Welcome to the "First Years"!

Wow!

I knew this was coming and have been preparing myself for it, but I’m still not ready for the fact that starting next week, I will be officially a “Second Year” student at Haas. I’m not quite sure how one full year went by so quickly (I know I can read my own blogs, but I’m lazy, so I’ll continue to not remember =P), but what a year it has been! Reading many of the former “Second Years’” posts about how their two years went by in a blink of an eye, I am already starting to worry about this coming year going by too quickly!

But this post is not for me to reminisce about times gone by (that’s saved for a future post), but it’s to welcome the new Class of 2011! Over the past year, over a hundred students have been involved in setting everything in motion to bring all of you here and welcome you. Now we are only a few days from the beginning of Orientation Week (fondly known as “O-Week”), where many of us will get to either meet you for the first time or re-meet you again.

It’ll be a week of learning, fun, socializing, experiencing, and of course, partying. You will have taste of the next two years condensed into one week, and hopefully by the end of it, you’ll be ready to take on the challenge of the infamous Fall Semester in business school. Just remember, use your “Second Years” as a resource to help you survive and excel in this busy year!

Finally, I’m excited to see so many new bloggers join our ranks and provide their own unique and fun observations of Haas and the SF Bay Area. I look forward to reading your stories (and reliving my first year) as well as sharing my own adventures in the coming year.

Here’s to an awesome year together!

—berlin

Choose to Grow

We had another great speaker today. Barbara J. Desoer, President of the new Bank of America mortgage, home equity, and insurance services business.

Barbara spent a lot of time today discussing how she got to where she is and how Haas helped her get there. Among her many great pointers, one bit of advice really hit home.

Choose to grow.

Business school, and particularly Haas, is a nurturing environment and a place to challenge and push yourself. It’s a place to explore new opportunities both academically and personally.

Barbara attributes part of her success at Bank of America to choosing projects and roles outside her “normal” skill set and challenged us to push ourselves out of our comfort zone.

—aaron.berndt

An uncanny ability to eat cupcakes

The ropes course was worth it. Mainly due to my awesome classmates and the xylophone. The xylophone is a horizontal ladder consisting of alternating narrow boards and pieces of rope getting wider and wider spaced apart, all suspended 50 feet in the air. You climb to the top with a partner and the object is to get to the other side remaining in physical contact with your partner and not using the wires on the sides.

I’m not afraid of heights. However, this took everything to a new level. Tony, from France, and I became quick friends clinging (well, admittedly, I was the one clinging) to each other stepping across thin air aiming to land on a frayed, skinny piece of rope and stay balanced.

We made it.

Orientation (O-week) started Monday. Wow. Now I am really impressed. Haas has apparently pulled out all the stops. We have had terrific food, excellent organization, numerous outstanding speakers, brief and efficient orientation meetings, a reception 2 sessions with our study groups to work out our group dynamics, a personal performance by the UC Berkeley marching band, a lectures on the case study methodology and a case study class discussion, facilitated by our faculty. Today is Tuesday.

We started off with a full-on multi-media show put together by Brad Kittredge, one of our talented second year O-week chairs. The room suddenly went black, music started. Pictures and video, all set to music commenced.

Now, about the speakers.
Richard Lyons was the first to take the stage yesterday (8/18/08). What an amazing pick for a dean. He was incredible. He weaves anecdotes seamlessly into his talk. He is dynamic, he is funny, clear, smart and pithy. Wow.
Bob Haas gave an inspiring talk. It turns out the Levi company, through Mr. Haas, is an amazingly progressive company.
http://www.haasjr.org/index.php/visitor/who_we_are/board_of_trustees/robert_d_haas
My favorite pieces of advice:

Express your personal values in a way that make a difference.

Be out in front on issues you know in your heart of hearts is the right thing to do.

I’ve never seen on any of our employees’ tombstones, “I sold a million pairs of jeans.” Be a good partner, be a good parent.

Priya Haji spoke at our reception. She commanded silence in a room of tired, excited, networking first years. She is doing beautiful work, I’m sure she sleeps well at night. As a family physician, I can relate. She had a lot to teach us. I just wish my feet hadn’t been hurting so much by the time she turned up to speak.

http://www.worldofgood.org/

Tom Kelley, author of The Ten Faces of Innovation spoke this morning. This man raised the speaker’s bar, if that is even possible. Basically, I’ll be borrowing both of his books (yes, we have no money now) to read immediately. In my spare time.

From Kelley:

The supreme achievement is to blur the line between work and play

Arnold J. Toynbee

You’ve got to find the problem to solve.

I’ve been to my favorite sushi restaurant 400 times.

I’m not sure who discovered water, but I’m sure it wasn’t a fish.

vous ja de

Vous ja de is looking at what you see every day with new eyes. The reverse of deja vous, so to speak, seeing something new with the recognition of having seen it before. I have the distinct sense that Kelley’s ideas will change my life. Now, isn’t that awesome, in the truest sense of the word?

I belong to the Axe cohort. Apparently Rumana is great with baking cupcakes. She somehow got quickly roped into a cupcake contest that demands an (and I’m quoting) ‘uncanny ability to eat cupcakes.’ More on that after thursday. Our Axe chant contains something about ‘give them the axe, axe, axe. Give it to them in the neck, neck, neck.’ Is this the right time to remind people that I am a doctor?

The one deficiency in orientation surrounds the topic of family. There is no mention of children, no pictures, no discussions. It is somewhat isolating for me, and I imagine for other parents. I know I’m not the typical MBA student, but diversity is consciously celebrated in our school. Interestingly, Pete Johnson mentioned every country present in our class, some of the amazing and various talents and diversities amongst us, interesting stats about GMAT, honors, scholarships, % of women degrees (I did get a shout out for being a primary care physician), but again, nothing about our students with families and children. Don’t get me wrong, I feel complete support at Haas in every way, including any help I might request surrounding family and children, but I think that true acceptance and equality will come when students in my position are recognized and discussed publicly. It feels a little ‘in the closet.’ There are real issues I’m facing as a parent student that are as important as my academic orientation and getting to know my classmates such as daycare, transportation, support networks, local resources, financial implications, parent partner support.

Everyone is completely ‘impressed’ that I have 3 children and am doing an MBA. I guess we student parents, especially student mothers, will have truly arrived when people are a little less impressed. When things change enough that it is a little less impressive.

—elise

Oski, Oski, Oski! oi, oi, oi!

As Sean wrote in the previous post, orientation week so far has been a whirlwind with presentations from a set of amazing speakers, meeting cohorts, practicing cases and so much more.

But, what I really want to write about is what most of us have been looking forward to for the last three weeks – meeting our cohorts. Haas divides its 240 students into four cohorts of 60 students. The cohorts are named Oski (after the Cal mascot, the Oski bear), Axe (the trophy awarded to the winner of the annual Big Football Game between Cal and Stanford), and Gold and Blue (the school colors). For the first semester, we take all of our classes with the 59 other people in our cohort and needless to say will get to know them very well.

I found out yesterday that I’m a proud Oski. I wasn’t sure of what to expect from the cohort, but was blown away with the group when I met them. The variety in background, personal and work experience, diversity, and most importantly, the amazing sense of humour of my cohort is astounding and I’m looking forward to getting to know them all in the upcoming semester.

I have classmates whose work experience has ranged from designing missiles to working for green energy companies and the whole range in between. Meeting these amazing people yesterday definitely reinforced what I’ve heard many times before, but never quite saw clearly – that you will learn as much from your classmates as you will from your professors.

I’m extremely excited about the possibilities and grateful as well. Orientation week is definitely putting into perspective how lucky we all are to be here. I’m excited to post more as the semester goes along and will definitely include more pictures! Go Oski!

—Anaal