Katie Tamarelli

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The Job Search Almost Wrap Up!

I am writing this blog post from a hotel in New York City as I get ready for bed for my last second round interview with a consulting firm's IT strategy practice.  It is hard to believe this is the last set of interviews for at least a little while. 

So just some official background on the job search that changed from last year.  Last year, it was corporate finance anywhere, but ideally in Detroit, Seattle, New York or Boston.  My boyfriend in March was unsure if he would move to Michigan or just move wherever I ended up.  It was a tricky decision.  I ended up in Seattle at Amazon.  He DID end up moving to Michigan to end our 3.5 years of long distance at the end of June.  He is working on the aerodynamics of the Corvette Race Car at Pratt and Miller Engineering.    

This caused a realignment of interests and for me, to reexamine what I wanted to do after school.  Detroit began the high priority and I started to rethink my interest in consulting.  When I got back to school, I started playing catch-up for all the consulting case interviews and did the refresh on the corporate finance interviewing skills.  I did a lot of OCD case interviews with wonderful peer counselors!

It must have worked, since I do currently have an offer from a consulting company within the Detroit area that I am very excited about!  I spent today canceling some other very appealing opportunities.  That is one of the hardest things to do.  I have spent the last (almost) year developing relationships with some of these company representatives.  It is hard to tell them that you have picked something over them.

So, brace yourself for the final decision.  Either way, after this interview tomorrow, I will be a happy camper.  The boyfriend and family are thrilled that I will be staying in Detroit.  It is nice to know that at least that is decided!  I have been so fortunate to be in this position!

I have been absolutely horrible about taking pictures recently of classmates, but here is a picture of me, two of my section mates, Erica and Leah, and my boyfriend!

The theme was the Deep South complete with biscuits, fried chicken, mac and cheese and my boyfriend's delicious jambalaya!

My favorite little mascot recently has been my mother's dog, Hattie!  Even Hattie says Go Blue!

As always, go blue!

Fall in Ann Arbor

Ann Arbor is always so beautiful in the fall. 

You know it's fall in Ann Arbor when:

1. People start talking about going to the Dexter Cider Mill!

2.  Michigan Football!  Here are some pictures from our first night game against Notre Dame!

After the big win!

Here is a little video from after our second to last touchdown!

 

3.  It is suddenly hard to park in Ann Arbor!

4.  Time for the MBA Wine Club Country Club Casual Party!  Here is a picture from last year's party!

5.  And again it's time for Michigan football!

As always, go blue!

Welcome Back, Everyone!

Hi everyone! 

I hope all the incoming students had a nice restful summer.  Get ready; the fun is about to start!  Some things I wish I had known at the beginning of the school year/some of the things that worked out really well for me as you start off the new year!

- The first semester will be the hardest.  The half semesters are so quick that it is really easy to fall behind.  Don't get seduced by football Saturdays completely!  I was amazed at how quickly things moved.

- Sort of piggy backing off the first bullet, don't fall behind on the OCD deadlines.  Pay attention to their emails.  They tend to have a lot of information, but it can be a little difficult to find at times.  Most importantly, learn when the blackout date is lifted and when resumes are supposed to be completed.  The resumes tend to be due just as the semester picks up with classes.  It can cause a double whammy! 

- Don't have a "fear of missing out."  At the same time, being present and involved early on can pay good dividends when looking for teammates for job prep and class projects.

- Figure out how you learn best.  I found that my study habits and what was most effective definitely changed from undergrad.  Some of the skills I picked up from working made me a much more effective learner!  I tried to take advantage of those learned lessons!

Good luck to all the prospectives out there!  The fall must also feel so busy!  There is always so much going on!  I am sure it is going to hit full throttle pretty soon as well!  Feel free to reach out to any of the ambassadors.  We are always ready to help.

Now for the personal update:

As it seems like everyone is getting back from M-Treks, I went on a little M-Trek of my own: my sister's wedding in Peru to her Ross graduate, Carlos Carranza (Class of 2010).  There were seven Ross graduates and another five Michigan alums at the wedding. As they say, Michigan DOES have the largest alumni base of any university!

My sister (U of M School of Music, 2010), her husband, (Ross, 2010) and his four fellow Ross Alums!

The internship wrapped up well!  I had a great time especially getting to know Ross classmates that I had not known previously!  It was a great opportunity to get some concentrated doses of those friendships that will continue once we get back to school!

Evening boat cruise with some Ross friends!

Whale watching with my section-mate, Mike Marino

As always, go blue!

Summer Wrap Up

Hello, everyone! 

Welcome, MBA1s.  Everyone must be getting super excited.  I remember this week from last year; I was taking my pre-Accounting waiver course.  A few things I would recommend as you get this party started:

1.  As soon as you arrive in Ann Arbor, get your internet set up.  You will want to beat the undergrad rush.  This also includes cell phones (if needed) and bank accounts. 

2.  Get your "household" set-up.  I would recommend the few stores from my last blog post. 

3.  Check out the communication waiver.  It will be worth the few hours to spend on it.  You do get a second shot on this before your second year, but it is great to get this out of the way.  A number of my fellow MBA2s are bemoaning this very waiver this weerkend while planning your M-Treks and working at their internships.  They were wishing they had tried this the year before! 

4.  Start thinking about/working on your resume.  Completely unglamorous, but you have to start sometime!

And the prospectives, start getting excited!  It's the beginning of the long haul!  If you have any questions, feel free to reach out of the MBA Ambassadors.  Make sure your resume looks fantastic.  (As you will notice, the resume is a key piece throughout the ENTIRE business school process).  

As always, go blue! 

 

Summer

It's hard to believe that summer has just reached it's halfway point!  The best part of attending the University of Michigan is the uber-long summers we get to have.  We definitely top all the other schools.  Out end of April, back after Labor Day! 

I have about 4 weeks left in my internship.  It has been a really interesting experience and I have learned a lot about myself out here.  The MAP project has been very beneficial especial for the Amazon internship in particular.  They have their projects scoped very similarly to the MAP projects...very open ended and independently operated.  I have been taking in all of Seattle.  There is so much to do!  Probably more accurately, so much to eat!

Admitted students, we are getting exciting to see you and meet you!  I know the google group has been very busy.  Start getting excited!  I can't wait!  I know the first few weeks can be a little overwhelming between accounting waiver, communication waiver (do this!), M-Trek, orientation, moving in and RLI. 

Some of the places you will probably want to shop at when you first arrive are:

• IKEA: Swedish furniture and anything you can possibly imagine store.  If you have never been to IKEA, I highly recommend looking on their website or going to the store once for a "dry run."  There is a lot going on, so don't worry about getting it all set in one trip!
• Meijer: Open an amazing 24 hours.  You can BUY anything there...from car parts to bananas to clothing to gasoline to your Chase banking!
• Kroger: My favorite grocery store.  Not super frilly, but gets the job done!

There are plenty more.  If I remember correctly, the relocation packets contain the information about the utilities.  If you arrive in Ann Arbor early, I would recommend setting up the internet and utilities ASAP.  I think you will want to beat those 24,000 undergrads arriving on campus!

As always, go blue!

What To Do Over the Summer?

It seems like there have been lots of questions on the google group about "what should I do over the summer?" 

I think the bottom line is you can do nothing.  That being said if you really want to go crazy...here's what I would look at.

1.  Fill out that career builder survey!  It might seem silly, but it lets you think about what you're good at, what you like, and what work culture you strive in. 

2.  Once you complete this, start thinking about maybe what you might want to do after school FOR REAL.  Not what you put in your essays, but what you could see yourself doing for the next 2 and 5 years.  For the most part, think generally like marketing vs. consulting vs. investment banking.  You don't need to get super specific like investment banking covering banks vs. energy companies.  The other way you can go is to think about what industry you might be interested in or more accurately, what industry is in the region you want to work in.  Some general examples

• Texas = Energy
• San Francisco = Silicon Valley and High Tech
• New York = banking
• Healthcare (NJ vs. Chicago)

3.  Start thinking about your resume in terms of what you might want to do.  In my case, this meant that I really need to "de-tech" my resume.  I had a lot of software development speak in there, which would not make sense for corporate finance resumes.  I also needed to think about what skills were requires in my new potential area. 

4.  If you really have NO idea what's going on your potential area of interest, maybe start reading briefly the section of the paper that covers it.

And that's just about it in my opinion.  You would be more than ready to go for the start of your fall semester!

As always, Go Blue!

 

Summertime

Congrats to the Round 3 admits!  I am sure you have enjoyed joining the email address!  I recommend taking a look at past posts to see if your question has already been answered (and this goes for those Round 1 and 2 admits as well)!

We made it!  I can't believe the first year is over.  I arrived in Seattle about two and a half weeks ago! 

I can't believe I am almost done with 25% done with the internship at Amazon!  I am working in Operations Finance working on one of the big operations metrics.  The problem comes from that Amazon is growing too fast!  Ha!  Some type of problem.  It is difficult to see the per cost improvements on transportation and operations since the costs are growing every year since volumes keep growing as well.  Another issue is that the product line purchased keeps evolving too.  Remember when Amazon was only books, movies and CDs?  Now they sell everything!  It turns out that it is a LOT more expensive to ship that TV than that DVD! 

We are staying in corporate apartments right near Pike Place Market.  It feels like dorms that are way nicer than college and we're actually making money! There are lots of Ross people in my apartment building, but definitely others to play with as well!

Pictures coming!  I have been really bad at taking them!  I just got a new camera though, so coming soon!

As always, go blue!

All Done!

We wrapped up our project on Thursday.  We gave the sponsor presentation on Wednesday and then we got the feedback on Thursday from the sponsor in London.  Peter at Fauchier Partners seemed very happy with the results.  It got very positive feedback and I think we'll have good news in the next few months about them implementing some of our ideas!

The second years have left the building!  I think graduation went well today with Governor Synderof Michigan and the weather definitely held off.

I am off to Disney World bright and early tomorrow, so off to bed!

Go Blue!

THE END

We are almost there!  My team is wrapping up our report right as we speak!  (I am in the meeting...shhh!)  Our faculty presentation is tomorrow and then we follow it up with our sponsor presentation on Wednesday.  Our paper is coming in at a nice even 99 pages!  Only about 33 of that is the actually body; the rest is table of contents, appendix and bibliography.  It will feel so good to be done.  My team is getting along pretty well at this point; I think we can all see the finish line and want to reach it intact! My finish line includes Disney World, so I cannot wait!

The summer is just going to fly by:

First week of May: Disney World in Florida!

Then a week at home...

Then heading to Seattle for 12 weeks to work at Amazon with probably a side trip to LA and Vancouver sometime over the summer.

Then back to Ann Arbor for a wedding...

Then off to Lima, Peru for my sister's wedding.  I am hoping to meet up with the M-Trek group while I am down there. 

Then back to Ann Arbor for year 2!

 

Time sure seems to fly!

As always, go blue!