Kendra Jackson

National Black MBA in Atlanta

This past month I traveled down to Atlanta with a large number of my classmates to attend the National Black MBA conference. The Black Business Student Association worked with club members to prepare them for this large conference, where 100s of companies come to find great candidates and will even interview on site! Our professional development chair from our organization along with the Hispanic and Latino Student Association organized sessions with MBA2s to help prepare everyone. 

After the long days of interviewing and networking, we were lucky to have a great Alumni Reception, at which we had record number of Alumni come out. It was a great event and it was fun for me to hear about what Ross was like before it was Ross, to meet former President's of the organization, and to just connect and celebrate the Black Business Student Association with our Alumni.

Back to Michigan!

Ankur asked me a great question after my last post and these past few crazy weeks have reminded me of some of the reasons why I chose Ross! Other than MAP and the action based learning model, Ross is a place where I can be a part of the team. I have felt the energy and power of what a group can accomplish that one person alone cannot in these past weeks as the new President of the Black Business Student Association. I couldn't do all the great things we have been working on without my leadership team working together.

Welcoming MBA1s into our community has also been a rewarding experience for me as I have the chance to begin to help them succeed on this busy and crazy journey of business school, both professionally and academically. Its nice to know that I can pass on the great help that I received when I was in their shoes. Sitting down for coffee to chat, passing on advice, and just getting to know each other, that is what a school like Michigan is all about, and that's one of the many reasons I chose Ross! Go Blue!

Rwanda! Bite!

Rwanda! Bite (how are you?) I have been in rwanda for about a week and this is a fantastic country! I am so excited to get to explore a different part of Africa. The people here are amazingly friendly and very smart! Many people speak 3 languages, french, kinyarwanda, and english. In fact tonight my teamates and I were in a corner store (which are everywhere here) and we found women who can also speak Chinese! My teamate is fluent so they chatted a bit. It was quite a global moment and it reminded me why I chose Michigan and why I am so excited about MAP!

MAP! Interviews! and Finals?!

In the last month I have found out my MAP project (Rwanda!), got summer internship offers, and am now one week away from finals! This is the pace that has become a normal state for me at Business School. In these last months of my first year I will have traveled to Chicago, New York, DC, Salt Lake City, Steamboat Springs (many of my friends are going warm places like Costa Rica and the DR for spring break, but I like to ski!), and Rwanda! This is going to be a crazy couple of months and a dizzying pace but I have learned so much and I know that I will learn so much more! 

Welcome back, now full speed ahead!

Happy New Year! 

Well we are back and it is full speed ahead. As usual, life is a balancing act of Recruiting, Academics, and Activities. 

Recruiting:  I am busy getting ready for interviews. Closed lists just came out from the first round of companies and things are starting to get real! I have been back in Ann Arbor for a week and have been working to dust off the cobwebs of the break. I have done 3 mock interviews in 3 days and plan to do 3 more in the next 3. Practice makes perfect. 

Classes: School starts for Ross tomorrow, a good 3 days after the rest of the university and I appreciate the extra time, it really allowed me to focus on recruiting before classes picked up again. We are taking Operations, Management Accounting, and I am picking up World Economy  (a required course). Should be a very general management heavy quarter, but that is one of the things I really enjoy about Ross, it builds well rounded managers! 

Activities: I have been selected to be a director for Follies, the annual comedy show, there are hundreds of people involved so it should be a good time. Ross has some really great student run activities and Follies is just another great example of the opportunity to try new things, like directing! 

Good Luck to everyone who turned in their applications in Round 2, I know the deadline just passed so congrats for getting it in and taking the next step! 

 

The Final Week!

We are coming into our final week of classes for the second quarter and I can't believe its gone by so fast. That being said I wanted to talk about some of the great resources I have been able to tap into the past semester to really kick my job search into top gear. 

1. Alumni, Alumni, Alumni!!! Alums have been so helpful in my questions about what their companies are all about, they have been open and honest, and it has really helped me make some clear decisions for my resume drops! Alums have been willing to grab coffee, talk over the phone, and get me in touch with more people to talk to. 

2. Company Presentations: We have so many great companies that come to our campus and we are lucky to have them invest in Ross, both in time and number of people. Many firms bring 10-20 people for presentations which is just amazing to have that many experienced people to talk to. 

3. MBA2s! I have been practicing cases now for 2 weeks and I have had countless MBA2s offer to do cases with me, which is so important in my professional development and my preparation for interviews. They have been doing mocks, resume reviews, and so on for the past month to really get MBA1s ready for their search. 

The great thing about Ross is if you ask for help, you can find it! 

Happy Thanksgiving

We are back from Thanksgiving break and things are back in full swing. I had a pretty great action based learning moment in Marketing. We did a fun and challenging simulation...the professor said that if he could he would put us out in the real world to learn marketing, but since we can't do that the next best thing is a hands on simulation! I have never taken a marketing class and to be able to simulate strategy with a team of my peers and have instant results from investment choices was a very humbling (first time around I lost ALOT of money) and challenging experience. We ended up having to meet twice, first to make our big picture plan and second to actually execute. I thought we would be done with in a few hours, but it ended up taking about twice that. It really showed me the importance of research and analytics in marketing strategy.

 

Excited to Be Blogging!

I am very excited to start blogging. I hope that my blog can give some insight into the first year experience here at Ross. One of the biggest factors that led me to come to Ross was the people and the community and I hope my blog can give you a glimpse into what its like to be a Ross student. Right now we are halfway into our Fall B and it has already gone by so fast. The recruiting resources are almost too plentiful, companies are always on campus and I am definitely learning a lot about what opportunities are out there for my summer internship. Just this week I am going to 4 different corporate presentations! But don't worry I am also going to a Pistons game tomorrow night, a chance to kick back and have some fun and finally see some DEEE-TROIT Basketball!