Archives: Food

How to Make Money at UBC – Part 2

Click to view the first segment: How to Make Money at UBC Part 1.

6. Scholarships –

Profitability: UBC has a curious tendencies of drastically downsizing the scholarship amounts after luring us in Freshman year. If you didn’t struck gold with the $20 000+ Major Entrance Scholarships, you’ll have to “make do” with mere $500 – $4000 scholarships for the next few years.

Time: The great things about some university scholarships is that you don’t even have to apply – they come straight to your mailbox thanks to a faculty committee handing them out. Others might require application forms and reference letters.

Skills/Difficulty: Not top in your class? Not to worry, you get something even if you’re second sometimes! Woot! Sarcasm aside, there is a bit of competition for grades and whatnot but we all know the atmosphere at UBC isn’t as cutthroat as those of MIT or Berkeley. So try your best kids.

Continue reading →

Read 6 CommentsAdd a comment

BizzComm SpeakOut Public Speaking Contest

So there I was, all dressed up in business formal and (literally) killer patent heels, standing in front of an audience of a hundred in the Ponderosa Centre, ready to launch into the speech that I have been working on for the past month. Why do I subject myself to the scrutiny of the public, the shaky nerves, and the horror known as Impromptu Speech? Because I actually find it VERY. VERY. FUN. *cue fangirl squeeeeee*

SpeakOut 2009 by UBC BizzComm

UBC’s Business Communication Club hosted a public speaking contest this past Thursday called SpeakOut – the first of its kind on campus in almost a decade. We went through an auditions round earlier in the month where they narrowed it down to six finalists. We then paired up with professional Toastmaster coaches and practised our speeches with the topic “The Next Great Idea”.

I passed along my two complementary tickets to my parents, as it has become kind of a tradition for them to attend all my speech contests (and give me their brutally honest opinions). The room was set up with a dozen or so round banquet tables and seated about a hundred. I along with a few of the other finalists got there early to test out the lapel mics. The event was heavily sponsored by CGA (Certified General Accountants) hence we had a wonderful keynote, John Noonan, from CGA to talk to us about the fascinating nuances of public speaking.

SpeakOut 2009 by UBC BizzComm

The competition itself was AMAZING, mainly because all the finalists were talented in so many different ways! A big congrats to Samantha (Sauder ’09) for winning the competition! You rocked girl! And a big congrats also to Roy (Sauder ’11) for winning People’s Choice!

What I Liked

  • Classy atmosphere in the room – each detail was meticulously attended to, such as the flowers on each table, the banners etc.
  • Amazing keynote speaker
  • Transparent judging criteria
  • Awesome pamphlet introducing all the speakers
  • Giving complementary tickets to finalists was very thoughtful!
  • GREAT FOOD – salads, bread, lasagna, pasta, CHEESECAKE <3
  • Smooth information flow – the BizzComm execs knew exactly what they were doing and kept us in the loop all the way since the audition round
  • Starbucks cards taped under random chairs was a nice touch
  • Opportunities to network with CGAs at every table!
  • No technology malfunctionings that I was aware of (they even video taped the audition speeches!), well done guys
  • Nice incorporation of promotion for Style and the City

SpeakOut 2009 by UBC BizzComm

Points for Improvement (personal opinions)

  • One more mic would have made the transition process smoother
  • Voting ballots for People’s Choice were not collected from at least one table
  • Postpone voting for People’s Choice to perhaps after dinner – hmm… I understand that it’s nice for people to vote when the speeches are fresh on their minds, but it’s easy to be heavily influenced by the last Impromptu speech (though the last one just happened to be my favourite!) when the evaluation should’ve have been about the Prepared ones as well
  • Now to be just a little harsh on the dear contest chairs… it would’ve been nicer – since this is a public speaking contest – if they didn’t read off a piece of paper when introducing the speakers. But seriously, they already went above and beyond what many other clubs have done in terms of a professional events, so no complaints!
Read 6 CommentsAdd a comment

Year-End Fiscal Report

2008 was a good year in the sense that I entered the workforce full time and managed to hold on to jobs during the school year. 2008 was a bad year in the sense that I spent money frivolously on non-essentials such as clothing and food. Textbooks are also huge drains from my savings.

Note: Always wanted to use the word “fiscal”… it makes everything sound so official! Oh and this entry is all about money, so stay away if financial talk isn’t your thing.  I pay for all of my own stuff except groceries and around one meal a day (lovingly supplied by my parents, fyi i still live at home).

EXPENSES PIE GRAPH

I tried to keep as an accurate account as possible (…have the habit of spending cash/debit instead of credit… ah well). As you can see, UBC textbooks took a ridiculously huge chunk out of my wallet. I’m quite happy that my university tuition was only a few hundred bucks.

EXPENSES PIE GRAPH – “WALLET” ACCOUNT

The above graph takes out all the “major expenses”. Ever since univ started I’ve been lavishly spending money on fastfood at lunch, a habit I hope to drop this year. Clothings expenses were up there as well – averages to about $30 a month which isn’t too bad.

EXPENSE BAR GRAPH – “WALLET” ACCOUNT

It’s skyrocketing towards the end of the year haha… blame Boxing Day.

INCOME/EXPENSE BAR GRAPH

Green bar = income, red = expenses. Got a job in July. Pulled in a deficit for September, but otherwise I’m in the green!

BALANCE LINE GRAPH

This doesn’t represent the actual balance (give or take a few grand), but I love having visual representation!

Now isn’t dealing with finances fun?! Coming up next: where are Phoebe’s incomes coming from? AKA Making money at UBC =D On a sidenote, for those of you looking for cheap textbooks, refer to my buying textbooks at UBC post back in September. Hope it helps!

QOTW: What do you spend the most money on? What about non-essential items?

Read 11 CommentsAdd a comment

KPMG Crack the Case Competition

One of my goals this year was to step out of my comfort zone and participate in things people wait a few years in university before doing. Last weekend, KPMG and the Case Competition Club hosted a competition for first year’s and second year’s. My team (three first-year’s) got to KPMG’s downtown office tower bright and early on Saturday morning. We had some breakfast and got a tour of their humongous multi-floored office.  After we were given a conference room with an awesomely huge whiteboard that covered an entire wall, we started on the “cracking” the case.

Basically we had three hours to plow through, in this case, a 15-page long case on a company, identify the major problems it faces (such as corporate culture, organizational structure, global expansion, demographic shifts etc. etc.), come up with solutions/implementations/risks, and create a powerpoint presentation. Then we had to do a 15 minute presentation to KPMG judges as well as endure an intense Q&A period.

You’re probably thinking at this point, what the heck, people do this for FUN?! Shush, we’re commerce-majors, we powerpoint and party like there’s no tomorrow.

Before I even get to the presentation, I have to say that the prep part was absolutely NERVESWRECKING. Three hours may seem like a lot of time, but 1/3 of that was just reading the case. It didn’t help that the case was about an international wine distributor, which was a completely foreign topic to us underage kids XD. Don’t get me started on oddity that is wine names (Banrock Station and Kelly’s Revenge anyone? Yep they’re wine brands)! However, it is rather amazing how efficient we were working under stress. We soon had filled up the entire 2m x 4m white board with diagrams, flowcharts, maps, and mock ppt slides. It then occured to us in our self-congratulatory euphoria that we had about 30 minutes to synthesize everything that was on the board into a professional-looking presentation and come up with intelligent-sounding things to say. Somewhere along the way we lost track of time and was reminded that there was OMG 5 MINUTES LEFT when we thought we had at least fifteen.

I was responsible for the powerpoint. Wow, I have never finished one so fast in our life.

The presentation room is set up like a classroom – a projector screen at the front with a table, some walking room, and a few rows of tables facing forward. We walked in in our business suits, shook hands with the four judges, and cued up the powerpoint.

The good

  • The group member in charge of the introduction wrote it out and memorized it, making us seem very relaxed and confident at the beginning =D
  • No PPT crashes, font was legible, template was a nice blue
  • Everyone generally knew what they were talking about
  • Perfect for the time limit

The bad

  • I said a lot of “um….”s which I wasn’t even aware of; now I am haha
  • The PPT seemed really bare
  • Our solutions may have been too drastic for the company’s liking
  • Didn’t have a chance to answer one of the judge’s questions – time was up, maybe this should go under Good?

The ugly (hey Im honest!)

  • Total dead air at one point because of the extensive amount of abbreviations/short hands on the PPT resulted in lack of comprehensibility

Congratulations to Uvini and al. who won, and two year 1s who got honourable mention! We had lunch after the presentation (gotta love competition food!) and mingled a little with the judges. Was the almost-reaching-stress-breaking-point worth it? Only time will tell =D In the mean time, Crack the Case was just a little taste of the business world to come.

Read 6 CommentsAdd a comment

Campus Events Forecast #2

First things first dear readers. I have a favour to ask that will take exactly one minute of your time. I’ve joined the UBC Votermedia Blog Awards with this blog under a new name – UBC Years (a continuation of IB Years I guess haha). You can show your love for this blog (you know it =P) by voting for me. The instructions are explained on the site, here’s a simplified version.

  1. Any UBC student can vote, sign in to CWL and enroll for the VoterMedia “course” on Vista 
  2. Click Begin Assessment, then pick how $200 should be distributed among the participants (if you really looooove UBC Years, then put 200/0/0/0/0 etc. or 150/10/10/10 etc. It doesn’t have to total $200)
  3. Click submit! Repeat in a week =D

Thank you!

Thank-a-thon [Facebook link]

Description in ten words or less: call sponsors/donors, thank them, make a difference!

My two cents: for one reason or another, volunteer often gets pushed to second (or third) place after high school. After all, why bothere when there are no more graduation requirements and no university supplemental essays to fill?! I think the whole deal with volunteer hours in HS defeats the whole purpose of “volunteering”! Why is it called volunteer if you’re forced to do it? Thank-a-thon is just one of several volunteer outings that CCP is organizing this year. Show that you really care by coming out =D

Food: light refreshment

Other info: November 13th and November 24th, 5:15-8:30 PM, Covenant House at 575 Drake Street, email volunteer.ccp@gmail.com to get on the list

Read 4 CommentsAdd a comment