Jonathan Pfeffer
Fridays from the Frontline: Oxford Saïd GOTO – A Lesson in Sitting in the Discomfort
Oxford Saïd Business School’s Global Opportunities and Threats: Oxford (GOTO) program brings together small teams of MBA students to develop solutions to large-scale sustainable development problems. Current Oxford MBA student Saskia Rotshuizen took to the Oxford Saïd blog to share insights from this year’s GOTO program, which targeted the climate crisis. Oxford Saïd Global Opportunities and Threats: A Lesson in Sitting in the Discomfort Saskia Rotshuizen, Oxford MBA 2019-2020 What happens when you place a group of solution-oriented MBAs in front of a seemingly insurmountable challenge? Welcome to the GOTO experience. The first day back at school after the MBA... Read more »
Fridays from the Frontline: Student Perspective – Global [email protected]
The Center for Global Management at UCLA Anderson offers MBA students several opportunities to expand their cultural horizons as well as learn about distinct business environments firsthand. In particular, the Global Immersion Courses introduce MBA students to international companies and cultures, first on campus through three courses, then in-country for a week filled with guest speakers, panel discussions, company and startup visits and more. Current Anderson MBA student Kevin Ma took to the UCLA Anderson blog to share takeaways from his experience in India as part of the Global Immersion Program. Read on for his story. Student Perspective: Global Immersion... Read more »
Fridays from the Frontline: Vanderbilt Owen’s Tech Trek
Before joining the workforce, business schools prepare students with hands-on experiences across popular industries. When it comes to the tech sector, Vanderbilt Owen’s annual Tech Trek gives MBA students first hand exposure to the day-to-day operations of some of the biggest companies in Silicon Valley. In this edition of Fridays from the Frontline, we hear from three current Owen MBA students about their takeaways from this year’s Tech Trek. Tech Trek Helps Students Network at Facebook, Google, LinkedIn and More Students visited 12 tech companies in San Francisco over winter break ahead of internship recruiting. Before the start of Mod... Read more »
Fridays from the Frontline: Duke Fuqua Client Consulting Practicum
The consulting industry is one of the most popular career choices of MBA candidates. Business schools like Duke Fuqua stay on top of new and innovative ways to train their graduates to address real-world consulting problems. Case in point: the Fuqua Client Consulting Practicum (FCCP). Current second-year student McCallen Moser MBA ’20 took to the Duke Fuqua blog to offer a snapshot of her FCCP experience. Read on for her work on a project for the U.S. Polo Association (USPA) to increase its marketing outreach to women. Gaining Consulting Experience with Fuqua Client Consulting Practicum McCallen Moser Fuqua MBA ’20... Read more »
Fridays from the Frontline: Diving into the Bustling MIT Ecosystem – Reflections from the Core Semester
During the first semester of business school, students are thrown into the deep end of diverse opportunities to explore their interests. At MIT Sloan in particular, the sheer number of clubs, groups, conferences, and activities tailored to various professional interests are so vast it’s referred to as an “ecosystem.” Current student, energy industry enthusiast, and “Texan at heart and in mind,” Pervez Agwan, took to the MIT Sloan blog to reflect on how the Sloan ecosystem informed his first semester. Read on for his rich account about business school life at MIT Sloan. Diving into the Bustling MIT Ecosystem –... Read more »
Fridays from the Frontline: Sell Day – Chicago Booth Talks What Happens After the Offer
At some point, all of those sleepless nights agonizing over GMAT/GRE prep, admissions essays, and campus visits eventually yield the moment a company extends an offer to recruit you. This part of the MBA process is arguably one of the reasons you may have entertained the idea of applying to business school in the first place. When the time comes, companies often employ a variety of tactics to entice MBA students from elite schools like Booth Chicago to come work for them. Current Booth second-year student Nicole Newman ’20 took to the Booth Experience blog to talk about the use... Read more »
Fridays from the Frontline: How Cornell MBAs Pitched Three Stocks in 13 Hours
Hard quant skills are essential to the careers of any future consultants, analysts, and financial managers, but one aspect of the business school experience that often goes unsung is its role as a concentrated period to help young MBA students develop their intuition as investors. The annual MBA Stock Pitch Challenge is an excellent platform for outstanding finance students from top MBA programs, including Cornell Johnson, to “prepare and present buy/hold/sell recommendations and vigorously defend them [before] a panel of investment industry experts.” Current Cornell Johnson MBA students Alex Hess ’21 and Ronald Song ’21 took to the Johnson Business... Read more »
Fridays from the Frontline: Moving to the States with My Daughter to Pursue an MBA at HBS and Switch Careers
The MBA is a vehicle for change, especially for those looking to switch careers and refine their professional trajectory. The transition to business school comes with its own changes, such as location, lifestyle and more. For Yaping Wang, current Harvard MBA student and former product innovation researcher at Mars Foods, it seemed as though everything had to change in order to pursue her dream. She took to the HBS blog to discuss the reflections that led to her choice of an MBA, all the way through to her experience uprooting from Beijing to relocate to Boston. Read on for her... Read more »
Vanderbilt Owen Outlines How to Finish an MBA Application in 7 Days
The MBA application deadlines are fast approaching, so the admissions team at Vanderbilt’s Owen Graduate School of Management recently offered strategic tips for completing an MBA application in just seven days. Read on for their daily advice. Day 1 Gathering information and create a comprehensive checklist of what you will need to complete your MBA application. Be sure to order transcripts, test scores, and communicate with recommenders early. Day 2 Build your CV. Kim Killingsworth, director of international recruiting and relations at Owen says, “Keep in mind that the resume is the first thing that the admissions officer usually looks... Read more »
Real Humans of UCLA Anderson MBA Class of 2021
We are pleased to continue our Real Humans: MBA Students series with a trip to L.A., which is home to the UCLA Anderson School of Management. Their new Class of 2021 is a diverse cohort of students, including 34 percent women, 33 percent international students, and 29 percent ethnic minorities of the 360-student class. During their undergraduate years, 26 percent of the latest class had studied business. Engineering was the second most popular major, claiming 22 percent of students. Seventeen percent had majored in economics with another 13 percent pursuing humanities. Ten percent had a background in math/sciences and the... Read more »
MBA Essay Tips for Round 2 from Dartmouth Tuck
As the Round 2 deadline approaches, Dartmouth Tuck’s Executive Director of Admissions and Financial Aid Luke Anthony Peña recently took to the Tuck 360 Blog to offer prospective students advice on admissions essays. Luke Anthony Peña, Executive Director of Admissions and Financial Aid at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business As Peña has shared before, the ideal Tuck MBA is smart, aware, accomplished and nice, and the essays provide a vehicle for showcasing some of these qualities. While he and his team have expanded on what makes a strong essay, they now offer a keyword to keep in mind: simplicity. He... Read more »
10% of Full-Time MBAs Got Low-Rate Student Loans from LeverEdge
Many 2020 presidential candidates have made student debt a major talking point—and for good reason. According to Forbes, 45 million Americans currently owe over $1.5 trillion in student loan debt. In the realm of business school, Bloomberg Businessweek notes that nearly 30 percent of MBA students at top MBA programs report taking on a minimum of $100,000 in debt. When one stops to consider that the median starting pay for MBAs from top schools ranges from $80,000 to $140,000, it doesn’t take much math to see what debt means for most graduates. If this predicament hits close to home, dear... Read more »
Fridays from the Frontline: Dartmouth Tuck Students “Venture” to Boston
Like most high-stakes industries with dizzying highs and crushing lows, the field of venture capital has become a smarter and more streamlined operation in the past decade. At this crucial juncture in the evolution of VC, current Tuckies Claire Dalman T’21 and Ross Klosterman T’20 took to the Tuck 360 Blog to share takeaways from their tour of Boston’s VC scene. Tuck Students “Venture” to Boston by Claire Dalman T’21 and Ross Klosterman T’20 Claire Dalman, Tuck MBA ’21 In early November a group of Tuck students interested in venture capital and entrepreneurship traveled to Boston for a packed schedule... Read more »
Chicago Booth Addresses How to Finance Your Booth MBA
The University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business recently offered prospective MBA students advice on planning for tuition and other anticipated expenses while they pursue an MBA. The Value of the Booth MBA Within the first three months, 96 percent of the Class of 2018 received job offers. This year, Forbes ranked Booth America’s Top Business School. While Booth alumni also consistently assert that the Booth MBA pays dividends continuously after graduation, the schools understands opportunities associated with the Booth brand offset tuition costs. Expected Expenses & Beyond In addition to tuition, MBA students need to plan for expenses such... Read more »
UNC Kenan-Flagler Launches STEM-Designated MBA Concentration in Business Analytics & Management Science
In January 2020, UNC’s Kenan-Flagler Business School is slated to launch a new STEM-designated MBA concentration in business analytics and management science as part of its full-time MBA program. Townsend Family Distinguished Professor of Marketing, Rajdeep Grewal, says of the new program, “Our focus is on strategic decision-making to prepare our graduates to use analytics to lead companies…Today, managers are inundated with data that comes in large volume at immense velocity and in diverse, structured and unstructured forms. Through the concentration, our students will develop a deep understanding of business problems and the analytics skills to make informed, data-driven strategic... Read more »
Beyond the Bio Podcast by Bain & Company
Sponsored Content Bain & Company is one of the most highly regarded firms in the management consulting industry. One of the “Big Three,” Bain provides services to organizations around the world and across the public, private, and non-profit sectors. With an annual revenue of $4.3 billion, Bain commands by far the largest market share of private equity consulting, employing 10,500 people in 2019, and operating from 61 locations around the world. There’s plenty of information floating around on the exploits of Bain & Company as a firm, but what about the people inside Bain? How did they make their own... Read more »
Fridays from the Frontline: What STEM Certification Says About Booth And What It Means For International Students
Whether or not an MBA program is STEM designated can make or break an international student’s Stateside career. International students who pursue STEM designated programs receive an additional 2 years of optional practical training (OPT) once they graduate, which is a critical period that helps international students transition from student to proper work visas. Chicago Booth recently announced that its Business Analytics and Analytic Finance concentrations are now STEM-certified. Richa Goya, MBA ’20, President of the Rockefeller Cohort and an officer in the Graduate Business Council, took to the Booth Experience blog to explain the far-reaching benefits of STEM certification... Read more »
MBA News You Need: INSEAD to Open First North American Hub, Rice Jones Hosts 20th Women in Leadership Conference, and more from Carnegie Mellon Tepper, Georgetown McDonough, and UCLA Anderson
Each week we collect MBA news from leading business schools to give you a quick overview of the latest trending topics. In your MBA News You Need digest for the week of December 16th, INSEAD plans to open a San Francisco location in February 2020, Rice Jones hosts a Women in Leadership Conference in February 2020, Carnegie Mellon Tepper MBAs dish their application tips, Georgetown MBAs excelled in the National Real Estate Challenge, and UCLA Anderson rounded up international applicants most common questions. INSEAD Set to Open First North American Hub Slated for February 2020, INSEAD will open a San... Read more »
Texas McCombs Hosts Annual Women’s Weekend for MBA Students
The Texas MBA program at the McCombs School of Business in Austin hosted 55 MBA students along with alumni and faculty for their annual Women’s Weekend. The event seeks to support the empowerment of women in business, and as current student, Jessica Reese-White MBA ’21, said, it really gives a sense of the supportive culture at McCombs: “A lot of programs tell you they have a very welcoming culture for women, but you want to actually see that in practice. McCombs prioritizes diverse classes and having strong representation. It’s still mostly men in the world of business and I think... Read more »
Real Humans of Texas McCombs’ MBA Class of 2021
We are excited to bring you another edition of Real Humans: MBA students in which we introduce some of the newest members of the Texas MBA Class of 2021. The West End of Austin, Texas, earned its nickname the “Silicon Hills” during the US dot com boom of the 1990s and has since grown to house some of the country’s largest and fastest-growing names in the tech sector. University of Texas at Austin’s McCombs School of Business has been both a contributor to and beneficiary of the city’s economic evolution, boasting several stand-out programs and events attached to the institution.... Read more »
