FEMBA Speaks

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

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!

Fall Quarter - Part 1

The first month of school has really flown by, but the experience has been so intense that I can barely remember what life before FEMBA was like (except that I had more time to sleep). 

First quarter core classes are stat and OB.  It’s been a really long time since I’ve had to attend lectures so switching into school mode after being away for so long was challenging to say to the least.  There was (and still is) quite a bit of homework and reading so it took a few weeks for me to figure out the best way to prioritize my tasks and manage my time.  Before the quarter started, I talked to all my friends who had already taken stats and nearly all of them said that it is one of the more difficult classes.  I went in knowing I’d probably need to put in a lot of time to keep up with the material.  I dedicated 75% of my study time working on stats and 25% on OB.  After week 3, I realized that I needed to reallocate my study time so that I could spend more time on OB.  I still do spend more time working on stat (since it is more of a challenge for me) but now it’s probably closer to 60% stat and 40% OB.

Now that I’m in the second half of the fall quarter, I’ve realized that I’ve gotten a lot more efficient and effective with the time I spend studying.  The first half, I felt like I only had time for work, class, and studying.  Now, I feel like I have a bit more free time for non-school related things.  Making to-do lists has helped me keep track of the things I need to get done and when and entering all my appointments in the calendar on my phone so I don’t double myself for events (which has happened a few times this quarter). 

The #1 question I get from my non-FEMBA friends is some variation of “how do you stay awake in class?”  Like everything else, some nights are more draining than others and of course caffeine definitely helps (coffee, tea, and other refreshments are provided!) but I’ve found that lectures and discussions have been engaging.  For me, class has been refreshing change from the day-to-day work grind.

Highlights: Professor Unzueta’s lectures, Leadership Foundations, happy hours, and Halloween party.

I’m really enjoying being a FEMBA and look forward to sharing my experiences with you as I work my way through my first year.

 JH

Surviving the First Quarter of B-School for the Non-Quant Student

So, I may be a little a-typical for a business school student in that my job and career doesn’t really require a lot of quantitative rigor. In fact, as someone who works in environmental policy and public affairs, I’m probably a better candidate on paper for law school. Yet, when I decided to go back to school for a master’s degree, I intentionally picked something that was outside of my comfort zone. I also knew that if I wanted to work outside public affairs, I would have to learn about business operations, finance, econ, etc., and this meant building my math muscles.

Even though I looked forward to the challenge, I had a lot of anxiety going into my first quarter math class at Anderson. There was good reason for this anxiety; while past performance certainly isn’t an indication of future results, smart money wouldn’t have put my grades in the top 10-25% of my Q1 stats class. The fact that statistics was up first also didn’t help. Statistics, and especially probability, were not strong areas for me on the GMAT and I got a ‘B-‘ in the one stats class I had in undergrad (something that was noted during the admissions process). Still, I felt that I wanted to be successful in business school badly enough that I decided to make this a personal challenge and a priority. So, I set a goal for myself: Straight A’s in my first quarter. I wrote down the goal, put it on my to-do list and created a couple of sub tasks that I thought would help me get there.

I started by getting myself as ready as I could for that first quarter by doing the following:

1. I took a “Math for Managers” class at UCLA Extension taught by Dr. Bijan Raphael, and I wasn’t the only 2015 FEMBA in that class (I figured this out after-the-fact during a conversation with a classmate at Leadership Foundations).

2. I watched several Kahn Academy videos on statistics to re-familiarize myself with the subject.

3. I completed the beginning Udacity.com course on statistics before starting the program (free 5 min lessons that I did on my lunch breaks).

4. I took the Statistics Workshop offered by Anderson.

5. I took the Manhattan GMAT Excel workshop (free for anyone who took their GMAT prep class).

Once I got to class, I did everything I could to learn the material, even though it was painful at times. I did all the practice problems and problem sets. I went back to the book and my notes to make sure that I knew what the right answers were and how there were derived when I got them wrong (which was often). Probably most importantly, I reached out to fellow students and joined or formed study groups. It turned out that I wasn’t the only one who was struggling and that there were people who were good at math who were willing to help. Moreover, I managed to convince myself that I was a math person and that I really liked doing it. It helped that Prof. McCardle was a good lecturer and had amusing examples to make a dry subject more interesting and relevant.

It was a lot of work, but totally do-able. I put in about three hours a day, which I broke up between before work, lunch break and after dinner, Sunday through Thursday, so that I could spend Fridays enjoying dinner and a glass (or bottle) of wine with my girlfriend.

My final grade in stats: A- (I also got an ‘A’ in Organizational Behavior.)

I accomplished what I set out to do for my first quarter. My friends in the program, the staff and the faculty all helped me to get there. If math is something that makes you hesitant about applying to Anderson, just know that it’s up to you if you want to excel. And to quote Adam Sandler’s The Waterboy, “You can do it!”

- Alex Pugh (FEMBA 2015)

It's FEMBA Flex!

Hi everyone! This is a brief post to tell you more about the new Flex program at the UCLA Anderson School of Management!

In addition to offering the full-time MBA program, UCLA Anderson also offers a Fully Employed MBA (FEMBA) program on a part-time basis for working professionals. Flex is a new education platform that leverages a hybrid format (part of the education delivery takes place online, and part on campus).

Check out THIS VIDEO to learn more about Flex!