MBA Blogs

It has been more than two months since I first stepped on the land of Penn State University. Despite the heavy study load and busy days and nights, each of us has gained incredible expertise and experience at Smeal.

But besides academic and career challenges we encountered, the most challenging problem for us, international students, is that we need to departure from our domestic success and move on to our American adventure as a global leader.

This challenge is not as simple as the change of “Tea Break” into “Coffee Buzz,” but we feel confident to achieve this transformation with the efforts of everyone in MBA program office and MBA Association.

MBA office prepared lots of information about living in a new campus and resettling ourselves in a new town. Domestic students volunteered to teach us rules of Football so that we can get into this great part of culture of Penn State and start to utilize this information in network.

We were prepared with thorough information brochure including almost everything needed to live in town, information channels, study guiding and even shopping tips.

In order to help us expand our career path, Career Service Office designed diverse career events in the past Career Immersion Week. Almost every aspect for a business leader was trained during this productive week:  re-acknowledgment of our work experience and resume revision, interview preparation and skills training, including Etiquette Dining rules and Dressing codes.

For almost all the international students, culture exchanges are encouraged by multiple events. Indian students held Diwali (the greatest Indian traditional festival) and showed their great dancing and musical skills.  Hispanic Heritage Month provides us with amazing gourmet and full view about Hispanic culture. The Chinese students are looking forward to Spring Festival, because we’re willing to share our joy and introduce to our colleagues great Chinese culture.

In one word, diversity is defined and illustrated in multiple ways here at Smeal and the transition from tea to coffee, from home country to America seems to be a much easier process than we ever conceived.

-Jingwen Xiang
MBA Class of 2011

The MBAA sponsored International Movie nights during the career immersion week, showing movies from India, China, and Russia, which reflected the cultural diversity of our class. It was a great opportunity to get familiar with different cultures and backgrounds, have a couple hours of break from academic and professional work, and spend more time with fellow classmates. I attended one of the nights and the outcome was quite impressive. I did not expect to see this amount of enthusiasm from everyone. A special thanks to Varun Abraham, VP of International Affairs, for coordinating this event, and all who attended. Looking forward to more events in the near future.

Sara Kolahdouzan
Smeal MBA Class of 2011

What started with little apprehension and nervousness, soon turned into a smooth ride and a lovely learning experience for us, the students at Indian Institute of Management Bangalore. When we learned about the project with IBM in collaboration with the Penn State team, we comprehended the difficulties that teams generally face. But thanks to the superb guidance by Mike and the support by the IBM team of experts, this project has turned out to be fun. Mike has been a true team lead and with the support of IBM experts, we have managed to proceed towards the goal of managing a difficult project. The regular weekly discussion calls have been a great way for us to work towards this project without losing focus. Also, we have been fortunate enough to have Penn State as the other team in this project. Their earlier experience of working with IBM has helped us a great deal. Another interesting feature of the project has been the global location of teams.

We would like to thank both the IBM and Penn State teams for being friendly partners in this project. We look forward to working in close collaboration with all of them in the future.

- Doiphode Amol Vilas, Roshan Agarwal, Debabrata Gosh – IIMB (Indian Institute of Management of Bangalore)

Well, we are a little more than half way through the project. I continue to marvel at the accomplishments of both PSU and IIM-B. As we had thought prior to the project, this is a complicated and challenging topic and I like the way the students from both Universities are approaching it and working. The papers from both Universities have been well detailed and comprehensive. My IBM colleagues share the same thoughts. Now we must begin to start to think about packaging the hard work as the semester will soon begin to close. I have confidence in both student teams and think they can complete the project in a very positive manner. More importantly, I hope they “learned” a great deal and I hope that we at IBM are helping them understand the techniques of good project management.

The Nittany Lions won again Saturday and are now 8-1. Big game coming up with Ohio State.

As I mentioned in my last note, I really “dig” music. So here here is an appropriate song for all of us be we students or workers trying to earn a living. It is another of my favorites and fits perfectly with what’s coming.. Monday.. it is called “Manic Monday” by the Bangles. “It’s just another Manic Monday, Wish it were Sunday. That’s my fun day, My  I don’t have to run day”. Hey isn’t this the truth?

http://new.music.yahoo.com/videos/–2139152
And for the IIMB team, here is a song from a personal favorite movie, “Bend it Like Beckham”.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ha-uSc7eE7k&NR=1

-Mike Franzese, IBM

Sometime during my career search, I decided that I was going to get into solar energy. The industry has been given a new lease on life in recent years; the biggest benefit coming from stimulus programs, like the recovery act and renewable portfolio standards (to name a few). But looking at the list of corporate partners and recruiters that come to Penn State, the top five companies aren’t in the solar business. How was I going to meet solar companies and eventually land myself a job?

I was given the advice in my first year that I should take advantage of any major conference. When I saw the Solar Power International conference pop up on the Internet, I had to jump on it – plus it was in CA….where it was warm!

I first arrived at the conference and was immediately overwhelmed by the size. There were 22,000 people in attendance. There were representatives up and down the value chain. In order to make the most of my time, I needed a game plan – it was way too easy to get lost in the hullaballoo.

I’m neither an engineer nor a scientist; but I know how to finance a project and run a business. Therefore, I decided that I needed to network with companies that were beyond the R&D stage and that were involved with large, utility-scale projects – this was where I could add the most value to a company. And man did I network!
It was less about my networking ability than it was about the overall willingness of everyone at the conference to talk about their business and products. And I was unique – I was an MBA student from the other side of the country here to learn about solar. The people that I talked with were more than forthcoming with advice and contacts to talk job opportunities. All-in-all, it was a wonderful experience and well worth the time and money.

Brian Conry
Penn State Smeal MBA, 2010
Graduate Assistant, MBA Career Services
Executive Director, PSEN

At 6:30pm, Oct 22, 2009, in the atrium of business building, MBA students, staff and faculty lined up for the Indian food. Later on, Indian students, Americans, and other internationals, were dancing and singing in traditional Indian way.

A passerby asked me, “What is happening here?”

I replied, “Diwali party, which is organized and performed by current MBA students and staff.”

So, what is Diwali?

It’s an official holiday in India, a significant 5-day festival occurring between the end of September and early November. Diwali is also known as the Festival of Lights, when the adherents of Diwali-celebrating faiths light small clay lamps filled with oil to signify good over evil within an individual.

In a program that values diversity, international students represent about thirty percent of entire class, which not only provides different perspectives in the class discussion, but also brings lots of fun and dynamics to the packed MBA student life. The Indian Diwali party is a vivid demonstration of it.

This year’s Diwali party was a tremendous success. The food was delicious, and was suitable for both vegetarian and non-vegetarian preferences. The dancing and singing was awesome, and truly gave audience a real taste of Indian culture.

Laughing and applauding; camera flashing; video recording.

This moment is about fun.

This moment is about happiness.

This moment is about diversity.

This moment is about diversion, from busy MBA life.

This moment is about sharing.

- Zhang, Xiaoyu (Eric)
MBA Class of 2010

10:00am EST, Thursday, Oct 8^th, 2009, business building, University Park, State College:

A young man, with one knapsack and one carry-on case on the left hand, and one plastic bag on the right hand, rushed down the stairs, crushed into a car, and headed toward the airport.

10:45am EST, a small airplane took off from the State College airport, flying to Minneapolis, with two stops in the middle.

5:30pm Central Time, the young man finally set his foot on the land of Minneapolis, the city of thousands of lakes.

The young man above is me, a 2^nd year MBA student at the Penn State Smeal MBA program.

To make the trip to the National Society of Hispanic MBA Conference & Career Expo (NSHMBA) conference, the 2nd largest MBA career fair in this country, I changed the final exam schedules of my three finance courses.  I also had one finance course take-home exam due first thing the following Monday. Four 2^nd year students and three 1^st year students went to the NSHMBA conference. I said to myself – “ok, we will see. It could turn out not that fruitful. But if I don’t go, I will regret.” Actually, it’s my first time to attend this kind of big career fair.

9:00am, Friday, Oct 9^th, 2009:  My roommate and I waited on the line in the hall of the Conference Convention Center, to get our registration name tags. Then, with thousands of other MBA students, just like a school of fish, I crawled along to the companies’ booths, talking with recruiters and showing off my passion, interests and skill sets.

There were around 200 companies on site, offering full-time and internship positions in various corporate functions. So, preparation played a big part. I brought my target company list, which is grouped into 2 tiers.  The companies in tier 1 are my most desired companies. I went to the tier 2 companies first, as a way to warm up by sharpening my skills. After a while, I approached my tier 1 companies, with confidence and a smile.

Like I said before, there were so many MBA students from all over the country with various skills and backgrounds. How do you stand out from the rest of the crowd? First of all, conduct deep research on your target companies and the positions they are offering, so that you can find the common bond between yourself and the companies. Second, prepare the elevator speech to impress the recruiters in the first thirty seconds. Practice, practice and practice more. Third and most important, be yourself. Recruiters are smart people, and they have interviewed thousands of candidates. They can look through you and tell who you are and what you can bring to the table. So don’t lie and don’t hide, and tell what you can and should tell.

The 2-day NSHMBA conference was pretty exhausting. But at the end of the first day, you still need to gear up for the next day. The second night, I fell asleep at 7:00pm, and slept until the next day.

Oct 11^th, midnight, I landed at the State College airport. I was glad to be back, and put other things back on track.

What I can say about the MBA career fair is to make your trip there and try to get the most out of it.  The best part is that you can meet your targeted companies who will never show up in your school. When you are on the spot, you have to be yourself and show who you are and what you can add value to the companies. In this way, you can make some difference.

Zhang, Xiaoyu (Eric)
MBA Class of 2010

At the beginning of the semester, when we learnt about the opportunity to work with IBM on a Reverse Logistics based project, we were very excited.  We knew that IBM has been a consistent pioneer in applying latest Supply Chain ideas and methods in its operations and in recent years IBM has zeroed in on Reverse Logistics as one of the most promising new sectors of business opportunity.  We became doubly enthusiastic about the project when we found out that the project will be a joint collaboration between Smeal MBA students and Students from Indian Institute of Management at Bangalore, India (IIM-B).  While we were going through the relentless grinding of 1st Year MBA curriculum, we often wondered how our fellow MBA travelers in other schools are faring.  Are they going through the same frantic pace or are they having it easier?  Are they learning the same ideas and methods as we are doing or are they picking up something more?  Whenever we met someone from another school we quickly compared notes about our experiences.  We found that although the basic curriculums in all schools are broadly similar, each school leaves its markedly different imprint in all its students.  That’s why we are very keen about this collaborative project.  We knew that our two schools are bringing two different sets of skills and perspectives in the working group.  We have a great opportunity to learn from each other.

IBM has also assembled a great team to oversee our project.  The point man for the IBM side is Mike Franzese, a senior program manager who is currently based in the IBM offices at Southbury, Connecticut.  Mike has a long history of working with the Center for Supply Chain Research at Smeal.  He keeps reminding us that how much he enjoys interacting with students, especially now since his son and daughter have left home and gone to colleges.  Apart from Mike, IBMers advising us on the project are, Cathy Raybeck from Fishkill, NY, Peter Braunschiedel from Endicott, NY, Kevin O’Connor from Poughkeepsie, NY, Pitipong Veerakamolmal from Waltham, MA, Stephan Laforge from IBM-France, and Mohamed Zakaria and  Jayapreetha Natesan from IBM-India.  It is quite an impressive international group of experts!  We, the students, feel highly privileged that so many IBMers from all over the world are giving up a part of their busy work hours to advise us on the project.

And that brings us to another interesting part of our ongoing collaboration.  Anyone who has scheduled international conference calls knows what a thankless job it is to agree upon a time when everyone can get onboard.  Bangalore is 9 hours and 30 minutes ahead of Eastern Standard Time.  When our school hours start in the morning, it is already dark in Bangalore and students are winding up after another day in the business school.  Our weekly conference calls usually start around 9-o-clock in the morning when it is 6:30 in the evening in India.  Our Indian colleagues have been very accommodating and haven’t expressed the slightest displeasure hinting their discomfort.  After DST reverts to winter time in 1st November and the time difference between State College and Bangalore widens to 10 and a half hours, we may be trying the patience of IIM-B students a little in persisting with the 9:00 am schedule.

So far we’re near to the halfway mark of the project plan.  Our progress is a lagging a little from the anticipated timeline because threshing out the details of the project took longer than expected and our regular schedule of work kept getting on the way.  We’re confident now that we’ve crossed the unsettled phase and home stretch of deliverables lies clearly ahead of us.  Working on this project is a highly rewarding experience for us.  We cannot overstate our gratefulness towards IBM for the incredible support.

-Shafiq Rahman, Ron Fresta and Adeline Letizia (Smeal MBA Class of 2010)

This looks like a super exciting project. I have worked with Penn State on 3 different projects in the past and found the students of top caliber both as students and more importantly as people. What do I think of Penn State? Well all my life I rooted against PSU as a football team and now I root for PSU !!!!!!. The students have converted me !!!!.   This is my first project with IIMB but I know it is a top Indian University. I have Logistics Market Intelligence background and some knowledge but I know very little of Reverse Logistics so I am glad that I have strong IBM people as Subject Matter Experts providing leadership and guidance to the students. Adeline is a superb leader for Penn State. I look forward to this project. For significant times of my IBM career I have worked in IBM World Trade and traveled to Asia. Latin America and Europe. This will be a terrific experience for the students of both Universities as they will experience the global nature of today’s business world as they must deal with each other “across an ocean” and collaborate together to be successful at a project. This will be a great introduction for them.

I have always liked music and videos so I thought to myself what would be a great theme, premise for this project? I thought of the song “It’s a Matter of Trust” by Billy Joel. Why? Because in today’s business world and in life, “trust” is so important, it is essential. So for a light moment or two, here is the video. Please note that I do not see myself as Billy Joel, the lead singer. Rather I am the drummer in the green shirt.

http://new.music.yahoo.com/videos/Billy-Joel/A-Matter-Of-Trust–43934656

-Mike Franzese, IBM

Many of us went to the National Black MBA Career Fair at New Orleans a week ago, and a team of Class of 2010 candidates competed in a case competition during the conference, which was a big success.

To me, the career fair was quite impressive, as it was my first time attending any career fair in any part of the world. However, some people who had attended last year’s NBMBA career fair thought that there were less companies coming to this year’s career fair, which was not a good sign for the economy. However, I found the company representatives at the Career Fair were very helpful, especially when they were not from HR, but rather from the teams which were actually looking for talents. The information from HR representatives was usually too general and they couldn’t understand the position you were interested in as much as the people from a similar position would be able to understand.  Thus, I somehow felt if a company sent only HR people, they were less eager for recruiting.

Working at a Career Fair is always helpful, especially as a real case training of the 2 minute pitch. To effectively, position yourself within the first 30 second of your conversation with the representative is quite challenging.

- Jiafei Huang
Smeal MBA Class of 2010

“I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself. A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself.”
— D. H. Lawrence

Module One is over. Yes, Module One is over!

There were many reasons for why we could quit the MBA program during Module One. Just imagine, at 10:00PM, you suddenly discover you have 100 pages of reading materials to go. Are you sure you still feel comfortable or are you ready to give up? But the point here is Module One is over! We have survived! But, again, the question is what have we learned during Module One, apart from the knowledge of Statistics, Accounting, Management, Communication and Team Process? I bet one thing everyone has mastered is the skill of time management.

The importance of time management should never be over-emphasized. Each week we had more than 400 pages of textbooks or reading packets to accomplish. Honestly, they were not as enjoyable as 400 pages of Da Vanci Code, the Lost Symbol, or An Echo in the Bone, but they were 400 pages of theories about Sequential Regression, the LIFO Reserve, and Abilene Paradox! (Excuse me, say again? What paradox?) Additionally, we had Ten Minute Business Expertise Speech, Team Profile, and Analysis of “Dead Poet Society”. (Wait, is that the dull movie acted by Robin Williams? Yes, but we had to use what we had learned in Management class to give it a thorough analysis. ) Moreover, we had job fairs to attend. We had to prepare answers to 50 behavior questions in order to breathe smoothly during various job interviews. (What? Job interviews? So early?) Furthermore, we must call our parents, hang out with our boyfriends/girlfriends, or play with our kids… What a ton of work we had to take care of! Without time management skills to balance different aspects of our life, we might scream out: “I can NOT stand anymore! I’ll quit the program tomorrow!!!”

Now, after six weeks of intensive “field training”, we have a better grasp of time management skills. We are now confident that we are better prepared for the study in Module Two in the coming week. Besides, we know we will present to the future employers better resumes, and know how to share with them our past experience and values of work and life. Also, we are sure we will better enjoy the games with our family and friends in Beaver Stadium, cheering “We are…Penn State!”

P.S: A recent scientific research shows that without sufficient sleeping, students with the ability of getting As actually got Cs.