The September High Low High

Posted on October 3, 2011 by Caroline Kolb

For those who attended summer camp as a kid, you might be familiar with a little game called “High Low High” (aka Glums and Glows or Rose, Bud, and Thorn). As the second month of business school is officially behind us, I’d like to take a minute now to document my September High Low High.

UT Pride at ACL

High: Being the diehard eclectic music fan that I am, my first “high” has to be the Austin City Limits Music Festival, which took place in Zilker Park from September 23 – 25. In one lovely Sunday afternoon, I saw Ryan Bingham & the Deadhorses (is it possible that he’s not married yet??) followed by Fleet Foxes followed by Arcade Fire. And the night before, I caught the breakthrough neo-soul band Fitz and the Tantrums at one of the many aftershows playing across town. What compounded my enjoyment of the festival weekend was that thanks to the fact that I’ve got a pool of ~250 peers in my class at McCombs to work with; it’s never been easier to find concert buddies. Whatever your taste in music, you’re pretty much guaranteed to find a fellow fan or at least someone who’s willing to try something new with you: all you need to do is vocalize your interest on our class-wide facebook wall!

McCombs concert buddies

My new home

Low: Instead of enjoying a day of fun with friends and family as I have for the first 28 Labor Days of my life, this year, I labored tirelessly through the entire holiday. You see, because we complete the bulk of the MBA core coursework during our first semester at McCombs, we actually take mid-terms for four of those courses during the first week of September. Such is life. At least I have a nice place to study in my quiet home near campus which I share with a couple other graduate students from outside the program. It’s actually owned by a professor of architecture at UT whom I hope to take a class from at some point! Thank you, craigslist.

High: My second high is twofold and relates to extracurricular opportunities McCombs provides me with to pursue my career goals. First, I was offered a spot on the HomeAway MBA+ project, which is going to entail analyzing social media related data on behalf of the Austin-grown early stage company. HomeAway, which became a publicly traded company just a couple of months ago, represents a complete departure from the more traditional major corporations I have worked for in the past. So, I look forward to getting a window into what it would be like to work at a smaller, more entrepreneurial organization in the future. The content of the work is also very exciting to me because I am hoping to target marketing roles in my post MBA career, and so I need to start bolstering my experience with social media platforms ASAP! In addition to this opportunity, I’ve also submitted an application to the Board Fellows Program which allows students to sit on the board of a local non-profit over a one year period. As I’m also looking for work which enables me to align my head with my heart, I am crossing my fingers to be selected for one of the community development oriented organizations I’ve applied to.

Onwards to October!

MBA Coffee Talk – ACL Stories – 9.21.2011

Posted on September 28, 2011 by Dan Amodio

Each Wednesday, McCombs MBA students, professors, and program staff members all come together in the spirit of caffeination for “MBA Coffee” in the Carpenter Center. There is never a shortage on conversation…

9.21.11 – After a weekend of music at the 2011 Austin City Limits Music Festival — the first for many of us Austin rookies — there were plenty of stories to be told. Let’s chat with a few MBA Coffee-goers and see what they thought of the weekend.

\m/

Just Go to ACL

Posted on September 21, 2011 by Jim Ryan

The 10th annual Austin City Limits Music Festival was held last Friday-Sunday in Zilker Park. I’m sure some of my fellow bloggers (see: Kolb, Caroline and Amodio, Dan, among others) will have better ACL photos, stories and reviews than me, and I don’t want to steal their thunder. But I will give this piece of advice to those of you who end up at McCombs:

ACL is expensive. It is hot. It is crowded. You will have a ton of work hanging over your head, and part of the festival might interfere with a career trek.

It doesn’t matter. Find a way to go to ACL, if only for a day. It’s because of stuff like this that people move to Austin. There are few other places in the country where you can see the likes of Stevie Wonder, Kanye West, Arcade Fire, Coldplay, My Morning Jacket, Fleet Foxes, Alison Kraus and Randy Newman in one year, let alone one weekend. And when you think of all the great acts you get to see, the $185 price tag for a three-day pass doesn’t sound so bad.

Plus, ACL is one heck of a blowout weekend before you have to hunker down for your first set of final projects and exams.

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

Posted on October 19, 2010 by alexniebrugge

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.

Behind the Scenes with C3

Posted on October 13, 2010 by Morgan Simental

ACL from a different perspective

This weekend I had the opportunity to talk to a rep from C3 (this is the company that organizes ACL and many other concerts around the US). It was great to hear how the company addresses issues, has grown over the years, and plans to expand. My take away from the tour: throwing a major concert is a lot of work! If you’re interested in music, concerts or live events, I’d definitely check out their site. Who knows, you might even find a cool concert in your area!

Get Involved

I had the opportunity to meet with this rep because I’m part of SEMA (Sports, Entertainment and Media Association). As the name implies, this group is designed to help students connect with businesses in these fields. If you’re interested, you should definitely think about joining. For more info, feel free to email a rep at: SEMA@mccombs.utexas.edu. Even if you’re not interested in music, sports or media there are lots of student run clubs on campus that will help you get a job or just get your mind off the day-to-day stresses of school. Check out the whole list at this link.

-Morgan

Austin City Limits [Mudfest] 2009

Posted on October 8, 2009 by liz wetterhahn

It’s hard to believe that an entire year has gone by since my first experience at the Austin City Limits Festival last September. Having had such an amazing experience at my first ACL, I was refreshing the page to ensure I got tickets as soon as Early Bird 3-Day Passes went on sale in April. I had been looking forward to ACL for an entire year, and could not wait for the festival, whose announced lineup included Pearl Jam, Dave Matthews Band, Kings of Leon, Airborne Toxic Effect, the B-52s and the Zac Brown Band and touted a total of 130 bands that played on 8 stages over 3 days.

The weekend started off with a beautiful afternoon on Friday. Prior to the start of ACL, C3 Presents (the Festival producer) put up a large chunk of change to help the Austin Parks and Recreation Department with a massive Zilker Park (home of ACL Festival) improvement. The park, which is a beautiful Austin locale with amazing views of the city skyline, got a new grass makeover, and the improvements were obvious to all festival-goers. With the sun overhead and the new (springy!) grass beneath our feet, my friends and I set up shop in one area for a large part of the day and watched as bands like The Walkmen, Them Crooked Vultures and John Legend took the stage. The beautiful weather was much appreciated, and the night ended with the Kings of Leon show before closing up the day.
Sunny Day

With rain predictions on the horizon, I went to multiple stores Saturday morning in search of ponchos to prepare in case of a storm. Although Target was out, I found a secret stash in nearby Walgreens and bought out almost the entire store supply of Longhorn ponchos. When the rain started coming down in the middle of the Flogging Molly show, my friends and I took cover in our trash bag lookalikes. Between my $35 wellies, my $5 poncho and the buckets and buckets of rain that came down, I’m pretty sure my raingear ROI was out of this world. The rain certainly did not stop our fun. The skies cleared up for the Zac Brown Band, which was one of my favorite shows of the festival. We stayed for the DMB show and then headed downtown to celebrate a friend’s birthday.

Ponchos

By Sunday, Zilker Park was nearly unrecognizable. Mud covered the beautiful grass, and half of the festival attendees looked like they’d come out of mud baths. Sneakers, sandals and flip flops were orphaned all over the place, and most of the crowd was trudging through the mud barefoot. Again…wellies…amazing investment. But there was something pretty incredible about watching thousands of people running around like kids, jumping in puddles and doing mudslides, completely unaffected by the dirt and totally excited by the music and their surroundings. Day 3 was muddy, but ended with an extraordinary Pearl Jam show that ranks up there with one of my favorite concerts. There’s nothing better than hanging out with good friends, listening to good music and appreciating a wonderful city. The dates for the next ACL Festival have just been announced. Although I don’t know where I’ll be next October, I know that ACL is something I’d like to return for. Muddy or not, here I come.

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Straight from the students

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