Week 2

Dear Guest,

I have returned sun kissed from the pristine beaches of Monterey Bay to give you a recap of another wonderful week at BASE.  Highlights of this week included an informative workshop on MBA admissions and a visit to Bridgespan, a nonprofit consulting firm, experiences which have given my classmates and I a more informed view of the possibilities that await us as we get ready to enter the workplace.

Particularly impressive was the diversity of the Haas MBA curriculum, which provides students with different talents the framework to achieve their unique visions, from consulting and financial accounting to entrepreneurship and nonprofit management.

Our Friday field trip to the Bridgespan Group has opened up a world of possibility regarding my interest in social entrepreneurship.  My classmates and I participated in a mock case interview where we were presented with a hypothetical case and asked to assume the role of consultants.  The topic centered on an educational company’s options for expansion and fostered lively conversation regarding the quality of public education in our country and insight into the consulting process.

Though tempted to lose ourselves in the bustling streets of San Francisco, the dark cloud of our first accounting quiz looms heavily over most of our heads.  Luckily, many of us have formed study groups, most effective for keeping in check the Facebook and Youtube tendencies of our generation.  I must now dig deep and dive back into the wondrous abyss of assets, liabilities and stockholder’s equity, comforted by the warm aroma of green tea and company of my steadfast compatriots.

Au revoir,

Nadine

Week 1

Dear Reader,

Hello!  My name is Nadine and I’m a rising senior with a major in anthropology at Cal.  This Friday marks the end of my first week at BASE.  I arrived at the Student Services offices and was warmly greeted by BASE staff, handed a nifty backpack full of school supplies and headed off towards the magical world of accounting, marketing, and organizational behavior.

Following a brief orientation by the venerable Dinko Lakic, accounting by Wasim Azhar and a break of dainty snacks, was a wonderful lunch at the Bancroft Hotel, where I got the chance to meet even more of my wonderful peers.  A highlight of the week was professor Briggs, or erm…Johnny Briggs arriving to Thursday lecture decked out in a plaid lumberjack shirt, faded jeans, and a backwards baseball cap.  Certainly made accounting for debits and credits more bearable at 8 in the morning.

I am so glad to have such a diverse pool of classmates, half from the Bay Area and the other half from out of state, not to mention several international students.  Though headed home for the weekend, I am looking forward to the following Friday activities.

The MST 55 is not proving to be the most conducive desk so that shall be all for this week.  Take care and see you next week!

Nadine

All good things come to an end.

BASE officially ended last Thursday with a farewell lunch at the Bancroft Hotel. We each received a framed group picture, and hugs from people we probably wouldn’t be seeing for a while—or perhaps forever. Definitely a bittersweet moment.

I should back-track to finals week. We had a business simulation on Monday, in which all of us were employees of an oil company that had to deal with a crisis situation. On Wednesday and Thursday, we had crises of our own. Well, they weren’t exactly crises, just final exams for Accounting and OB. : )

Over the last six weeks, my friends and relatives have constantly been asking me, “So how’s BASE?” My answers always depended upon what was going on at the time (e.g. midterms, group projects, field trips, etc.) Now that the program has ended, I can take a look back at my experience and give a final answer to that question:

My BASE experience has two sides to it: one that was created by the people at Haas (e.g. the professors and program director), and another that was created by my classmates.

I definitely learned the fundamentals of accounting, OB, and marketing from Denis, Holly and Trudy. I’m actualy starting to use some of the things that I learned. I recently took on the duty of directing the youth group at my church, so I’m applying some leadership and management theories that I learned in OB to my work. Everywhere I go, I notice things that I’ve learned from Marketing. Product, price, place, promotion… I constantly find myself analyzing the marketing mixes of different companies! It’s actually a lot of fun. : )

The program itself probably remains pretty consistent from year to year, so it’s the group of students that create a unique and dynamic experience. Never have I been among 52 people who have such diverse backgrounds, viewpoints, and life situations. I certainly learned a lot from the classes, but what I learned from my classmates cannot be found in any textbook. I’ve learned that I’m not the only one who doesn’t know exactly what she wants to do. I’ve been inspired to travel and to explore. My classmates (rather, my friends) have helped me to gain more confidence in myself. They’ve gotten me to believe in my ability to succeed in my career of choice. A few years from now, I may forget how to put together an income statement, but I’ll definitely remember my friends and how they’ve inspired me. And hopefully, we’ll be able to help each other find jobs! : )

So, to Dinko, Denis, Holly, Trudy, and my dear classmates: THANK YOU for a wonderful experience.

—Mai Pham

Google and Group Projects

I’m actually in the middle of working on my take-home final for Marketing right now, but I haven’t posted an update in a while, so I figured I should take a moment to do so. Much has happened, but I just haven’t had the time to write about it!

Google Visit and Networking

My classmates and I were pretty disappointed when we found out that Google was having their company picnic on the day that we were scheduled to visit the headquarters in Mountain View, which meant that we couldn’t come. To make it up, though, a few people from Google came to visit us last Friday. They started the morning off by telling us about Google, and then opened the floor up to our questions. We also had a chance to network with them when they treated us to lunch.

On the same day, we also had a chance to ask a couple of BASE alums about their experiences following BASE. One of them was a molecular cell biology major who’s now a successful investment banker at Morgan Stanley. They told us that their BASE classes still keep in touch with each other via e-mail. Occasionally, they get e-mails from fellow classmates saying, “I got married!” or giving updates on career moves. They said that one of the best things about BASE is the network that you build within your class. In today’s world, we all know how important networking is! Knowing the right people can get you where you want to go.

Group Projects

The two big projects that we had for OB and Marketing were both group projects, and we worked with the same group of four people on both projects. As always, there were definitely many challenges that came with working in teams. I’ve worked in many different teams before, but the experiences I had this time were much more interesting, because we were simultaneously learning about working in teams in OB. We learned about everything we were doing wrong as we did them! Although there were many stressful moments, I felt that it was a valuable hands-on learning experience overall. For me, working on these assignments taught me a lot about myself and factors I should consider in choosing a career.

There’s more to say, but I have to get back to my final. We’re having our business simulation from 9am to 4:30pm tomorrow. It’s supposed to be a very fun and interesting experience, so I’ll definitely talk about that later…

—Mai Pham

53 Students Survived Mid-terms Week

From Sunday to Wednesday, I was a busy bee. At any given moment, I was doing one of only five things: 1) going to class, 2) eating, 3) driving, 4) studying, or 5) sleeping. My life revolved around BASE and the mid-terms that came raining down on us during the third week. I’m glad to say that we all survived! To celebrate our victory against the grueling week, one of our classmates offered up his frat house for a BASE soiree on Thursday night after everything was over. I wanted nothing more than sleep by the time Thursday night came, so I decided not to go, but I heard that everyone had a great time!

This morning we hopped on a charter bus and were transported to the Mervyn’s headquarters in Hayward. We learned about the company, various jobs at the corporate level, what different departments do, and how we can join the company as “executives-in-training” and then make our way up the ladder. Overall, it was a good experience. It’s been nearly four years since I’ve been on a field trip, so it was definitely fun to relive some pre-college moments again!

—Mai Pham

About Me and Week Three

About me…

I realized that I haven’t revealed anything about myself, so here’s a quick spiel. : )

I’m from Alameda, California, and I’ll be graduating from Cal in May ’08 with a degree in sociology. I enjoy most of my sociology classes, and I think the field of study is very interesting, but as of late, my career interests have not been aligned with my major.

So earlier this year, I decided to apply to the BASE program, because I thought I would want to get some kind of marketing job after graduation, work for a few years, and then apply to an MBA program. I was hoping that BASE would help me learn whether my interest in business is real, and what kinds of jobs are available to me. I’m happy to say that after two weeks of the program, my sights are still set on a business career track. I’m also learning that there’s a lot more to marketing than I thought…

Last week, Matthew Cross, who worked in brand consulting at Landor and Interbrand (big names in the business, btw) and is currently Marketing Director for Pasta Pomodoro came to speak in our marketing class. His presentation on branding and package design got me hooked! Although I’m not particularly artistically-inclined nor extremely creative, I believe that there’s a place for me somewhere in brand consulting—and I’m determined to find it.

Week Three: Our busiest week yet

This week makes the word “intensive” in the description of BASE feel oh-so-real:

Monday: take-home marketing midterm exam due Tuesday
Wednesday: OB midterm & accounting problems due
Thursday: marketing case assignment due & accounting quiz
Friday: Mervyn’s company visit!

On Wednesday, I’m also going to visit Deloitte in SF with Esmi, Evan and Oscar—my OB project teammates. We chose to study a Deloitte team for our term project, so we’re probably going to spend a few hours there interviewing and observing a few people.

—Mai Pham

BASE in Pictures

Trudy Kehret-Ward, our Marketing professor, facilitates a discussion about stealth marketing during a lecture on alternatives to traditional marketing communication.

It’s around 8:00am—a few minutes before our negotiations workshop (led by Professor Holly Schroth) began.

Eating lunch at the Foothill dining commons, where some of the students from out of town are staying.

Studying and hanging out in the dorms.

Grubbing on Zachary’s Pizza—brought to us by Megan, one of our classmates. Thanks, Megan!
(And thanks to Mariel for the photo!)

—Mai Pham

Lessons from the First Week

The first week of BASE went by in a flash! Friendships are forming as the work continues to pile up. With five weeks left to go, there’s still a lot to look forward to—including a trip to Google!

Academics

Going from sociology to business classes makes me really appreciate the practicality of all the stuff we’re learning in our classes and special workshops. Questions about our own experiences in the “real world” always enter into our classroom conversations. Aside from absorbing the information we’re actually tested on, we ask a lot of questions about job searching, interviewing, and other topics that are relevant to where many of us are in life (i.e. nearing or on the cusp between college and the world of work). These topics come up especially often in our OB class, since a lot of the topics closely relate. Our professor, Holly Schroth, has seen many students succeed and fail at getting great jobs. She knows what it takes, and she doesn’t mind answering our questions during her lectures. During a lecture on perception, she took a break to give us a little lesson on handshakes!

Our first finance quiz is in two days! Juggling three compressed classes at once is not easy, but it helps that all of the classes are in one program, because the professors know what else is on your plate (so we never have two exams on the same day). But I’m not gonna lie—it’s still a lot of work! I spent most of my 4th of July working on accounting problems. And as I’m writing this, a load of reading and group project work still hangs over my head.

Classmates

Although I used to daydream about being in a business suit and working in a San Francisco skyscraper, I was intimidated by the idea of business school. I was afraid that my business-minded classmates would be cut-throat go-getters that I just can’t compete against. Well, this program is kind of a happy medium. I get to take business classes with non-business students. I know I’m making assumptions here, but one of our professors actually shared an observation that BASE students (as a group) are different from business students. I guess that can be partially explained by our diverse mix of academic backgrounds. With engineers, philosophers, scientists and many others in the mix, we form a dynamic community of students who bring very different perspectives to class discussions.

—Mai Pham

My First Day of School

Today kinda felt like a first day of grade school—and I mean that in a very positive way. You’re probably wondering how an “intensive” summer business program could feel like 3rd grade… Well, let me try to explain.

First of all, after spending three years as a tiny person in a huge university, it was such a great feeling to be in a (small) class of 53 students—many of whom I’ve already gotten to know during breaks, lunch and group activities. But most of the nostalgia came about because we were so well taken care of by the program staff. As you probably know from your own experiences, being a college student means that you’re on your own. You gotta figure out what you need and how to get it for yourself. Well today, for the first time in three years, I didn’t have to go through the painstaking process of figuring out what books I need and then waiting in ridiculously long lines to buy them. I just walked into the program office, showed my ID, and was given a “Haas Base Program” backpack neatly filled with all the books I need! As my new friend Stephan (an Oxford University student from Germany) and I unwrapped our books, he exclaimed, “It feels like Christmas!” Aside from the pre-packaged books, we also got a snack during break time and a beautifully catered welcome lunch at the Bancroft Hotel.

After experiencing way too many dry lectures where the professor just reads off his notes word for word, today’s classes assured me that great professors do exist. By mixing in humor, activities, and various media of communication, all three professors made their two-hour classes fly by. What’s most important about these professors, though, is that they really seem to love the subject they teach, they care about their BASE students, and they’re truly happy to be teaching us. To me, that’s really refreshing, because so many professors these days seem like they would rather be sitting in their offices doing research all day!

When my cousin (a BASE alum) told me about the program, she said it’s a great experience and is totally worth the cost (which burned a hole in my tiny pocket). So far, it looks like she’s right!

—Mai Pham