Ross Ambassador Blog

Time to Say Goodbye

Making the decision to come to Ross was one of the best I've ever made.  My goals coming into business school were to try to push myself outside of my boundaries, meet new people, have new experiences, and basically figure out what I wanted to do with my life.  From the start, Ross provided a great platform on which to achieve these goals.  During the past 20 months, I've had the opportunity to meet so many great people both in and out of the classroom, be put in uncomfortable situations, interview with great companies, and take challenging classes across the entire business spectrum.  While I'm not quite sure where I'm ending up after school, I know I have a great basic tool set to succeed wherever I decide to go.

My Ross experience has been a journey of the heart, mind, and soul.  I've laughed, I've cried, but I've also never felt more accepted or felt like I've belonged more in a place than the two years I've spent in Ann Arbor.  I've learned what it's like to be scared and insecure.  And I've certainly made mistakes.  But I come out of Ross more confident in myself and what I can achieve going forward.  I think that I've experienced every kind of emotion during my time here- from excitement, fun, and joy to nervousness, fear, and regret.  But nothing can describe the pride that I felt for myself and my classmates during our commencement ceremonies on April 27th.  And the excitement for where we're headed and what the future holds for all of us!  So that marks the end of my final blog post.  Best wishes to all in the future! 

For today, goodbye. For tomorrow, good luck. And forever, GO BLUE!!!

P.S.: My blog wouldn't be complete without some photos from the 2nd half of the year:

  Wine Club Event (photo credit: Giorgi Suladze)

Waited 9 hrs to see Obama in January!

Spring break with 8 Rossers in Roatan, Honduras (photo credit: Ben Mullican)

Spring Formal at The Big House

After the Graduation Ceremony with Carol & Sasha

With my parents on Graduation Day!

 

And that's all folks!

Wow!  I cannot believe how quickly the time flew by!  The year wrapped up quickly.   I cannot believe it.

To give you an idea of some of the end of the year activities, I will give a brief summary.

- We had a wrap-up party and knowledge transfer with the new Peer Counselors for the Office of Career Development.  The knowledge transfer session was very useful for the incoming counselors.  We met according to function and were able to share ideas.  They were able to ask us any questions about the job as well as hints and tricks.  The party was lots of fun to see the current staff of OCD.  The staff gave out awards to the current counselors for different contributions throughout the year!  It was lots of fun to see what other students thought of the other peer counselors.  Here is a link to some pictures from the event.

- The end of bschool would not be completely without a ten hour bar crawl around Ann Arbor!  It was tons of fun!  As all good bar crawls do, this one ended at Rick's American Cafe!  I was on it, then worked out and was able to hop back on! 

- Each section had a day dedicated to events specifically for the section.  Our section rented out this small hall near Main St. within Ann Arbor.  Earlier in the day, the section also headed to the zoo!  We had dinner and then they handed out the superlatives award.  I was the luck winner of "Most Likely to Donate a Wing to Ross in 2032!"  I am not sure if that means that people think I have a lot of school pride or if they think I will make a lot of money, but either way, I think I will take it!  After the awards, we headed out on a "Scavenger Bar Crawl." My section is very motivated by "winning" and so we needed a purpose on our bar crawling.  My team did a great job checking items off the list.  The crawl ended up back at the hall for an intimate party with 80 of my closest friends.  Here are a few last pictures of section 6!

Ira and Jake

Section 6 getting its party on...!

Mike, Patrick and Andy

- One of the other great events was a parent reception at the University of Michigan Museum of Art.  It was a great chance for my parents to meet some of the other MBA parents.  My dad found the reception to be particularly invigorating.  He loved all of the energy and excitement you could feel in the attendants.  It was also fun for me to put together which students belonged to which parents!  Here is a picture of me with mom outside of the art museum.

After school, I will be around the Detroit area and have football tickets for next year!  I start work at Boston Consulting Group on July 11th in their Detroit office, which is in Troy, MI.  The pieces of my life are starting to fit together.  I can hardly believe it!  On to the next part of my life!

As always, go blue!

MAP in Ohio

Hi folks!

Following Annie's post I'll share my MAP experience, and my absence in the past months is because of that.

My project is somewhat standard:

a) for-profit company;

b) six people team;

c) market entry / new product development.

I'm in such a diverse team, with three international and the remainder American students. The pre-MBA background is diverse as well: a mechanical engineer with experience on construction industry, an accounting consultant, a management consultant, a finance guy, someone with experience in the renewable energy sector and myself, a sales and marketing man. 

We started our project doing a lot of research in terms of geographical and technological research, in order to find out which regions would be most promising ones. Technology and customer segmentation played very important roles in narrowing down some targets, then we conducted several interviews with potential customers and right now we're finalizing our recommendations, final presentation and final report. It's a lot to do, in so little time!

The group interaction was very important throughout the project, and we were able to learn a lot from each one's opinions, perspectives and backgrounds. This situation was very important to me, since I'm switching to management consulting over the summer so having this MAP experience made me realize that (1) I like this environment of team-based projects and (2) it made me a better team player in terms of learning from others and sharing my own expertise.

I hope all you guys enjoyed GBR, for those who came. Last year it was an important event to me and clearly helped me to decide to come to Ross! Hope to see you after the summer!

 

MAP in D.C.

Thought some reflections on MAP might be in order.  I'd say I have somewhat of a less traditional project, since
a) we're working for a non-profit
b) there are only four people on my team
c) all four are women, which certainly not the norm in business school.

We spent the week of March 19th in Washington D.C. to meet the sponsor and gather information.  Though we did conduct no fewer than 17 1-hour interviews in 5 days, our sponsor was kind enough to encourage us to see the city and to give us the time to do so.  The weather was beautiful - I had been to DC before, but largely in the summer, which was hotter than I care to describe - and the cherry blossoms were in full bloom (see picture below of me nearly bumping into a tree), which was even better than advertised.  The best thing about the weather was that it gave us the chance to get a sense of the neighborhoods just by walking around.  My favorite was probably the cobblestone streets and campus of Georgetown, but it was nice to get a better sense of the city overall.

The team interplay has also been interesting.  I think the most valuable thing I've learned in business school so far is how to work effectively with, and learn from, people who think differently than I do.  My team has very different backgrounds (PR/Communication, financial consulting, political fundraising, and...me....I guess nonprofit/investment research?  weird slash...) and often different skills as well, and though it sounds cheesy, we really are better together than we would ever be apart.  Hopefully we'll continue to be better together, since we need to produce a final presentation in just over two weeks!  I'll be sure to give you some final reflections on MAP after the fact.

Hope you admits are planning on attending GBR next weekend - though I'm not generally a fan of large-scale social events (hmm, can you say that and still be someone people want to hang out with?), I thought GBR was a blast and, more importantly, a really great way to get a taste of the Ross culture.  Hope to see you there!

Photo Credits: Kate Casolaro - thanks!

In-N-Out of India (No, not the Burger…)

These past four weeks in India have flown by; I can’t believe we are coming back to the U.S. in just a few days.  We all enjoyed the field visits and the chance to talk with the rural villagers about their experiences and opinions about eyeglasses.  I’ll also really miss the food (I tried doing a lassi a day – quite successful).  Here are some memorable moments:

Village Interviews – we interviewed a couple women, and when we asked what their occupation was, they named a few roles, then eventually said “We do EVERYTHING!”  I guess some things don’t change wherever you are in the world.  :) We went to an eye screening camp that was held at a school, and here is my teammate Elvira giving this girl a high FIVE! 

The great thing about these kids was that they were initially very shy, but they would eventually inch closer and closer to us out of curiosity, and at some point, all shyness would go away.  It was cute.

Gender differences are still prevalent though, at least in the villages.  On one of the drives into a village, we saw women picking wheat, moving bricks, carrying maneuver piles, etc.  Then we interviewed a group of men (who were playing cards at the time), and while most of them had their eyes checked and saw the benefits of glasses, none of them saw the need for their wives to get their eyes checked. 

In yet another village, we interviewed this man.  Pretty healthy for someone who is 102 years old, eh?

Unpaved Paths – some parts of yesterday’s drive to the village was especially bumpy, though we saw a lot of road construction in progress.  We asked our driver what he thought of all the road construction, and he said “If the roads are too smooth, drivers will fall asleep, so it’s better to keep the roads bumpy.”  Ha!  We also had another driver who, as we approached the toll booth, busted a u-turn on the highway, cut through oncoming traffic, drove onto a side dirt path, barely passed through a 8-ft vertical pole, cut back onto the oncoming traffic, and continued back along the highway - just to avoid paying toll.

Jaipur – we met up with a couple of the MAP teams in Jaipur one weekend, and we all attended a dinner at the Chokki Dhani Village, which consisted of music, dance, and entertainment.  It was similar to a carnival, but with a Rajasthan theme.  It was my first time on a camel!  And as b-school students, of course we had to dress up!

This is our (good-looking) MAP team inside the Amber Fort ;)

We’re headed to see the Taj Mahal this weekend – can’t wait!  Ann Arbor – see you in a few days.  GO BLUE!

Congratulations, Don't Become a Jerk

I recently watched the CNBC special “The Money Chase: Inside Harvard Business School” and would like to share some of my reflections. I’ll start by saying that I have the utmost respect for HBS and the students who choose to attend. The title comes directly from the special and almost directly quotes the brotherly “advice” given to a friend before he made his way to HBS last fall.

This special nails the MBA experience on the head and I think it would be advantageous for future B-schoolers to watch this regardless of the program you ultimately attend. The first year anxiety, time pressures and classroom behavior is as universal as the vacant front row.

One of the ways Harvard appears to differ from Ross is the competitive shark tank kind of atmosphere. Harvard students are pushed hard by each other and the faculty to always be better than their neighbor. In contrast, Ross is highly collaborative and dare I say laid back. Sometimes “Michigan time” gets old and I secretly wished for more cold calling (I know. I am strange), but I love the genuine friendships our culture builds. We are so supportive of each other that before a final we circulate study sheets to the entire section and put together review sessions so we can at least be lost together. I just can’t imagine that happening all the time at HBS.

I think if CNBC came to do a piece about Ross the school would have showcased different things. Of course, we would show a classroom full of engaged students ready to deliver insightful commentary at the drop of a hat and powerful alum, but there is much more to be proud of. Design + Business is helping create the face of a new generation of MBAs. We are fun, passionate, unique, creative and totally normal. Companies like Amazon and Deloitte appreciate the Michigan difference and firms who traditionally don’t hire MBAs have opened their doors to us. We might show off the plethora of dual degree programs available including the newest addition, entrepreneurship. Lastly, you can bet there would be a bit of airtime showing off Michigan Football pride, but please don’t drop by the bus without a little warning.

When you tell friends and family that you are on your way to Ross you won’t hear “ Congratulations, don’t become a jerk” and they won’t waste their breath telling you not to become a Wolverine. It’s impossible not to bleed blue when you're at Ross.

 

Our orientation involved raising money for the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Maybe I take back that "totally normal" comment, but I can say we definitely don't take ourselves too seriously.

 

MAP Project: We Made it to Delhi!!

We officially finished our first week here in India, and it’s been an amazing experience so far.  This past week consisted of field visits out to rural villages to talk to patients and vision technicians to understand how VisionSpring runs the eye screening camps.  As we gather more data these next few weeks, we will be assessing the feasibility of a hub-and-spoke model for VisionSpring, both financially and operationally, keeping in mind VisionSpring’s mission (to ensure that everyone in the developing world has access to eyeglasses at an affordable price). 

Among the many interesting observations from our field visits, we learned that while most people have cell phones, they can’t see the numbers or messages on their phones and tend to just hit the green button to answer a call.  Unfortunately, the government also sends text messages to people about weather or grain prices around the country, and this information would be really important to farmers so they can negotiate better prices when trading...

On Friday and Saturday, we met with our faculty advisor, Professor Ted London, who gave us guidance around defining scope and possible ways we would go about collecting data these next few weeks in the field.  Once we got the serious stuff out of the way, he joined us for some sightseeing around Delhi and a delightful meal at Karim’s :)

We are meeting up with a couple other MAP teams for dinner tonight, and it’ll be nice to see other Rossers in Delhi!  Below are some pics from this past week.  Definitely more to come in the next few weeks.

Our driver greeted us with a “Michigan MAP Project” at the airport

One of the eye screening camps where patients can be prescribed a pair of glasses or referred to a local hospital for cataract surgery, as needed

My teammate, Raj, conducting market research :)

GO BLUE, even in Delhi!!

Wow...

Wow, I cannot believe how time flies.  I wrap up classes in a month and will have completed my MBA!  It's crazy!  I think the rest of the MBAs are in shock with me as well. 

Part of the problem for me is that this winter was crazy weird here!  We had practically snow!  I also can't believe it has been about 65-70 all this week (and into the weekend with St. Patrick's Day!)  Ann Arbor felt like a Friday or Saturday on a Wednesday purely because of the amazing weather. 

Winter A wrapped up with a bang.  Every club tries to squeeze in its last event, so we had tons of events in February including MBgAy, Follies, Wine Club, section events, going away parties for people graduating early, and of course the usual events like birthday parties and valentine's day!  It is great seeing everyone in large groups, but I am looking forward to the small groups that seem to happen in March and April.

My classes in Winter A were a real mixed bag.  I loved one and was not a huge fan of the other.  My Winter B classes are looking to be enjoyed more consistently!  I am a MAP coach, which has proved to be a lot of fun so far.  I have two teams with very different personalities!  I am excited to see how their projects turn out. 

I have really not been great with taking pictures recently!  Ugh!  But here are a few from the latest Section 6 Supper Club (Mac 'n' Cheese themed)!  Delicious

 

As always, go blue!

 

 

Sweep!

Another big win for Michigan over Ohio State, this time in basketball - let me briefly recap how I got there...

I was in Chicago Friday and Saturday at a sell weekend for a potential consulting internship.  There's no overestimating how nice it is to be on the flip side of the recruiting process, to have companies pursuing you instead of vice versa.  But even nicer was to find that my potential summer coworkers (three from Ross and a handful each from Kellogg and Booth) were wonderful company - smart, motivated, and excited to be in the position they were in.  I'm looking forward to getting to know them, and the consulting industry as a whole, better.

So the sell "weekend" was actually only Friday and Saturday morning, but Chicago is home for me, so I was also keen to see some friends while I was in town.  Once brunch ended around noon, I asked a friend to come down and meet me at the hotel (in large part to see the great room!).  We took a nice walk around the city, had lunch, then I headed back to the airport for what was supposed to be a 4:45 flight, getting me back to DTW around 7:15, in plenty of time for the 9PM basketball game.  When we still hadn't boarded at 5:00, I was starting to get nervous.  The gate agents did not seem to care that this was the biggest basketball game at Michigan in over a decade!

Somehow though, luck was smiling on me (or maybe Michigan) - though we didn't leave until nearly 5:30, we somehow still landed just after 7PM EST.  A clock error in my favor, I guess.  So I headed back to a friend's apartment in Ann Arbor, where I had left my ticket and my maize t-shirt (gotta participate in the MAIZE RAGE!!) in preparation for this very scenario, and headed over to the game, arriving just in time for the national anthem. I was up at the top of the arena, but as you can tell from the picture below, there's no bad seat at Crisler Arena.

And the place was rocking!  I'll admit that my only in-person Michigan basketball experiences are from this year, but it was definitely the loudest I've ever seen Crisler.  And we got the win to go with - tough year for OSU, but I don't think I'll shed any tears for them  :)

The Michigan Network

Here’s a quick plug on how cool the Michigan network is.  After my last post about my VisionSpring MAP project in India, a BBA, who graduated from Ross in 2010, reached out to me saying he came across my blog post, and that he had worked with the VisionSpring team in Hyderabad upon graduating from Ross.  He’s now currently still in India, and offered to help our team with any questions we might have on VisionSpring, India, culture, etc. … and he even offered to put together a “Guide to India” to keep us occupied during the weekends :D

I feel proud to be part of this network; it’s pretty neat that we have such strong Ross presence wherever we go.

GO BLUE!!!