Posted 5:05 PM by Zachary (e-mail)
The Sixth and Seventh Class
That's how recruiting has been described to me by a second year student, and I'm in complete agreement. Actually, calling job hunting/recruiting "sixth and seventh" is a misnomer; for many business school students, myself included, they are actually the "first and second" classes.

This is not a complaint. I've been thinking about getting into sales/trading for a long time, so I've greeted the start of the banking recruiting season with a bouyant energy and a sense of "finally". Yes, it's hard work, but I wouldn't be here if it weren't. But even I underestimated just how much time it takes.

Where does the time go? Let's take an example. On Thursday, Lehman Brothers came to Michigan. From 2:00 to 4:00 they had "office hours", basically an informal reception where students can stop by and chat with several bankers, traders, and researchers. The formal presentation ran from 4:30 to 6:00, and afterwards there was a reception at a nearby restaurant which lasted until about 9:00.

Thus, I had the opportunity to spend a very rewarding five or six hours learning about Lehman. It doesn't end there, however. I make a point of following up, by e-mail, with each employee I speak with from each bank. I don't write one generic e-mail and send it to all of them; that's tacky and comes across badly. So, if I've met ten people, that's ten e-mails, taking ten to twenty minutes each: another three hours of work and focus.

So for one bank, I've spent a good seven or eight hours. Four banks visited this week; I didn't spend the same amount of time on each (it really depends on how many people you meet), so a conservative estimate would come to twenty five hours.

Add onto that tally: e-mailing alumni to form even more contacts, phone calling (or rather, playing phone tag with) contacts that were e-mailed last week, resume preparation (thankfully, for the most part complete), speaking with second year students, and interview preparation, and you're talking a good thirty hours a week.

That's certainly a lot more time than I spend on a couple of my courses.

For the most part, the on-campus Investment Bank presentations are done now, so that'll save some time. But preparation for visits to New York must take their place.

I don't want to give the impression that all students go through the same efforts; it really differs based on industry and background (for example, my marketing-focused classmates have their presentations spread over a couple months). Students (and prospective students) intersted in Wall Street, however, have to be prepared to spend a significant amount of time and effort on their search. At least, as long as the economy stays as tepid as it currently is.

Posted 5:55 AM by Zachary (e-mail)
Teaching Methods: Case Method Usage
One of the factors that goes into deciding on a business school is the teaching style. On one extreme are the schools that teach only by the case method: the Harvard Business School and Darden are the two that immediately leap to mind. Most other schools vary between traditional lectures and cases.

Of the five core courses taken in the Fall, only Corporate Strategy is sticly case-based. That is, [almost] every class revolves around the professor moderating a discussion about a case that the students were supposed to read ahead of time. Marketing class also has a fair amount of case work; I'd estimate 50% to 60% of classes involve discussion of pre-assigned cases.

So far, Accounting, Business Economics, and Finance have had few cases, as the professors have focused on teaching the basic building blocks of these subjects. However, in Accounting we have gone through several company financial statements, albeit by taking more of a lecture approach than a case discussion approach. And in Finance the homework assignments (it's the only class with weekly problem sets to be turned in) are getting more and more "case-like" (i.e. involving real-world situations and examples).

Thus, I'd say real world business cases make up a good 30% of our learning, and as the term goes by that will probably grow.

Posted 8:55 PM by Zachary (e-mail)
WSJ MBA Rankings
I strolled into the Michigan student lounge yesterday morning to find a large cluster of admissions office staff clustered around the big screen TV there. It's always tuned to CNBC, and at that moment the Wall Street Journal was announcing its new rankings for top business schools (you can view the top 50 here). On CNBC they went through the top 10, from 10 up to 1. The admissions staff (knowing that Michigan would be pretty high up there) breathed a sigh of relief when we got past 5; we ended up being ranked #3, behind Wharton and Tuck.

Among the various rankings out there, Michigan does best in the Wall Street Journal's, which effectively is a survey of thousands of corporate recruiters. I attribute this to the breadth of our corporate contacts--this school really doesn't try to woo only banks and consultancies at the expense of Fortune 500 companies. In addition, the WSJ survey doesn't take into account graduating students' salaries, which is a slight benefit to schools that graduate students into financial services.

All-in-all, the less that's said about the rankings, the better. The school staff is happy to see us ranked high, because they've worked hard to get us there. For students, being highly ranked is, well, okay (it's nicer to hear we've been ranked #3 than #8, I guess), but really nobody cares about it. That is, it has very little bearing on what our experience will be like, who will recruit here, etc., so it's really just some nice window-dressing. Very few students talked about the ranking at all (actually, very few American students talked about it; I did notice some internationals discussing it).

Posted 7:21 PM by Zachary (e-mail)
Wall Street Recruiting Scene
I get the sense that the recruiting scene for Wall Street positions is as fluid as its been in many years. From the late '90s until 2001 it was absolutely hot, and for the past two years it's been pretty cold. But this year things are still up in the air. It's my sense that there's some pent-up demand for new hires in some IBanks, but they are not yet ready to commit 100%. To us, the incoming recruiting class, this presents a very dynamic situation.

In practical matters, that's meant several changes and flip-flops in the bank visitation schedules, and a bit more uncertainty in the process. The good news is that recruiting (finally) kicks off tomorrow, with JP Morgan's corporate presentation, and most of the big banks (Lehman, Deutsche, Morgan, CitiGroup) will be on campus over the next two weeks.

From talking to several second years, the recruitng schedule that emerges is:
Mid-September - Banks do on-campus presentations
October - Finish your resume, network with alumni and banking contacts
November/December - Finance club trip to New York, plus many students make trips there for informational interviewing
January - First, and then second round interviews; offers for the lucky ones

The general sentiment is that January will shape up in one of two ways: there will either be slightly more interview interest from the banks than last year, or things will explode open at the last minute (this is the "rosy economic recovery" scenario). Fingers are crossed.

Posted 8:49 PM by Zachary (e-mail)

MICHIGAN 38 - NOTRE DAME 0 !!!

Michigan cracked open a six-pack of whoop-ass on the lowly "simpering Irish", racking up their first shutout over ND in 101 years. It was domination from start to finish. First downs, 21 to 6, UM. Rushing yards, 188 to 49. Passing yards, 224 to 91.


The crowd was immense and enthusiastic. As the outcome of the game became clear (say, midway through the second period), several creative chants went around: "Over-rated", "Houston's better" (in reference to our 50-3 whipping of Houston last week), and "Rudy" were the most popular. In fact, "Rudy" came in for quite a bit of abuse: The phrase "Rudy Swallows" was painted on a large inflatable...object...that bounced around the stadium (see photos below).
...

After each Michigan touchdown, students would group together and toss a member in the air once for each point. By the end of the game, that meant quite a workout (tossing an adult 38 times will build arm strength...hmmm, the "Whip Notre Dame Workout Program"?).


I should also mention the pre-game Tailgate, sponsored by Target.

Target is making a big recruiting push this year at Michigan, and had the recruiting team out in force as they served up beer and sausages and burgers. In talking with them, I heard a familiar list of schools they're visiting: Michigan, Kellogg, and Chicago, which were all mentioned by recruiters from SC Johnson. At some point in the future I'll write more about the recruiting scene at Michigan, but suffice to say it has a much bigger management and marketing presence than I expected (since I'm not looking to go into the field).

Hail! to the victors valiant
Hail! to the conqu'ring heroes
Hail! Hail! to Michigan
the leaders and best

Hail! to the victors valiant
Hail! to the conqu'ring heroes
Hail! Hail! to Michigan,
the champions of the West!

Update: From ESPN: "...when an NCAA record crowd of 111,726 watched Michigan do to Notre Dame what it had done to Central Michigan and Houston..."

Posted 2:13 AM by Zachary (e-mail)
The Real Schedule
After a week of classes, it's becoming clearer what the MBA student schedule is like. One word: "packed".

Although there are no classes at UMBS on Friday, the school week really runs from Sunday through Friday. This is because of two factors: the emphasis on teamwork/team projects in business school, and the large time demands put on students by coursework, recruiting, clubs, and social activities.

Here's a breakdown of how I spent my time from last Tuesday (the first day of classes) through this Tuesday:
1. 18 hours - Classes, spread over the five weekdays (excluding Friday)
2. 3 hours - Club activities, which will probably increase as time goes by
3. 10 1/2 hours - Career Office events (this includes group workshops like "Managing Corporate Presentations" and alumni career panels, to individual career counseling appointments)
4. 6 hours - Team meetings for various classes (this number will go up a ton as more assignments come due; right now, only two of my five courses have had cases/assignments).
5. 8 hours - Michigan had its "MBA Games" sports competition on Friday. Though a once-a-year event, I'm sure team meetings/clubs/recruiting will gobble up this time as the term goes by
6. 9 hours - Individual reading, coarsework, study
7. 5 hours - Group social events

That's 54 1/2 hours of MBA-related time over the past week, and that's during the first week of school, when things are just getting warmed up. Naturally, I'm excluding the 6 to 8 hours spent on Saturdays for football games and tailgating.

Especially once the corporate presentations start (i.e. in five days), I expect my actual weekly schedule to go more like this:
Monday through Wednesday: 08:00 through 16:30 completely scheduled with classes, team meetings, and clubs; 16:30 through 18:30 filled with company presentations (thankfully (?), banking/finance companies come to campus early, so this demand should diminish by late-October). 18:30 to 22:30 filled with leftover team meetings, clubs, and individual study.
Thursday: The same schedule as the prior days, except with the Michigan happy hour running from 18:30 to 22:30 (or later). Happy hours, networking events as they are, are not an optional part of business school.
Friday: Less rigid schedule: team meetings galore, with the odd career office presentation and/or business school conference thrown in. More time to catch up on reading/individual study, as well.
Saturday: Football, R&R
Sunday: More team meetings to prep for the week ahead, some club and career office events as well

Posted 11:03 AM by Zachary (e-mail)
Fall Term Schedule
What does a typical first-year MBA schedule look like at Michigan?

Since I didn't choose to exempt any of the core courses, I'll be taking all five of the core classes with the rest of my sectionmates. They are the staple of any well-rounded business education:
Accounting
Business Economics & Public Policy
Corporate Strategy and International Business
Finance
Marketing

As far as my weekday schedule, I'm in classes from 8:30am to 2:30pm, with an hour lunch break, on Mondays and Wednesdays. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I have classes from 11:30am to 1:00pm and 2:30pm to 4:00pm. There are no business school classes on Fridays.