And The Year Ends…

The school year is over. My final projects are complete. I am content. What a wild year this has been and I am a little sad that it has progressed so quickly. It has been a pleasure serving as co-editor of the Haas MBA Blog and I hope our posts have given you a deeper look into the life of MBA students at Berkeley.

What’s next for me? On Saturday, I am flying out to South Korea for my International Business Development (IBD) project. IBD is one of the BILD courses offered by Haas. Teams of four work with an international client on a consulting project during the spring semester and then spend three weeks overseas to ‘implement.’ I am working with an app development company to create a marketing plan for some mobile applications. I expect the time I spend in Korea to be rewarding and fulfilling.

The Monday after I return to Berkeley, I will begin my summer internship in San Francisco. I will be an MBA intern on the developer relations team at GREE, a mobile gaming company. Having previously worked with many game publishers at Google, I am excited and eager to take my skills and know-how to a fast-growing, high-velocity company like GREE. I know that I will learn a lot from the experience and can’t wait to start my adventure.

 

And we’re off!

Today marks the day for more than 100 first-years participating in Haas’ International Business Development (IBD) program to set off for our posts around the world. IBD is a global consulting program that sends first years all over the world to work with local organizations (read more about the program). And it’s actually one of the reasons I chose to come to Haas!

I’m on an all-female team going to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. We’re working with a women’s college, Dar Al-Hekma, to deliver and recommend programs that promote the personal development and advancement of women in Saudi Arabia. My team and I have spent the past 4 months researching and compiling information that will help with our projects, but most of our work is yet to come. Dar Al-Hekma wants to launch a “women’s center for excellence” so we’ll be interviewing key stakeholders to figure out which services would most benefit them, and then writing and presenting a proposal to our client. We’ll also be conducting a 4-day workshop on “business principles” for women entrepreneurs. I can’t wait to get there and get started!

If you’re interested in finding out what other IBD teams are up to, check out the IBD blog: http://haasintheworld.blogspot.com/. Students are going everywhere: Africa, Asia, Europe, South America, Mexico and New Zealand and they’ll be posting throughout their trips.

A Source Inspiration

Here is a picture of the view from my apartment on the University Village. Such a beautiful sunset in the Bay!! I was so lucky to have this source of inspiration while working on the essay of my application for the IBD Program.

I am really looking forward to working on IBD Program during the first weeks of the summer. It will certainly be very good to put in practice the business tools learned in class. What makes it even more exciting is the fact that it will be also a good opportunity to visit a new country, experience a new culture, work together with my classmates and especially, be able to make social impact. Several projects at many different countries are on offer, but what I really want is to help an organization that brings development to Africa.

Now I have to get back to work because dead-line is close!

—Ricardo de Paula

Back in Berkeley

After more than 3 months on the road for IBD and my summer internship, I came back to the Bay Area yesterday.

First day highlights: The Strawberry Canyon pool (again), Noodle Theory on College Avenue, and of course meeting my friends and coming back home.

I haven’t finalized my class schedule for the next semester yet, but I was mostly successful bidding for classes and I am really looking forward to my Negotiations and Marketing Research classes.

—olistrut

IBD is over… Let the summer begin

We finished our IBD project in Finland and are now all off to our summer internship locations. You can read my last IBD post over at the IBD Class Blog.

I am in Germany now, sitting in a train to Munich where I will be working over the summer. I can’t really talk about the project I will be working on, but it promises to be very interesting.

—olistrut

It is summer…

Congratulations to the Class of 2008!

For the first years, it is time to say goodbye to school for a while and get ready for our internships. I finished my last exam on Wednesday and since then have been enjoying my new favorite location in Berkeley and the last MBA party of the academic year, our fantastic Bay Cruise with 80s cover band Tainted Love.

Next week I will leave for Finland to work on my IBD project. Due to confidentiality reasons, I cannot write too much about our project, but I will try to write more about the process over the coming weeks.

The IBD Class Blog already has some posts from current IBD teams. I must say, I prefer the current Berkeley weather over what Will Wright is experiencing on the Falklands.

—olistrut