Thanks and all the best!

Hi everyone,

I feel that I should add a closing note before I stop adding posts to this blog.

As I completed my MBA requirements in December 2010 (however the graduation ceremony is still to happen in June), I finished all my classes and started a “grown-up” life. I was extremely lucky to find a job and to stay in Vancouver, at least for now.

Just to summarize these 15 months in one word – it was amazing. I had truly the greatest time of my life, I enjoyed every minute of it, I learned quite a lot, I met great people and networked with top-level professionals… It was great, and I am really happy that I had a chance to go through this experience.

Everyone keeps asking me – so, how do you feel now? What did you get because of your MBA? I think it is too early to say at this point, I will probably be able to answer better in a couple of years. However, so far I got a chance to live in the best city in the world (officially!), and got integrated in Canada through my education. For me, even just that is huge and it would have been very hard to achieve otherwise. As for the other benefits – we will see=)

Just a word to those who are still in the program and to those who are considering it – enjoy every minute of it, don`t waste your time, network and learn as much as you can. The time is flying so unbelievably fast! If you are still considering it – do it. It is a great experience, no matter what.

Good luck to everyone!

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Post Core, MBA Games and Competitions

First post in the year 2011.  I hope all of you had a great rest.

Now we are into Period 1 of Post-core, and it definitely has a different feel to it.

The Core was a foundation building course and lots of business topics has been touched on, but only at an introductory level.  In the Post-core, each respective module gets into the depth of a specialized area, at a fast pace.  Work volume is a bit less, but more time is required in dissecting an issue or problem.  For example, in the Marketing Strategy class, we just finished a case on XM Satellite Radio.  The issue was how to introduce this completely new technology to the market and under what price / pricing scheme (e.g. subscription base? commercial free or not?).  Things that need to take into consideration include market size, segment selection, revenue potential, and the interest of other stakeholders such as manufactures, distributors, and potential advertisers.  Data information in the case was limited and not presented very clearly, which added to the difficulty of this already complicated case.

On top of assignments, projects and regular readings, there are many other activities outside of class.  Student clubs are already planning workshops and events for the next couple of months.  There are also quite a few case competitions.  Just last week, about 40 of us join 600 other MBA students across Canada to participate at the MBA games hosted by York University in Toronto.  We competed in 8 events across sports, academics, and spirit categories, and each night there were also parties for networking with other schools.  Indeed it was a wild, fun weekend, but we also competed hard.  In the end, Sauder came in 2nd in the marketing case event (topic was how should Telus capture opportunities in the tablet market) under the academic category.

Also , kudos to Chris and Jordan for staying up late before their flight to put together a great video for the opening ceremony:

YouTube Preview Image

A few other competitions will happen in the next several months. For myself, I am participating in two – the Hult Global Case challenge for finding a solution on water availability and access in developing countries.  As well I am organizing the Google Online Marketing Challenge, which competes on developing a marketing campaign utilizing Adwords for a local business.

As you can see, there are many opportunities to challenge yourself not only in class but also amongst other school and in the real world.  While time seems scarce (and indeed it is), I believe it is important to apply the knowledge learned in class to real life situation through these competitions.  Plus, Sauder provides many support (including a dedicated staff) to put students in a position to do well in any competition.  All in all, taking advantage of these case competition opportunities will greatly complement your overall MBA experience.

PS – I will find time soon to hop on a time machine and write about my Core experiences.

Sunny

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Vacation time & book review

Its vacation time and most of us are back to their homes and loved ones. I stayed back in Vancouver though. I have been catching up with my sleep and looking forward to whats in store in post core. The Christmas is approaching and the atmosphere in Vancouver is lighting up. The winter is mild compared to what we had last month. Hope it stays like this for the rest of the winter !

I happened to bump on an interesting book, and I believe that a prospective MBA should read it. Not only is it interesting but it makes sense to a MBA who will be facing lot of such practical stats in future.

I am not a voracious reader but do read good books once in a while. Most of the times boredom gets to me before I finish the book. So when I read a book fully, it has to be an interesting read. ‘Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and its Consequences’ is one such read.

Its not a comedy but it has humor, its not serious book either but it has some advice. John Allen Paulos, a mathematician and the author of this book, explains how mathematical innumeracy has gripped the world. You need not understand math to enjoy the book. As a matter of fact, you will enjoy more if you are uncomfortable with math. Needless to say that those who are comfortable with numbers ought to read it !

John talks about seemingly difficult but interesting findings like why there is a 99% probability that you have just inhaled the same molecule that Julius Caesar exhaled when he said “You too, Brutus” before dying, and how strange coincidences are not so strange in the light of simple probability rules and how there are only a few linkages between you and Barack Obama.

Another chapter talks about some of the pseudosciences and why they are “pseudosciences” in the mathematics framework. I found the read about extraterrestrial life most fascinating. It talks about why there are possibly many life forms in our galaxy but why the probability of them coming to visit us is minuscule. Sounds cool, aint it?

Finally, he talks about how our education system should be made more math friendly so that early math haters could benefit tremendously. I would like to cite few lines:

“I sometimes think it would be a good idea if math professors and elementary-school teachers switched places for a few weeks each year. No harm would come to the math majors and graduate students (in fact, the latter might learn something from the former), while the third-, fourth-, and fifth-graders might greatly benefit from exposure to mathematical puzzles and games competently presented.”

Overall, its an interesting read which makes one think and shows the unexplored perspective to look at statistics and pseudosciences and life.

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MBA Gala

The second annual MBA Society Gala took place last night at the Vancouver Convention Center (New Wing).  It was a great event that punctuated the end of many attendees’ journey as an MBA student.  The special event was joined by a very special guest, Mr. John Furlong, the CEO of Vancouver Organizing Committee (VANOC) for the 2010  Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games in Vancouver.  John gave an inspirational and extremely memorable speech about his experience, the pleasure, and pressure organizing and running the most successful Winter Olympic games in history (No doubt about it; Vancouver was transformed into a huge Olympic town).   There are several elements that he believed led to his success – fostering a “best of the best, strive for excellence” culture in which employees and volunteers lived and breathed with, having a achievable vision that bring inspiration to people and make a difference in people’s life, and being a champion in tackling any task of any size.  I am sure many will remember this speech for a long time.

I would like to wish the best of luck to all the graduates and extend a big congratulations to Dallas et al. for organizing this great event.  Now the pressure is on the first years to put together something even better!

***************************************************************************************

To end this blog post,  I would like to post a link to a Financial Times article about the opportunities that Sauder school can lead us to (Thanks Chengwu from the Second year sending this to me).  The students featured are from the IMBA program in Shanghai but it is nevertheless a very inspirational article to any current and incoming students.  Click here

Sunny

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Core, No More.

The 2010 core class officially ended last Thursday!

Before all came to an end, we literally had to “put up a fight of our lives” to prepare for the integrated final exam, and then raced against the clock to put together the finishing touch for the business plan project.

The final exam topic – Analyzing Ballard Power and alternative energy industry – was given to us a week in advance (about 3 weeks before the end of core).  The actual exam question was handed out on the day of the exam.  Before the exam, we were required to research the company and the industry using secondary information, e.g. financial statements, industry reports, staff interviews, etc.

Even though we knew the topic early, we had little time to work on it as there were four course finals plus a case assignment the week before.  It wasn’t three days before the final that we could concentrate on putting together the analysis.  Many of us formed study groups and divvy up the research and analytical work.  There are tremendous amount of information available
and it was a difficult task to narrow down all the information.

I was part of a 15 member study group team and we spent two nights together to tackle the exam topic.  Amazingly, we were able to digest these
large amount of information, and garner a lot of insights from the observations we have made.  The knowledge that we have accumulated since August is putting into good use!  We prepared an appendix with 20 sections, spanning across the functional areas of HR, Accounting, Marketing, Strategy, and Operations, for use on the day of the exam.  And with some luck, our study group made an accurate guess for the final exam question, so eventually I had all the information I needed for the final exam.

As soon as the final exam ended, most students anxiously got back into their own business plan team.  The breakouts room in the Henry Angus building were jam packed.  At that point of time, most teams have completed the necessary research, but has not started writing.  To catch up, for three consecutive days, sleep and regular meals were sacrificed. It was pure adrenaline rush from then on.  The night before the submission headline, a dozens of the team were out at Kinkos after 5am to get the project documents binded.  Yes, you read it correctly – a BIG PARTY at Kinkos!

We then had our business plan presentations on Thursday, and after that, the CORE graduation ceremony! Three months of hard work has now paid off.  In the evening, we were downing a few drinks and dancing away past midnight at the Century house, joined by our Core profs. to celebrate the accomplishment we all made in the past three months.

A few words cannot justly describe how intense and intellectually simulating the Core program is. Made no mistake, during the three months there was little time to relax, and many of us spent absolutely no time with families, wife, kids, and friends.  But as I mentioned before, with strong will power and focus on your goals, nothing is impossible.  Also, with a tightly bonded team, ANYTHING can be accomplished.  I cannot stress how important teamwork was during the Core – whether it is in project teams or study groups.  The knowledge sharing opportunities in a team situation is something that I really enjoyed and appreciated.  Those that do not know how to work with people from a diverse background will be hard-pressed to gain any success – and this is my major takeaway from the Core.

Although now I am on holiday, in the next two weeks, I will do some more blogging about my experience during the Core (most likely a three part series).  Until then, I will be sleeping and snowboarding as much as I can   😀

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Update on what is happening in the Core Class

In case you are wondering why there are not many posts from the first year class, the inactivity is due to the fact we are in the middle of Final exams period. Last week, we finished writing 3 finals – HR, Supply Chain, and strategy. This week, we will be tackling Finance, Marketing, Macro Economics, and Managerial Economics. On top of that, we just handed in a decision brief this morning, and will be presenting our recommendations to the CEO of uniPHARM tomorrow morning. Adding to all this excitement, Clive Beddoe, Chairman of West Jet, will be visiting our class tomorrow afternoon. This is the event that I am truly looking forward to!

Despite the fast paced schedule that we are having, many of us were able to spared their time participating in other wonderful activities. About 2 weeks ago, a student exchange fair was hosted by the MBA office. The inbound exchange students of this year were gathered together to provide us first year students with very detailed information about the school that they are representing. I managed to speak to students from Germany, France, China, Hong Kong, Austria, and Finland, but unfortunately ran out of time and couldn’t meet those from India, US, UK, and Australia. All the schools has something different to offer – some schools have a really strong finance emphasis, others are more famous for marketing and strategic management.  Similar to Sauder, one thing I found in common among all the schools is the high level of diversity – it is quite common that a class is made up of students from 20-25 different countries.

A few of us were also participating in several BCC and student club events.  Just 2 weeks ago, the Business Career Center invited Francesco Aquilini, owner of the local NHL hockey team Vancouver Canucks and managing director of Aquilini Investment Group, to speak to the current MBA class.  Mr. Aquilini described in details how he ended up gaining 100% ownership of the Canucks (it was not his initial intention).  He also stressed the importance of developing the skill sets of both entrepreneur and business manager, and just having skills from one side is not enough to be competitive in today’s business environment.

And this past Thursday and Friday, many first year students toured the Frito Lay factory.  Others that are more interested in marketing joined the DDB agency tour organized by the marketing club, and gained significant inside scope on how a large, global ad agency operate, plus learning about what they look for in recruiting new staff 🙂

It is quite amazing how some of us could still find the energy to be extremely active, but motivation can go a long way.  Anyhow, it is time for me to get back to my studies and presentation preparation.  Got to be at school 7:30am tomorrow to rehearse for the presentation with my team (I don’t want to embarrass myself in front of all these senior executives)!

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Period 6, class 2011

I promised to write more about our trip to Italy and details about the MBA Sailing competition, but Jason Collis, the skipper, has already wrote a great and very informative piece about this trip. It was posted in UBC Blog, and I can`t really add a lot to what was said.

So it is the final, 6th period, in our MBA program. Another 4 weeks, and we will be done. I can`t believe it! It is obviously very exciting, but it is also means a lot of changes and choices. Everyone is very busy working on the assignments and looking for the full-time position.

A few words about the classes I am taking during this period:

New Product Development by Tim Silk. The class is about new product development, the adoption stages, the barriers to entry. We have to create a project that will follow all the elements of new product development and promotion. I enjoy it a lot, and I feel it is much more productive to have two-hours class twice a week – you can learn so much more!

Internet marketing by Paul Cubbon. It is a great class with my favorite marketing professor – useful and entertaining, a lot of information, a lot of fun. We have to create a marketing blog and add the posts about internet marketing news, innovations and ideas. We also have to find a real company and create a plan for the internet marketing. Sounds like fun so far! And here is the link to my marketing blog: http://juliadorofeeva.blog.com/

CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility). Very interesting class. Two profs, both are from the industry, guest speakers, meaningful discussions. My group was the first one to present our case, and I learned a lot while putting together the presentation.

Intellectual Property. I believe, it will be useful, although it is a bit challenging for me and the assignments are not the easiest thing to do also. Anyway, I guess everyone has to have this type of classes once in a while.

Apart from classes, there is a lot of things are going on. The main thing that everyone in the class is busy with is full-time job search. Many people, including myself, are trying to identify at least the industry they want to target, and the geographical location for the next couple of years=)

Also we have a case competition in Toronto, and a team of four, including myself, is flying there this week to fight with 10 other teams. Very excited, I will tell you more about it when I am back!

Posted in 2010 MBA Class, Case Competition, Specialization | Leave a comment

Halloween party @ MBA House

Hola people,

It is my pleasure to share my MBA experiences with you. What better occasion than to write about the Halloween party we had last night !!

Halloween @ MBA House

Peilin

We celebrated Halloween party this Saturday night @ the MBA House. The theme was Pirates & Sailors vs Cowboys & Indians. For some of us who are new to North American culture, this was an experience of some kind. As I started from my home to go to the MBA House, the atmosphere outside was jubilant with all sorts of people in different costumes headed to their parties. When I reached MBA house, few of the excited ones had already reached the venue.  The music was full on and pirates and cowboys were displaying their aura. Few of them had parted away from the theme, but these were the ones who were most admired. Some of us were so natural in our makeup and apparel, that it was hard to recognize them!


With a plethora of assignments to work on, it was amazing to see such enthusiasm and excitement. There was a reward for the best Halloween costume. There were a few good contenders but the coveted prize was won by Peilin (see pic).

We mingled, we chirped, we pounced on the cupcakes and then we burped. It was an amazing evening where we had great fun, forgetting for a day that we are in midst of a grilling core…

Cheers,

Amit

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Greetings from the 2012 Class

Hello there!

It is my pleasure to make the first blog post on behalf of the 2012 class.  My name is Sunny Yip (with pen name Sunny Rock).  I am a first year student at UBC’s Robert H. Lee Graduate School at the Sauder School of Business.

As this is my first post, perhaps I should briefly introduce myself.  I was born in Hong Kong, China but has been living in Vancouver for more than 17 years (plus about one year in Japan).  My background is in accounting and I do have a CGA designation.  My purpose to enroll in the MBA program is to broaden my skill set, and I am most interested in learning more about International Business and E-commerce.

I cannot believe it is 9 weeks into the core program already and the first final will be on Nov 8th! From what I see so far, I can tell you that all 107 members from the 2012 class have worked extremely hard to meet the challenges set out by the Core Professors.  That, of course, does not mean we only care about the notes and the textbook.  Many of us also engage in various MBA club activities and playing sports.  A balance just has to be found somewhere!

The core profs try their best to stimulate our learning.  Various methods such as case studies, assignments, team projects and field trip have been utilized to help us internalize new concepts.  We were also exposed to the concept of Design Thinking, a creative process of problems resolution championed by Ideo.  To put it briefly, we learn many new business concepts everyday and these knowledge prepare us to not only be business savvy, but also become innovative change agents for our communities.

Learning in the Core are not just confined to the technical aspect of business.  Elysha Ames last year have written a great post about the things learned during the core: people focus, not afraid to try new things, and take initiatives. I would like to add three more points to that list:

#4 Make mistakes.  University is a great place to learn from your own mistake.  The core profs recognize that and we usually do not get heavily penalized on assignments if we make a mistake here or there.  Make no mistake (no pun intended): Grades are important, especially for Consulting jobs, but it can be “overrated” if too much emphasis is put on it. It is mind-blogging that many great ideas are evolved from mistakes and failed ideas (e.g. 3M Post-it notes).  Simply put, too conscious about making mistake is detrimental to learning, gaining new insights, as well as formulating new ideas.

#5 Listen and response to criticism.  During the Core, there are many opportunities for professors and fellow classmates to critique each other’s work or behavior.  Listen to what they say and make notes to improve.  Criticism may not sound so sweet but is a very important, and valuable, learning tool.

#6 Do not lose sight of your goal(s).   Sleep is a true luxury on some days during the Core semester , and fatigue, and distraction, is a great enemy of motivation.  To maintain that motivation to reach success in Core, and of course life in general, look back on your goal(s) to remind yourself why you are here at UBC in the first place.

Overall, I am very pleased with the learning experience so far and I look forward to the rest of the core.  Final exams and Business Plan project, here I come!

Sunny

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Champions on the High Seas

UBC MBA SailingThe Sauder sailing team finished 3rd in the 4th edition of the SDA Bocconi’s MBA Cup. The annual regatta attracted 21 schools from all over the world. Kudos to the Sailing team for flying the Sauder brand high and making us all proud with their victory. (Bellow is a personalized account of the tournament from Jason Collis, president of the Sailing Club).

Santa Margherita and Portofino, which were the two host towns for the regatta, were both beautiful.  They were old fishing villages that had been transformed in recent years into an incredible sailing oasis on the Italian Riviera. 

We had 10 teammates from The Sauder School of Business in Italy.  Eight people in Division A – Craig Terry, Jorge Lobo, Julia Dorofeeva, Enrique Sandoval, Ingrid Hartmann, Julien Traverse, Neil Simpson and myself as the skipper (Jason Collis).  In Division B we had 2 teammates – Robin Poirier and Kelly Moss.  In Division B our teammates were able to sail on a mixed boat with students from many different schools from all over the world.  While some people on the team had extensive racing backgrounds like Craig Terry and myself, most of the sailors had little to no experience prior to this year.  The team was extremely committed to doing well and representing the school. We trained several times per week and had a great deal of support from the Vancouver sailing community especially from our volunteer coaches.   The team is very multinational, we have members from Venezuela, Mexico, USA, Russia and Canada.  We all took sailing lessons at the beginning of the year and received CYA certifications and then continued to hone our skills throughout the rest of the year by training skills and entering local area regattas.  By the time we were leaving for Italy everyone’s skills had dramatically improved. 

We got in on Thursday September 23rd and picked up the boat that we would be racing for the next 3 days and met the other teams.  The other teams were from the top business schools from all over Europe and the US.  We spent the first day getting used to the boat and the first night getting to know some of the other teams. 

The regatta was split into 2 divisions, with the 1st and 2nd place from each division moving on on Sunday to the semi-finals.  The first day we only had one race and it was cancelled due to lack of wind, so by the second day we were raring to go.  The breeze was picking up by the late morning and we got a race off.  We got a good start and continued that advantage up the race course.  The crew work on the boat was excellent, everyone was working together smoothly, our training was definitely paying off.  Even with a few equipment breakdowns we were able to win the first race in our division and in the 2nd race we placed 3rd.  With this result we moved onto the semi-finals on the last day.

The parties and events that SDA Bocconi had planned were all amazing.  The first night they took everyone on a boat cruise over to Portofino into the incredible harbour and had drinks and finger foods, and then back to Santa Margherita for dinner and dancing.  The MBA conference was on the Saturday night.  They brought everyone to a castle overlooking the coast and we listened to a discussion on how talent would propel the world economy out of the crisis.  They had business leaders from Italy and Europe discussing their opinions and we all learned a lot.  We then had dinner and drinks and had another great night.

In the morning we were sailing in the semi-finals.  The format changed to match-racing on smaller boats.  We had to cut the crew number to only 5 sailors so we had some tough decisions to make.  Everyone had sailed so well to that point and we made our decisions but this was a complete team effort and we thank everyone who was supporting us from the sidelines and that includes our B division teammates, our coaches, everyone from the sailing club, Sauder and the Vancouver sailing community.  The match-racing was something that I had never done before but luckily Craig Terry had extensively experienced this in this racing past and was able to coach us expertly.  We did our best and we led the 2nd race of 2 against SDA Bocconi (the eventual winners) for most of the race until they were finally able to get the better of us.  We then faced Kellogg for 3rd place and were able to beat them in both of our races to receive the 3rd place.  We were absolutely thrilled with our finish.  The team really pulled together and performed extremely well and represented Sauder with great skill and class. 

We want to take this opportunity to thank everyone who supported us along the way.  Sauder for supporting us both financially and with encouragement.  Our sponsors, Sperry and North Sails for all of the great equipment that helped us bring home that great result.  Our teammates both in Italy and back here in Vancouver for making us the great team that we were.  And our coaches and the Vancouver sailing community that took us in and helped us prepare for this without thought of reward.  Special thanks to Dean Daniel Muzyka, John Dixon, Jane Lumbers, Tony Boardman, Kin Lo, Doug Ramsey, Owen Griffin, Katriona MacDonald and Claudia and Louis Montpellier. 

Jason Collis
President – Sailing Club

Sauder victorious at the SDA Bocconi’s MBA Cup

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