FEMBA Speaks

My first official week at UCLA Anderson!

Hey Everyone,

We have been on a summer break here at FEMBA and there have been great summer courses and International trips to Argentina, South Africa and South Korea. We'll write more about it in the upcoming few weeks. For now, we have a blog post from Geetha Rajan (FEMBA 2017) where she shares her experiences during her first week at Anderson. Enjoy reading!

-Sandeep Shah

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My first official week at UCLA Anderson!

 

Flying anxiously on my 6.5-hour plane ride from Boston, I was really excited to attend the Leadership Foundations.

 In a room filled with more than 300 students, we had a very warm welcome by Dylan Stafford - Assistant Dean, FEMBA on the first day. As he was going through the statistics of the class in terms of their achievements, I felt privileged to be amongst the smartest people. Dylan’s welcome was followed by Gonzalo Freixes - Associate Dean, FEMBA and Magaret Shih – Senior Associate Dean, FEMBA sharing their excitement in welcoming the class of 2017 and some words of wisdom.

 

On day two, we were split into our individual sections. It was closer setting of people and much more intimate. Going through our first group exercise based on IDEO Design theme was very interesting to note how everyone behaved in a group setting with people we were not very familiar with. I was pleasantly surprised with how easy it was to collaborate and successfully complete the task.

  

On day three, I was part of the Leadership Odyssey. Without giving away too many details, this was certainly the most memorable and cherished day of the Leadership Foundations for me! I started to recognize the power of inspiring people and pushing them to stretch beyond their limitations. This experience resonates with a famous quote from Andrew Carnegie - “No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself, or to get all the credit for doing it.”

 

 

Day Four was geared towards understanding your personality, leadership styles, skills and weaknesses with the Birkman exercise and Power Speech. Not being very familiar with the campus, Scavenger Hunt was a great way to get around the campus and taking fun-filled photographs with your teams.  

 

 

The last day we went through our first case-study analysis. Having heard so much about case-studies in Business Schools, I got to experience this first hand. It was a very good exposure to real-life scenarios and an effective way to get acclimated to various types of management issues.

 

Saving the best for the last was our crazy, wild and incredible HAPPY HOUR that was organized every day of the Leadership Foundations! It was a great opportunity to get to know each other and building the ever-lasting bond with one another! 

-Geetha Rajan

https://www.linkedin.com/in/geetharajan

Preparing for FEMBA

Hi Everyone,

Here is a fun and useful post from Terry Shea, a FEMBA 2016 student. It is very well written and contains useful tips as you start this new journey of the FEMBA program. I recommend to connect with Terry on LinkedIn too. Here is his LinkedIn profile URL - https://www.linkedin.com/pub/terry-shea/13/27/a85

  

Preparing for FEMBA

By Terry Shea

Every FEMBA remembers getting accepted to UCLA Anderson. You get that mid-day phonecall from the admissions office congratulating you. Then you do your victory dance – you know the one where you pump your fists and swing your hips in the middle of your office. Then you sign your Letter of Intent. Here is what to expect next: 

1. Paperwork. There are many forms to complete simply because there is so much to experience at UCLA Anderson. I found the best way to keep track of these is to create an ongoing checklist as you receive new forms from the school. 

2. Invitations to School and Alumni Events. On the following weekend after I was accepted, the UCLA Anderson Alumni Association held an event at Arrowhead Pond for a Ducks game. We met their CFO in their executive reception room and enjoyed the game from the luxury boxes. You want to attend these alumni events when invited because it gives you an early snapshot of what your future holds as a Bruin. I also met some of my future classmates here. Other school events include: class visits, orientations, All-Anderson Networking Event, Career Management Workshop, and various Happy Hours. You want to take advantage of these. 

3. Meet Lots of New Friends and Arrange Meetups. Join the FEMBA 2017 Facebook group, attended meetups arranged by classmates, and set up your own meetups. One of my meetups was a hike up to the Hollywood Sign:

 

I cannot emphasis enough the value of arranging many meetups with your classmates before Leadership Foundations start. Also, get a big UCLA flag. 

4. Back-to-School Shopping. Get a nice point-and-shoot camera and start taking lots of pictures. You need a good laptop that will last you 3 years, but you may want to hold off on buying until UCLA Anderson’s STS (Student Technology Services) start telling you to configure your laptop to the school’s software requirements. That way you can buy the laptop with the latest and greatest features and battery life. iPads have been very useful because there is a very good App for our course reader, Study.net, and you will eventually need to take your reading with you to make the best out of small segments of downtime. Tidy up a small corner in your home for studying. 

5. Buying UCLA Anderson and UCLA Bruins Gear. www.uclastore.com is the official site for the UCLA Store. UCLA Anderson-specific gear is hard to find elsewhere, so look to buy these items first. If you are on campus, most of the UCLA Anderson gear is sold at Lu Valle Commons (by the Law School in North Campus) and not in the main Ackerman Student Union. During football season, there might be a promotion where the UCLA Store gives you up to a 25% discount on UCLA gear when UCLA football demolishes their opponents on certain games. Coach Jim Mora and QB Brett Hundley are coming back next year, so the one-sided victories and student store discounts will be plentiful and glorious. 

6. Learn the 8-Clap. This is not easy to learn because there are actually 20 claps, timing the “L” part is tricky, and some groups of Bruins can do this really fast. FEMBA VP of Social Affairs David Duong posted an instructional video for us -- http://youtu.be/h7BOUO4PlAs Make sure you practice because 8-Clapping is way more elaborate than the fobby peace sign done across town. 

7. Attend FEMBApalooza on July 13, 2014. This is our summertime fête champêtre where current FEMBAs and alumni attend to enjoy an entire day full of activities and networking. Bring your significant others and children. For details and RSVP, goto -- http://www.anderson.ucla.edu/fembapalooza

Get ready for the biggest positive transformation of your adult life! While I am still less than 1 year into the FEMBA program, I already perform my work more efficiently and thoughtfully and I see the world in a significantly different way. My friends have noticed a big change in my confidence and capabilities. During the first quarter, you may not get to see many of the 3^rd year FEMBAs because they are engaged in GAP. Once they return from GAP in second quarter, you will notice an obvious professional polish to them. That is going to be you soon.

 Welcome to Westwood.

 

 

International Studies - Hong Kong, Day 3

Hi everyone!  Hope you are all doing well.  I'm really looking forward to meeting all the new 2017s on campus soon.  

2016s are just finishing up our final quarter of our first year (!) and it certainly has flown by.  I can't believe finals are coming up in 3 weeks!  As Sandeep mentioned, we have Anderprom coming up this Saturday.  It's a chance for all Anderson (full time, FEMBAs, & EMBAs) to hang out--and a bit of a farewell to the 2014s what are graduating in less than a month!  It should be a good time.  Definitely something for the 2017s to look forward to next year. 

Now we have day 3 of Alex's trip to Hong Kong.

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Day 3

We had two more lectures from CUHK professors, these covered international and internal political affairs. Mark Sheldon, was a Chinese politics expert. He covered a wide range of topics and listening to him was like drinking from a fire hose. That said, it was one of the most useful and engaging lectures we had.

Sheldon discussed important trends in urbanization, in political reforms over the last 3-4 decades and the political and nationalistic outlook of the Chinese people and government. According to Sheldon, Westerners often think of China as a uniform block of culture and political ideology. Nothing could be further from the truth. The fact is that China is controlled chaos. As long as the government is able to sustain >7% GDP growth people seem pretty contented. However, if that should dip too dramatically, a lot of underlying cultural or regional tensions will emerge.

On the foreign relations front, China is trying to assert itself by flexing military muscle in the region and has abutted the US, Japan and other major regional powers.

North Korea and Taiwan were interesting issues. China seems to like having N. Korea in place to buffer it from S. Korea. It has tried to develop an economy using a growth model like its own in N. Korea, but does not seem to be succeeding.

For Taiwan, China has been in the process of signing trade deals that will give it greater access. While we were in Hong Kong, Taiwanese students were on the streets of Taipei protesting the deal because it is perceived to give too much control to China.

Prof Stephen Frost – covered the environment in China. Environmental sustainability is a critical issue for the Chinese. The incredible economic growth in China has come at a great environmental cost. While the central government is trying to change regulations to clean up the Chinese environment, enforcement at the local level is near to non-existent. May local officials are bribed by the businesses they regulate.

This means business are given license to dump toxins into local rivers and pollute the air and drinking water. Interestingly, the Chinese government is well aware of the issue. The problem seems to be that permitting for businesses and enforcement of regulation are tied together under the same local authority. If the Central government was really serious about enforcement, it would have to separate those two functions.

Prof. Frost showed us a video of a colleague who was documenting polluters through satellite imaging. However, the Chinese legal system doesn’t allow for civil torts against polluters. So, public enforcement of the environmental laws is nearly impossible.

In the afternoon, we went to see the 10K Buddha’s. It was a small oasis of calm in the middle of busy Sha Tien. Although, it was a bit odd to see a gift shop in the middle of the shrine. The Buddhas and the monks themselves were beautiful and some were even comical. I did not see any that reminded me of classmates, but I did see one that had the same sweet mustache as Professor Freixes. 

The Hong Kong Jockey Club was a blast. I ended up using a hybrid version of the Freixes system (bet on the 2^nd and 3^rd horse to place and bet on the horse that had won the most races) and eventually started winning more than I was loosing.

All in all, this was a particularly good day. It was packed with useful information, engaging lectures, the chance to explore Hong Kong and get to know my classmates and of course there was a healthy dose of fun. I even learned about… ahem… statistical probabilities. 

International Studies - Hong Kong, Day 2

Hi Everyone,

Congratulations to all the recent admits! We are looking forward to meeting you on campus later in the year.

We have been busy completing our midterms last week for Finance and Marketing. They are done and we are now getting ready for the biggest end of year party (AnderProm) next week! 

As Jennifer mentioned in her earlier post, we will continue with Alex Pugh's (FEMBA 2015) series of posts where he shares his experience from the International Studies trip over spring break to Hong Kong! Here is Day 2 of his trip -

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Day 2

The day started with a Tai Chi lesson from a master practitioner who looked like he stepped out of a kung fu movie. That said, he was quite graceful and did an excellent job explaining the philosophy of the martial art. We spent about an hour and a half practicing and it turned out to be quite a work out. 

 

Later in the morning we met Dr. Gilbert Cheung, who gave us an organizational behavior lesson on managing Chinese workers. One of the things he emphasized is the importance of hierarchy in Chinese families and in the work place. Assertiveness is not a desirable trait and neither is correcting someone who has made a social mistake. Chinese will support their friends or family even if they know they are wrong. Chinese avoid direct conflict, but can become very upset when they do not get their way. As a western manager with Chinese employees, its important to understand this and work with them in ways they feel comfortable.

 

Invest Hong Kong

 

We next visited invest Hong Kong, where we got a pretty standard sales pitch for doing business in the city. The really interesting information came during the Q&A, when we discussed Hong Kong’s emerging design and urban development sectors. While they are very small in comparison to finance/banking, international trade and service/retail, the design industry had recently doubled from 2% to about 5% of the city’s GDP.

 

We had some free time after the presentation. So, I went with some classmates to get a pair of pants custom made by a Hong Kong tailor. They look and fit great.

 

After getting outfitted, we joined the Alumni mixer at Angel Share in LKF. This was a pretty cool bar and the only halfway decent cocktail I got in the entire city. It was great to meet alums and prospective students as well as get to know the people on the trip a little better.

 

International Studies - Hong Kong, Day 1

Hi everyone,

Sorry it's been awhile since our last post.  Anderson, work, and life in general have been keeping us all very busy!  

We have a series of exciting posts from our guest blogger Alex Pugh (FEMBA 2015).  He'll share his experience from the International Studies trip over spring break to Hong Kong!  

But before we get started with Alex's adventures in Hong Kong, we'd just like to take a second to mention that our co-blogger Tim Hong is taking some time away from Anderson to take care of his health.  We’d like to send him our best wishes for a speedy recovery and can’t wait to see him back on campus.  Get well soon, Tim!

As always, please feel free to reach out to us if you have any questions.

Jennifer

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Mar. 24

Today we had a lecture from two incredibly successful and qualified business school lecturers from CUHK: Peter Yam and Ken Tse. Prof. Yam provided an important overview of the Chinese cultural and business landscape speaking from the experience of having worked for an American company, Schnieder Electric in China since markets first opened up in the 1980s.

One of the themes that reoccurred through out Prof. Yam’s lecture and was repeated by others was how little trust the Chinese have for their government, financial institutions and apparently each other. The cultural revolution and the events of the communist take over still echo loudly in most aspects of Chinese life, especially business.

China seems like a complex place to do business. Especially for companies from an established market like we have here in the West. That said, China seems sincere about modernizing its economy, infrastructure and society. So, there are a lot of opportunities for Western brands who are willing to get into the mind of the Chinese consumer.

Dr. Tse’s lecture was a brilliant example of that last point. He was assigned by his company to open a brand new port complex in Guangzhou that was designed to compete with the Port of Hong Kong based on price alone. What Dr. Tse did not realize at the time, was that a series of interrelationships between shippers and cargo transporters made switching costs very high. Further, shippers were concerned that the speed customs approvals in mainland China would cut into the cost benefit offered by his port. Eventually Dr. Tse hit on a government affairs strategy to work with the local customs and other government run authorities to help get all of the ports working processes into alignment. The Port of Guangzhou is now one of the largest in the world.

Monday evening we took the tram up to Victoria Peak to get an amazing view of Hong Kong’s downtown and water front. You really get a sense for how massive Hong Kong really is and what an unbelievable and unique urban environment it has become.

Getting Ready for Hong Kong: Research, Good Eats and Mafia Hits

Hi Everyone,

 

We have a great post from Alexander Pugh today where he shares his thoughts about an upcoming international trip to Hong Kong. Alex is a current FEMBA student in the class of 2015. Here is his post -

 

I'm exactly two weeks out from my departure date for Hong Kong. The trip is one of the many international studies trips that UCLA Anderson offers during breaks. Other trips this spring include Brazil and Israel. I'll be spending 10 days in Hong Kong learning the lay of the business landscape. The trip is an actual class for credit. So, there's a lot of academic work we do to prepare. When we get there we'll be meeting with business leaders and government officials to learn more about how they do business as well as developing our international rolodexes. What I like about this trip is that we'll have most afternoons free to explore the city. 

 

I couldn't be more excited, but I'm also a little nervous. I've never been to Asia before. I've attended several lectures led by our trip sponsors Profs. Frexies and Hayn, done a tone of reading, including recent articles and a case study and have done some independent research, which I co-presented to the class with my study group last week. 

 

I was assigned to a group that researched the environmental sustainability of Hong Kong. I work in the energy industry. So, naturally I gravitated towards researching up the energy profile of the city. While Hong Kong residents pay similar or lesser energy prices to those here in SoCal, it concerned me that 100% of their fuel supplies were imported from other countries. This appears to be a common theme with the city; its very much a place where things and people pass through on their way to and from China. 

 

Other groups presented the results of their research as well. We learned about the financial sector, the economy and the political situation. One of the big stories lately is about a prominent news editor who was mysteriously fired from his job at a pro-China news paper, then was later attacked by mysterious men with knives. He survived, but was badly injured. Hong Kong's largest English newspaper, The Standard, quoted police as saying it was most likely a triad hit. Yikes!

 

On a brighter note, one of the great things about going as part of a FEMBA trip is that I see my fellow travelers all over campus, making it easy to plan our adventures. I recently bumped into one compatriot at the Wolfgang Pucks last night before class. We were talking about the best places to get drinks and got advice from another classmate who had gone on the Singapore trip in December and had stopped in Hong Kong on the way over. The trip Facebook page is also a source of inspiration and collaboration. I'm hoping that we'll be able to use it to plan activities on the fly when we're out there. 

 

More to come. 'Till then, cheers.

 

Alexander Pugh

MBA Candidate, Class of 2015

FEMBA Events

Happy Monday!

First I’d like to congratulate the class of 2017 round two admits!  I hope I’ll be meeting you on campus soon.

For those of you who are on the fence about applying (and it’s not too late!), there are a couple of upcoming events where you have the chance to can learn more about the program and get to meet and network with current FEMBAs, alumni, and fellow applicants. 

• FEMBA Coffee – if you have any questions about the program you have the chance to ask some of the admissions team.  These take place both on campus and regionally
• FEMBA Women’s Breakfast – I really recommend attending this breakfast if you can.  There will be a small panel of current students and alumni who can answer any questions you might have.  They also invite a female faculty member to come speak.  It’s a great opportunity to meet other female applicants.
• FEMBA Regional Lunch – as the name suggests, these you’ll get the opportunity to meet FEMBAs over lunch and are especially great if you don’t live in the greater LA area.  Since many FEMBAs commute from Orange County, the Bay Area, and further (like Sandeep does), if you're considering the Saturday or Flex schedules, this is helpful as you'll get first hand perspective on what that's like.  
• FEMBA Open House – you’ll meet the most students and applicants at FEMBA open house.  This is a good opportunity to experience Saturday morning life as a FEMBA.  You’ll also get to meet our admissions director and learn more about career services and financial aid. 

Personally, I really like the smaller group events because I find them easier to navigate than the large events such as open house but all the events provide a lot of useful information, particularly if you're still in the process of considering applying.

You can see all future events and register here.

As always, please feel free to reach out to Tim, Sandeep, or me if you have any questions.

Best of luck!

Jennifer

FEMBA Council

Lets take a look at the Fully Employed MBA (FEMBA) Student Council. The FEMBA Council is the voice of the FEMBA student body at UCLA Anderson. FEMBA Council consists of 46 total members: 7 Executive Board members and 39 Section Representatives (an elected External, Internal, and Social Representative in each of the 13 sections of the FEMBA program).

The Council is responsible for the academic and social well-being of the FEMBA student body, working with fellow classmates, alumni, faculty, and staff to ensure that the needs of the FEMBA student body are considered in decisions affecting student life. FEMBA Council provides an opportunity for students to take theoretical lessons of leadership and teamwork and put them into practice to have a real and measurable impact.

Here is a brief overview of each position's responsibilities -

External Representative

The external representative works with career services and the alumni network to ensure that their section is aware of the resources and events offered by ProMBA Career Services and the Office of Alumni Services. The external representative attends ProMBA Career Services Committee meetings and FEMBA Alumni Relations and Development Committee meetings, represents the FEMBA student body at alumni events and participates in the annual Anderson Affiliates campaign. The external representative should send out at least one section email per month with information on upcoming career services events and deadlines.

Internal Representative

The internal representative handles most of their section’s academic and logistical issues, which may include resolving section scheduling conflicts, communicating student concerns to faculty and administration and keeping the section informed of new developments on campus. The internal representative should send out at least one section email per month with information on upcoming events and deadlines.

Social Representative

The social representative plans social and networking events, including after-class happy hours, section lunches/dinners, cultural outings, athletic events and other activities that his or her section is interested in. The social representative should make every effort to ensure that these events appeal to all of their FEMBA peers and is highly encouraged to collaborate with social representatives from other sections and years. The social representative is required to learn and follow the expense reimbursement policy in order to plan the use of their section’s annual social budget. The social representative should send out regular emails with information on upcoming activities.

Its great to see the Dean, Admissions directors, Program Managers, Executive Board and all council members get together every month to discuss about any issues, upcoming events and share or brainstorm ideas. It allows students to meet classmates from other sections/years and also gives a chance to facilitate the same for other students of their respective sections. There are a lot of ways to get involved in various activities at Anderson and the FEMBA Council is definitely one of them. We'll keep sharing other ways in our upcoming blog posts.

Good luck with the upcoming admissions decision!

 

Cheers,

Sandeep Shah

FEMBA Flex Section

Class of 2016

IBM

 

Networking Tips

Hey there,

Sorry it's been awhile since we put up a blog post, but as always the life of a FEMBA is extraordinarily busy. Congratulations to those who have been offered a position in the Class of 2017, should you have any questions feel free to reach out to Jennifer, Sandeep or myself.

So one topic you'll hear a lot about during your time at Anderson is the importance of Networking, however one of the most common hurdles to start networking is thinking about even how to begin. Here's a few tips I've picked up along the way that I've found really helpful:

1. Know what you want

In joining the Anderson network you now have a whole new group of people you can connect with and learn from. Always remember that those who are willing to connect with you are helping you out, know what you want to learn from them, and be reasonable in your requests.

2. Do your homework

If your dream has always been to work at Company X with a function of "fill in the blank here", your search should start with people who have either worked at that company or have experience in that position. Once you're able to find a few people you think you may want to talk to, check out their LinkedIn and see what you can learn about them before the talk. Also it goes without saying to do your research on the company before you talk as well.

3. Show Gratitude/Be Sincere

To achieve success at any level, it requires a lot of time, discipline and focus. Realize that if someone is willing to take 30 minutes of their time to talk to you, they are intentionally hitting pause on their schedule and that's a big deal. Always, always, always send a thank you email and do your best to keep in touch. Also, sincerity goes a long way.

4. Reciprocity

There have been many people who have gone above and beyond to help me out over the years. Whether it was with information, conversation or even new jobs, I can attribute a lot of my success to networking. It doesn't stop there with what I can personally gain from networking, it's about giving back and helping out others anyway you can as well. Personally, focusing on helping others helps to change my attitude and view of networking and makes it a shared experience of focusing on shared success.

5. Do what you love

Lastly, Networking doesn't happen just at formal mixers or happy hours (though those don't hurt), but it is very possible to just do what you love and find others who share your passion. Case in point, I love basketball and myself and a few other FEMBAs have started to play regularly. Not only are we getting exercise, but also getting to know each other better.

There are many more items I could add, but I'll leave you with that for now.

-Tim

Happy New Year!

I hope everyone enjoyed the holiday season.

 

Congrats to the FEMBA class of 2017 admits!

 

Here's a list of things I found useful doing as I prepared to start school last fall:

 

• Make time to see friends and family - once school starts, you'll start to realize how limited your free time is 

• Talk to your employer - given your schedule is flexible enough, there will be a lot of events that happen during during work hours that you might want to attend (such as the Dean's Distinguished Speaker Series).  Just keeping an open dialogue between you and your boss, clients, team, etc will be really helpful in getting time from work to do these things

• Go to happy hours and try to meet as many of your classmates before the quarter starts.  You can also meet upper classmen and get their advice and perspective on what to expect

• Facebook and/or other social media - a lot of events are organized over Facebook and you can start networking with your classmates and alumni on Linkedin. 

• Brush up on schoolwork -  the first quarter will be a pretty big adjustment for many of you so it may be helpful to do some quantitative review before your first quarter (you'll be taking statistics and organizational behavior).  This will also help put you in the right mind

• Make time to exercise regularly - you'll be glad that you did because it really helps keep your energy up, especially if you have class until late on Tuesdays and Thursdays

 

I know some (or maybe all) of this list can seem intimidating, but don't worry.  FEMBA will be a great experience no matter what.  You'll work hard, make friends, and have a lot of fun!

 

As always, please feel free to reach out if you have any questions!