MBA Blogs

On April 12^th, the SCMA and Supply Chain Faculty visited Amazon’s Fulfillment Center near Allentown, PA.  The visit started with a tour of the fulfillment center.  The tour highlighted how Amazon manages its physical inventory, ranging from how product is received and stored to how individual customer orders are picked, packaged and shipped.  After the tour, we had lunch and a Q&A session with Senior Leadership.  This visit was a great opportunity to learn more about Amazon’s operations and gain a behind-the-scenes look at this fast-growing company.

-Angela Shershin, Penn State Smeal MBA ’14

Wine Tour

On Sunday, April 21^st, the WMBA invited members of both classes to a tasting and tour of the Seven Mountains Winery just outside of State College.  For this visit, the group was split in half.  While one half toured the winery, the other half experienced a wine tasting.  In the tour, we saw the fermentation process and laboratory where the quality of each batch is checked.  Then we saw the aging process in Seven Mountains’ unique wine cave as well as the bottling process.   For the wine tasting, everyone had the option to sample seven wines out of Seven Mountain’s extensive portfolio.   After the tour and tasting, the entire group sat down together with cheese and crackers.  This event was a great way to spend time with our classmates before everyone parted ways this summer.

Golf Workshop

On Wednesday, April 24^th, the WMBA hosted a Golf Workshop at the driving range at the Penn State Golf Course.  Our instructors were 2^nd years, now official Smeal MBA Graduates, Rahul Gupta and Phil Ayoub.  Despite the impending threat of rain, Rahul and Phil were able to show us the basics in how to hold and swing a golf club.  Then everyone had an opportunity to hit a few golf balls.  Although the workshop was cut short due to the rain, Rahul and Phil did a wonderful job and everyone enjoyed learning more about golf techniques.

-Angela Shershin, Penn State Smeal MBA ’14

On March 22^nd, Chevron and the SCMA hosted an internal case competition for the Smeal MBA Program.  There were nine teams of four, making a total of 36 participants.  The case was distributed two days before the 22^nd, on the evening of March 20^th.  This year, the case was written by Chevron and loosely based on a real business case that Chevron faced.  The teams then had approximately 36 hours to read, analyze and develop a recommendation.

On the morning of March 22^nd, each team presented their recommendation to a small panel of three judges.  Two of the judges were representatives from Smeal’s faculty and the third judge was a representative from Chevron.   Each presentation had a ten minute formal portion followed by a ten minute Q&A session.

After the morning round of presentations, all of the judges came together and decided which four teams should move onto the final round.  The teams to move on were: Delta, Echo, Tango and Zulu.  Then each of these four teams presented their recommendations to all of the judges.  After this final round of presentations, the judges deliberated one last time to determine the winner.

Once the judges reached a consensus, the winners were announced.  After this announcement, the representatives from Chevron debriefed the case and explained what course of action Chevron took given the real case.  Then everyone had the opportunity to ask the Chevron representatives questions about the case and Chevron’s operations.  Overall, the case competition was a great opportunity to practice our communication skills and learn more about Chevron.

1^st Place: Team Delta

Yasar Awan

Arvind Dutta

Shridhar Vijay Kumar

Ankit Mahajan

2^nd Place: Team Zulu

Andrew Driscoll

Isaac Gabay-Blitz

Tom Impellitteri

Josh Mathis

3^rd Place: Team Echo

Binh Nguyen

Lynn Nguyen

Brian Plowman

Sean Quinn

4^th Place: Team Tango

Syed Rabbul Nawaz Khazi

Xiao Hui Li

Linh Peters

Shaun Thangaraj

-Angela Shershin, Penn State Smeal MBA ’14

On April 21, 2013, members of the WMBA, as well as a few fellow MBA students ran a 5K or walked a mile as a fundraiser for the Special Olympics of Pennsylvania.  Through our Date Auction in February 2013 and a few personal donations, the WMBA raised over $2,000!  While not everyone ended up being able to attend the run/walk, Courtney Budd, Josh Gertel, Julie Golofski, Maryam Shahri, and myself (Diane Merzbach) joined over 3,700 participants which ended on the 50 yard line of Beaver Stadium.  The entire event raised more than $360,000, which is the largest fundraiser for Special Olympics PA to date!

Overall, the experience was amazing.  They let the Special Olympics participants being walking first, then a few minutes later, gave the countdown and let a flood of people loose on Curtin Road.  Myself, Julie, and Maryam sped walked to make sure that we got to the finish line in time to cheer on our classmates, Courtney and Josh.  I could definitely see why the football players love running onto the field – the experience of walking through the tunnel into the center of the field was simply amazing.  The first running came in at just over 16 minutes, and while we were waiting for our friends, another runner was surprised by her boyfriend – who proposed!  All in all, the experience was one that only one word could describe: inspirational.

On April 9^th, the WMBA joined forces with the Women in Business (WIB) Association, Smeal’s Undergraduate Women’s Association, and the Women’s Law Caucus for a session called Career and Cupcakes.  The purpose of this session was to present post-undergraduate options for the WIB members while eating delicious cupcakes and cookies.

First, MBA Admissions Director Stacey Dorang Peeler gave a presentation on the general MBA admission process and tips for success.  Next, representatives from the WMBA gave an insider view of the MBA experience.  Then representatives from the Women’s Law Caucus spoke about the admission process and daily life at law school.  Lastly, MBA alum Julie Infantino, spoke about her career journey and gave her nuggets of wisdom.  This event gave the WIB members the opportunity to ask any graduate school or general career questions.

-Angela Shershin, Penn State Smeal MBA ‘14

I wish to thank everyone for coming to the Student Career Strategy Workshop on 19^th April. It was a great experience to say the least. Everyone came together to discuss their goals and their strategies for a job search this summer. Mike Bassani has already circulated a MOM, hopefully it helps everyone. I had a number of takeaways from the meeting and below I try to summarize them all:

1. Start early: It is imperative that we start early with our job search. It was discussed in the meeting and it made a lot of sense. Most of the students should have 2-3 weeks of lean time between the last day of school and their first day at internship. This is a great opportunity to fine tune our interviewing skills, network with recruiters and set up our internship goals. More importantly starting early with our networking may also send a very strong signal to the recruiters about our seriousness as an applicant.
2. Find alumni chapters in the location you are interning and network with them. I am sure everyone knows that we can find local alumni chapters in the alumni directory. It may be a good idea to search alumni in the location we are interning and plan to meet them in person when there.
3. Linkedin Tips: Some great tips on using Linkedin were shared during the meeting. Mike’s email summarizes them well. If anyone still needs help, speak to John White (Class of 2014).
4. Twitter: Be on twitter and look out for webinars. Everyone agreed that a beforehand knowledge of the company gives an edge over other applicants during the interview. Twitter happens to be the one site that can keep us up to date with all the latest happenings in our target companies. Isaac pointed out that one could find seminars/webinars about the latest developments in a firm by following the firm on twitter. A number of us do not have a twitter account, including me. I believe it’s time we had one. Let’s bother Isaac and Marcus (Class of 2014), to learn twitter if we need to.
5. This point was brought up by Tom and reiterated by Mike in his email:  We must be careful while choosing subjects in the fall semester and refrain from overloading ourselves. A number of companies shall be recruiting this fall. It may be advisable to follow a balanced approach. We must make sure that we are able to justify both our job search and our academics.
6. Setup our goals and keep track of our progress. Planning is a key ingredient to success. A number of tools are available to help set goals and track progress. Some use spreadsheets (Matt Marshall seems to be able to do that successfully) whereas some use Microsoft Outlook (Mike Bassani had some great ideas). We can use the tool we are most comfortable with and track our progress.

Hopefully the information helps. Even if you already knew these tips, you now know whom to get in touch with in case you wish to fine tune your skills.

I wish everyone the best of luck for the Exec Panel Competition.  Enjoy the summer that follows.

-Vibhor Kharbanda, Penn State Smeal MBA ’14

Name: Jose Fanjul

Concentrations: Marketing and Supply Chain

Internship: Marketing Intern with The Dow Chemical Company

Future Plans: I will join The Dow Chemical company as a Commercial Excellence Manager.I’ll be working for the marketing and sales department located in their headquarters in Midland, Michigan.

Why did you choose Smeal: I choose Smeal because it was a small program with a great family like environment. At the same time the school offered great rankings, reputation and vast alumni network. I knew I wanted to come to Smeal after I came to visitation weekend and I met my future classmates, wonderful staff and great faculty.

What has been your favorite Smeal MBA memory thus far: I had many great experiences so far among them: Working with an amazing group of classmates,  being a finalist for the Walmart’s Logistics case competition, going to San Francisco for global immersion and attending football games.