at MIT, the small class size, the fellowship, what I heard about the LGO experience) overwhelmingly outweighed the few concerns I had (colder weather, more intense schedule). I applied to a few other programs, but once I got into LGO, it was a pretty easy decision.

My First Blog

2010-07-21T13:19:00.000-07:00

Why am I blogging? A few reasons- (1) When I was applying to the program, I found that the student blogs really provided the best insight into the program and types of people in it. Hopefully a few prospective students (especially those without traditional engineering work experience) will find mine helpful as well. (2) I've never done it before, and this whole experience is about doing things outside of your comfort zone. (3) The program is pretty awesome, and people should know about it.