Author Archives: alexniebrugge

An (Almost-End-of-Semester) Update

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It has been a while since my last post and a lot has changed.  School is winding down and students are getting ready for their summer (or life after business school).  Overall, I have been really impressed with the entire job search process for my classmates.  Whether it was one friend who came to school to do consulting and is working with a top management consulting firm in Dallas, another friend who only came down to trade commodities and is doing so in Houston and New York, a roommate who wanted to work in corporate finance in the Bay Area and is doing just that (while receiving five other job offers), or two other friends moving to New York City working in sales and trading and commercial real estate investment banking respectively, the Texas brand (and economy) is alive and well.  The process has been very encouraging for my classmates and anybody going back to school.

A few high (and low) lights from the past four months:

We never had a chance

- MBA Golf Scramble:  Organized by the MBA Golf Association, 21 teams of four went out to the beautiful Roy Kizer Golf Course for an MBA Golf Scramble with 1st and 2nd-year MBA’s.  Although windy, Jenner, Scott, Vimal, and I gave a valiant effort but were not victorious in the end.  From Scott’s rock-solid chipping to Jenner’s ability to successfully distract me on every shot, we had a lot of fun.  Special shout-out to Vimal for his 25-foot birdie putt from the fringe followed by a face first dive down the side of a fairway and hysterical screaming from the rest of us.

- Entire Job Search: Meet-and-greets into informal interviews into cover letters into thoughts of “My parents basement wouldn’t be THAT bad” into first-round interviews into final round interviews into “Wait he already heard back from Company XYZ?”  In the end it all ended up just fine and I’m looking forward to living and working in the Bay Area this summer in an energy finance role.

-  Advanced Corporate Finance: While the class name itself may not sound very exciting, Professor Jonathan Cohn was so good the class became one of the favorites for myself and a lot of my friends.  Professor Cohn’s ability to keep students interested and engaged on a range of topics (tracking portfolios, capital structure, leveraged buyouts, and corporate governance) while displaying a sense of humor made this class one of the most useful (and relevant) classes during my first year.

- Intramural Basketball: Speaking of screaming hysterically (see MBA Golf above), our MBA Intramural basketball team won the Graduate School League in dramatic fashion.  Our team, which was made up of five 2nd-year MBA’s and three 1st-year MBA’s (including me), finished the season undefeated.  In the championship game we were down by two with five seconds when our class president Kyle Beste dribbled the ball up and hit a three point shot at the buzzer.  We won by 1-point.  Chaos ensued.  Winning this game may have been the proudest of my athletic achievements since I graduated high school.  And by “may have been” I mean “was unquestionably.”

Before...

 

...After

- Spring Break: Another perk of being a student are the breaks.  I chose not to go on a global trip, but I still took a road trip down to New Orleans with my classmates Scott, Jenner, Vimal, and Ryan.  We had lots of laughs.

- MBA Formal: Over 400 1st- and 2nd-Year students with their significant others went to the new W Hotel in Austin for our MBA Formal.  We had good fun that included everybody telling each other some version of the following by the end of the night:

  • “I love you man!”
  • “I love Austin/McCombs/Texas!”
  • “When this is all over, we should get a place together”

State of the Union: Notes from My First Semester

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After making it through the first semester, it is crazy to think that I am finished with 25% of business school.  There were a lot of highs and the occasional low.  Overall, here are my do’s and don’t’s for any prospective students’ first semester:

Do…

…Remember that everything is on a curve.  If the test was hard for you, it was hard for everybody.

…Learn to speak the lingo like, “Yeah Garrett looked terrible out there”, “Love Doc’s on Wednesday”, “West 6th later for sure”, and “I am not crying I swear”

…As much stuff as you can (even if you feel overwhelmed).  I am involved in case competitions, the McCombs Admissions Committee, Venture Fellows, and went to as many company meet-and-greets as possible.  If you are at school like me to give yourself as many options as possible, then do not be afraid to take advantage of them.

…Remind every family member, significant other, friend, or co-worker that it is not personal when you do not acknowledge them for days (or weeks) at a time.  Love you Mom.

…Take advantage of the MBA+ program.  I did an MBA+ project with a consulting firm and used the coaches to practice for interviewers.  It is much better to have  a communication coach (with a PhD) tell you that you say “um” too many times than to have an actual interviewer never tell you at all.

Don’t…

…Expect to experience as much of Austin as you originally hoped.  Austin was one of the biggest draws for me to come down here, but after having as much delicious Mexican food as I wanted, playing tennis and basketball, walking South Congress, and running around Lake Travis during the first few weeks, the reality of 12 tests in four months and endless reading put a damper on that quickly. Luckily I have 3 more semesters to work on exploring the city.

…Be afraid to fail.  Whether taking part in the Texas Venture Labs Investment Competition or participating in the MBA “Pitch Party”, you might as well put yourself out there.  Getting accomplished entrepreneurs from Austin to question a business idea I developed two hours before the event was useful.  And humbling.  And funny in a “that business will never happen” funny sort of way.

…Forget your professors are normal people too.  Whether it was one professor inviting everybody over to his house for dinner, to another one of my classmates seeing a professor at a Girl Talk concert, the dynamic is much different than what you are probably used to.

So far so good – and looking forward to a lot more to come.

Application Season: So You’re Telling Me There’s A Chance

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Finals are over, the second half of the semester has begun, and Austin City Limits (ACL) was the most unbelievably organized, entertaining concert I think I have ever been to.  What does that have to do with the rest of this blog post?  Nothing, but the food at ACL was incredible.

It is, however, application season for next fall’s incoming class.  I know people are thinking about applying, beginning to apply, and getting their recommendations in order, among other less-productive activities such as checking their minor-league curling fantasy team, learning bridge from their grandmother, and watching “Becker” on repeat.  I can remember how stressful, time consuming, and exhilarating/soul-crushing this entire process was.  If I could give you some advice on the entire process it would be the following:

1.       Start early:  It is obvious but true and the more time you give your recommenders, the more time you can work on your resume to build your “story,” and the more time you allow yourself for editing, re-editing, re-re-editing, starting from scratch, questioning why you are applying, writing, editing, and re-editing your application essays, the happier you will be.

2.       Know about the school: It is pretty obvious, but understanding what the school is known for, researching student clubs you would find interesting, and knowing popular professors can go a long way in interviews and essays.  I know it may seem annoying or time consuming, but is that extra hour of research any worse than sentence correction problem sets on the GMAT?  You don’t have to answer that.

3.       Do not get too obsessed with statistics: Between the Princeton Review, the Economist, the Financial Times, beatthegmat.com, and the class profile, you will probably convince yourself you are / are not getting in.  Obviously there is a difference between being way below the average on everything and just below on your GMAT or GPA, but those scores are not the be all and end all.  They matter, but they do not matter at the same time.  If you are memorable, interesting, a leader, involved, and interview well it is not going make a difference if you were 12 points below the average on one standardized test or .05 below the average for your GPA.

4.       Everything is going to be OK: Everybody who is applying to a top business school wants to get in.  Not everybody will.  I know plenty of people who thought they were a shoe-in with their GMAT scores or GPA’s, yet they never get an interview to this or that school.  I also know other people with below average scores, but great essays and awesome personalities getting into schools some would consider a stretch.  You have to know that a lot of this is your grades, GMAT and essays, but a lot of it is luck, timing, etc.  If you can, kind of/maybe accept the randomness of it all, it could provide you sanity.

Oh No I’ve Gone Cross Eyed

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We had no idea we would lose to UCLA one week later

One of the biggest challenges of business school is learning how to balance and prioritize your time.  Actually, it is THE challenge.  At a school like McCombs, it is not about whether you have opportunities, but rather which ones you decide to take advantage of.  As a result, my day usually consists of the following thoughts:

Man, I need to do those accounting practice problems, the test is less than two weeks away.

Why is he wearing a suit?  Should I be wearing a suit?

I did the Global Business Challenge, but there is also a Finance Challenge…I should probably do that one too.  Wait, there is a Consulting challenge two weeks before that?  Ok, um.

I just got an email about basketball on Friday, but I already signed up for that coffee chat with a consulting company on Friday.  Maybe I can bring a gym bag, or maybe I will stop sleeping?

I have absolutely no idea what is going on in the sports world anymore.

So I just heard from Scott that there is an info session for a top bank tonight.  I really need to go. Oh no, I already signed up for an MBA+ session on building your resume.  And how would I even get my suit up to campus?

Wait, so I have to tape myself answering interview questions, and then send that recording to my study group so they can rate me?

I haven’t looked at a mirror in days

So if the average on the midterm was a 90 with a standard deviation of 5, what does that actually mean for me?

My fantasy football team is terrible

I could go on, but you get the point.  The biggest challenge for me has been trying to navigate this myriad of valuable opportunities.  In the last week, I participated in an MBA Pitch Party (shopitup.com = not going to happen), traveled home to Denver for some relaxation, went to two info sessions, attended my classes, met with my MBA+ project group, prepared a case study for a different group, played tennis a few times, and told my entire economics class what I wanted to do with my life in 30 seconds.

And the truth is, everybody here is just as busy as me, if not more so.  What does this all mean?  I have no idea and I’m really not complaining.  Well, maybe a little – but that’s what business school is all about.

Double Rainbow: My Texas MBA Orientation Experience

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Orientation.  What did I think it was going to be?  I figured it would be a lot of sitting in an auditorium talking about future classes and making semi-awkward introductions with new classmates.  Beyond that, I wasn’t really sure.  In the end, yes, it was a healthy dose of all that stuff, but it was also a lot more.  My biggest takeaway is that I was able to meet a lot down to earth people with incredibly impressive personal and professional backgrounds.  And other than having to wear a suit and tie on the first day in 102 degree heat, I thought the week was a success.  If you can believe it, I decided to keep a running diary (not really):

Monday, 8:30 AM: We arrive.  People are anxious to find out their co-horts, study groups, and class schedules (how many 8 AM’s?  When am I done on Thursday?).  We also get our itineraries for the week.  What’s an executive challenge?  How can we spend over two hours on a Myers Briggs – MBTI test?

Monday – 8:38 AM: That’s a good breakfast taco.  I didn’t know you could have breakfast tacos, but that’s a good breakfast taco.

Monday – 11:30 AM: Co-hort introductions: I stand in front of 65 people I’ve never met before and boil my life down to 30 seconds.  My co-hort includes a former wine sommelier, a Navy fighter pilot, somebody who got married 36 hours before the first day of orientation, a JD/MBA student, and a former comptroller from Chile.  We all present our stories to the class, as well as many, many more times throughout the day.  I give my spiel more times than I can remember: I’m from Colorado (not a great skier, sorry), went to the University of Michigan (I am concerned about our football team too), lived in New York City (yes it’s expensive), play basketball and tennis (I used to be able to dunk, I swear), interested in finance but open to other opportunities…

Monday – 6:30 PM: Opening reception and dinner at Darrell K. Royal Stadium in the Red McCombs Zone overlooking the field.  Who else could be our keynote speaker but Red McCombs?   I listen to Red talk about the Vikings, Clear Channel, and the school and I think this is much better than anything I was doing a year ago.

Thursday – 8:30 AM: Executive Challenge: each co-hort participates in the Executive Challenge.  My study group teams up with another group to create the prestigious LBJ Ventures.  We’re leading a company that has to decide what products to invest in, where to spend a finite amount of money and how to allocate man hours and define the positions (Ian L. made a powerful CEO).

The fun, and challenging, part of the game is that your success depends to a certain degree on the strategies of your competitors, as well as unforeseen crises like a women’s group protest and an earthquake.  And to top it all off, we have 30 minutes to present in front of the entire class, while three “venture capitalists” (AKA judges) decide whether to give us funding.  A lot of stress, but a fun way to get to know your study group.

Thursday – 1:25 PM: “Let’s shift our focus to large and small business, that’s our only shot”

Thursday – 6:30 PM: Presentation Awards: we don’t finish first, but end up positioning ourselves as a “low-cost, late entry” computer maker.  Sounds good, doesn’t it?

Friday – 1:15 PM: McCombs Outdoor Adventure: rafting, and by rafting I mean slowly floating down the Colorado River splashing fellow students.

Saturday – 8:30 AM: I decide to do Habitat for Humanity, organized by MBA 2011 and fellow blogger Dirk Hallen, as a fitting, extremely hot culmination to Orientation week.  This is my first experience with Habitat for Humanity, as well as my first true encounter with Texas’ summer heat.  I played a lot of hot summer baseball growing up in Denver, but even that didn’t prepare me for six hours in 102 degree weather with 85% humidity.  This is no joke.

Our class spent the day working on four houses, doing everything from roofing to landscaping to, in my case, blocking (under the inspiring tutelage of Adam G, MBA 2012.)  Highlights include working the powersaw, sweating profusely, getting to know my classmates, sweating profusely, and sweating profusely.  Overall, over 50 Texas MBAs gave up their Saturday after a long and action-packed orientation week.

Extra Bonus: But wait, there’s more…  The Salt Lick, which is now the greatest BBQ I’ve ever had.  The co-hort games, which is a great icebreaker when you see people face plant after dizzy bat.  Venturing to Sixth Street for some after-hours bonding with my classmates.

Co-Hort 2

After the first week of orientation, I wasn’t surprised to realize that everybody is really welcoming, friendly, and smart.  Everybody has an interesting background and perspective.  So far, so good…