Posted 8:58 AM by Zachary (e-mail)

Michigan 35 - Ohio State 21

Congratulations, Big Ten Champions Michigan!

The biggest crowd in the history of NCAA football watched Michigan crush Ohio State's championship repeat dreams, 35-21. Afterwards, all we could say was, "Wow, what a great game!"

Pictures are worth a thousand words:


Both inside and outside the stadium was packed; I heard offhand that tickets were selling for $250+.


It was standing-room only in the Big House. But that's nothing new--the student section stands during every game.


The band paid the student section a visit.


This one was worth celebrating.


After the game, business school students had a fully catered tailgating party sponsored by our good friends at Deutsche Bank. Cheers, eh!

As for the game itself, it basically consisted of Michigan rolling to a large lead in the first half and blunting OSU's two big comeback efforts. The Wolverines were up 21-0 and were looking really strong in the first twenty minutes of the game, but Ohio State closed out the first half with an impressive drive to narrow the score to 21-7. None of us thought the game was over yet.

But then Michigan started the third quarter with a huge score, making it 28-7, and a few minutes later threw a 70+ yard touchdown pass, apparently putting the game away for good at 35-7. I write "apparently", because the play was called back due to a penalty, and most of us in the student section immediately thought, "Turning point?" Michigan punted and OSU started the drive deep in our territory and before you know it, the 35-7 that was in our grasp was instead a 28-21 lead with ten minutes left and Ohio State holding all the momentum. Especially with OSU's reputation for pulling out tight games in the end, the crowd was nervous.

However, you have to give Michigan credit, because they buckled down on defense, sapping the Buckeyes' momentum, and then the offense came through for the final touchdown of the year, making it 35-21. What a game!

Posted 1:07 PM by Zachary (e-mail)
The Big Game
The town is geeked up about tomorrow's showdown between #5 Michigan and #4 Ohio State. The influx of RVs and busses has already begun, and I saw ESPN setting up its platform for the pre-game screaming. The Goodyear blimp floats overhead.

I'll lay it on the line, and in a show of heart and head, predict that Michigan takes it 17 to 7. Photos will be posted after the game.

Posted 12:54 PM by Zachary (e-mail)
Finance Clubs
The two main finance-related clubs at Michigan are the Finance Club (duh!) and the Investment Association. I'm a member of both, and feel they complement each other and add value to Wall Street focused career searchers.

Finance Club
The Finance Club is one of the largest career clubs on campus. Unlike other schools, Michigan has found it worthwhile to lump all finance-oriented students into a single organization*, rather than have separate clubs for corporate finance, investment banking, and sales/trading (as other schools do). This makes sense, since Michigan typically has fewer finance-focused students than other schools, and there is an overlap in many of the club activities.

Meeting every Sunday evening, the Finance Club focuses on educating and preparing students for the finance job search. It started the term with presentations on what different finance careers are like, and as the term moved on focused more and more on the job search. It has organized resume review sessions, panel discussions, coursepacks, and, of course, the big Wall Street Forum trip. Going forward, it will hosting a day of "mock interviews" in early January in preparation for the job interview wave.

Investment Association
The Investment Association is a club that is more narrowly focused on the process of evaluating and investing in stocks, and related careers (buy-side and sell-side research, investment management, asset management, etc.) It also meets every Sunday, and has covered topics like "how to pitch a stock", the state of the market, the CFA exam, etc. It sponsors stock pitch and portfolio management competitions, and has done the most to acquaint me with the vast financial tools (Bloomberg, FactSet, eVal, etc.) in Michigan's Tozzi Lab.

I think the two clubs do a great job of complementing each other and adding value to the MBA experience. The Finance Club helps keep first year students very focused on the process of applying for Wall Street jobs, and the Investment Club focuses on some of the tools/skillsets needed in to land a position. I feel cautiously optimistic that the knowledge I've gotten from the clubs, as well as the hard work I've putten into my job search, will result in an offer or two, come January. Knock on wood.

* However, there are club officers devoted to each field, and usually each week the different groups hold breakout sessions to discuss career-specific matters.

Posted 1:01 PM by Zachary (e-mail)
Wall Street Forum
I spent last Wednesday through Friday in New York as part of the Finance Club's annual "Wall Street Forum" trip. Despite having already done a week of informational interviews in October, the trip was a veritable treasure-trove of networking opportunities. The schedule was grueling, but at the end of each day when I returned to my hotel, I found that I had made two or three more good contacts.

Nearly a hundred students participated in the trip, the majority of which were MBA1s interested in Investment Banking. There was a good 15-17 first-years focused more on sales and trading, and several banks had breakout sessions for this group. The schedule went as follows:

Wednesday
Afternoon - Travelled to Stamford, Connecticut, to see the massive UBS trading floor there.

Thursday
8:30 - 10:30 - Visited CSFB, my old stomping grounds
11:00 - 13:00 - Visited UBS' Investment Banking offices in Midtown
13:30 - 15:30 - Visited Lehman Brothers in their gorgeous new Times Square office
15:30 - 17:30 - Visited Morgan Stanley, also in the Times Square area
18:00+ - There was a huge alumni reception, hosted by the Dean, at the Barclay Intercontinental hotel (another great networking event)

Friday
8:45 - 10:30 - Visited the JP Morgan Chase offices just uptown of Grand Central Station
11:00 - 13:00 - Deutsche Bank hosted a catered lunch for us at a downtown steakhouse
13:30 - 15:30 - Visited Citigroup
16:00 - 18:00 - Wrapped up the trip at Goldman Sachs

I'll write more about the trip and the Finance Club in general, but suffice to say it was another productive step in the [on-going] search for a Wall Street job.

Posted 4:07 PM by Zachary (e-mail)
On the Horizon
...what everyone here is eyeing are the rankings:

4. Ohio State 9-1
5. Michigan 8-2

If we can get by Northwestern next weekend and OSU beats Purdue...
Let's just say that November 22nd, Ohio State versus Michigan, in the Big House (Ann Arbor), the final game of the season, is going to be awesome.

Posted 10:04 AM by Zachary (e-mail)
Crunch Time
The general stress level among MBA1s has definitely gone up the past two weeks (since I last posted). My hunch is that the string of midterm/final exams acted as a slap of cold water for many students. Before the exams, everyone took the attitude that "grades don't matter to me". However, now that those grades have started coming in, the tune is changing (note: this still holds true for me--until I get a job, I'm not going to stress over whether I get a "Pass" or a "Good" in non-finance related classes).

In all honesty, the academic rigor of the core courses is not too bad. However, there are two factors that make the coursework much tougher: 1) Time pressures of MBA life leave little time for studying, and 2) your fellow students were generally the best students from their undergrad classes, so the median is high.

Add to that the fact that, even for the most laid-back career paths, recruiting season is now in full-swing (for Investment Banking, it's been recruiting season for months now). If first-year students haven't (at least) begun making contacts at firms, trying to get onto closed lists (about which much more will be written later), begun informational interviews, they're definitely behind.

The result? Classmates are a little more frazzled during the week. The weekly Thursday happy hours are a little less attended. Free time is in short supply.