HTC & DMEC Alumni Mixer @ Abobe SF

Lastnight 60 HTC & DMEC members and alumni from a wide variety of companies around the Bay Area descended on Adobe’s San Francisco office for an informal mixer.

Adobe generously sponsored the event, providing delicious food and an abundance of beer and wine in a very cool venue, while Diageo hosted a Don Julio tasting station where attendees could learn about tequila and taste 4 varieties of Don Julio!

Everyone had an excellent evening of eating, drinking, tequila tasting and meeting new people and networking (perhaps the tequila helped ;-) )! The evening was a huge success!

Photos From Haas Alumni Mixer In Singapore

Over winter break, a group of 25 Haas MBA students visited South East Asia and explored Thailand, Philippines, Singapore, Bali, and Vietnam. During their stay in Singapore, the students networked with influential Haas alumni and members of the Berkeley Club of Singapore at a beautiful outdoor bar called OverEasy.

Click beneath the fold to see some of the pictures from the event.

the four weeks that just flew by – my winter break trek

“CAL” braving -15°C in the Forbidden City

They say that time waits for no one and it won’t wait for me. What seemed like for long weeks have quickly sped by as I start for my second semester at Haas.

Berkeley, CA
A little known fact: Berkeley has a low-cost, fairly broad student health insurance plan (SHIP).  Under SHIP, we not only enjoy $5 copay for eye exams, but also 50% discount on Lasik. Following my last final, I walked across the street from Haas to the UC Berkeley School of Optometry.  The next couple days were a bit dark.

Taipei, Taiwan
A week later, got onto a plane and headed to Taiwan. My wife and I got married right before school started and I wanted to take her to Taipei to meet the rest of my family. While in Taipei, I was able to connect with Haas alumni.  I was amazed at the loyalty of the alumni that they were willing to go out of their way to meet a stranger.  I learned more about what consulting, technology, financial services was like in Taiwan.

Taiwan Alumni dinner with a MBA ’11

Shanghai and Beijing, China
On the 5th, I flew from Taipei to Shanghai to meet up with 59 other Haas MBAs (combination of Full Time and evening/weekend) on a 10 day China Trek.  Treks are entirely student run and five of my classmates put together a truly memorable trek.

Balancing company visits, site seeing, and a lot of late night karaoke, it was a tour de force of activities.  We got the opportunity to visit companies including: Johnson & Johnson, GM China, Frog Design, Medtronic, Google China, Tencent, Huawei, Innovation Works, and LiNing. Beyond the company visits, we were able to meet up the alumni chapters who were able to provide great insights into doing business in China.  One alum stated that there are three rules of doing business in China:

1. Everything is possible
2. But, everything is hard
3. When they say that there it is not a problem, it is a big problem

Over the past four weeks there have simply been to many unforgettable times. It was a privilege to have Kai-Fu Lee (李开复) drop in and discuss his thoughts on China, innovation, and the Chinese psyche. It was incredible to see the passion and love of Haas from the alumni. It was pure bliss to sing “I want it that way” with 59 other classmates.

So what’s next? Study tonight for the waiver exam Friday afternoon, meet up with my wife to attend a SF MOMA 75 Anniversary event in the evening, and meet some prospective Haas ’12 at the Super Saturday I over the weekend.

New Years at Taipei 101 (the 2nd tallest building in the world)

Shanghai at night

—Vince

The power of the network

Hello again and of course welcome to the class of 2011! I have been back at work for a few months now and actually shouldn’t be posting on this student blog anymore, but I wanted to share an episode that really proved to me just how incredibly powerful the Haas network can be.

About a week ago I was researching a new topic for a consulting project and sent out a brief note through my class email list asking for any ideas or hints about the topic. I was hoping to maybe get one or two contacts or a helpful article (it wasn’t the most mainstream topic), but within just a few hours I received a total of 10 responses, all of which were extremely helpful and insightful.

As you can see, the network is alive and working. And it also serves as a hub for meetings and visits: Being in Berlin I have already had the pleasure to meet or host several of my traveling classmates and I look forward to an Oktoberfest meet-up in Munich soon.

—olistrut

Lifelong Connections

The Lifelong Connections Campaign (LLC) is our student pledge drive. During the campaign students pledge their future financial support to the school and commit to a first gift to Haas. To kick of the campaign, our class got together last night for a reception organized by the LLC committee. (As with so many other things here at Haas, LLC is organized and run by a group of current students.)

While the LLC team did solicit pledges during the event, the key purpose was to bring a class together once more, and to share some of our experiences here at Haas. Moderated by our favorite stand-up comedian (and Haas second year), 10 current students talked about what Haas meant to them and shared some of their most important Haas moments with the group. I can’t post their speeches here, but it was amazing to see and hear so many different experiences and to relive many of the greatest moments of our two years at Haas.

Our time at Haas is coming to an end, and I am starting to realize just how much I will miss being here, and how much I will miss the school and my wonderful classmates.

—olistrut

Haas @ Work and other news

Just came back from a long weekend of skiing at Tahoe. Great snow. Too much snow…

This morning I also had the first class meeting for my “Seminar in Applied Innovation” a class complementing the Haas at Work program. I will be working on a project for Visa in the regular 3-day Haas at Work project format and also participate in the implementation phase – a longer small group project with our client company. The seminar will support the project work and provide skills training in areas such as facilitation, influencing, and fostering creativity. This will be an interesting final project for me before I graduate and a great way to once more bridge the gap between the classroom and the real world.

In other news: Two new endowed chairs at Haas. Yeah!

—olistrut