Say hello and goodbye to the second year(s)

The hardest class I have taken at Kenan-Flagler to date ended five hours ago when I handed in my final exam for managerial accounting. Judging from the number of students who left the room early, either the final was not as hard as the midterm was or they were really sick of looking at income variance and activity based costing.

This marks the unofficial end of my first year in the MBA program. I have an integrative exercise, something which hopefully I will get to blog about later this week, on Thursday and Friday. The first year will official end sometime in June when I hand in my response paper to my trip to India. After that I can start calling myself a second year, regardless of whether I have a summer internship or not.

Speaking of second years, they will start trickling out of Chapel Hill sometime after the last exam on Wednesday for “beach week.” I commented last year that whenever I transition from one phase to the next (ie graduating from college, leaving a workplace) the group that I always miss the most are the people that I knew well enough to do a quick “stop and chat” with, yet I did not know them well enough to go out of my way to make plans with. There are a couple of second years who are in this category. I very much would like to say goodbye to them in person before they leave but realistically I may have to settle for sending them a “best of luck, keep in touch” email since they will have permanently left by the time I return from India and during this past year I did not have the chance to get to know them well enough to feel comfortable about calling to say goodbye.

On efficient allocation of capital

One of the things we learn in finance is the efficient allocation of capital, in other words, how to allocate your money wisely. There are a couple of ways to do this. One is to use your money to generate a higher return than your opportunity cost or cost of capital. Or, to put it more succinctly, get the most return for your buck.

 

Let me give you an example of how I efficiently allocated my money last night.

 

Cover charge to get into the Martini Bar to celebrate two classmates’ birthdays: $3 Oh wait … scratch that … I showed up before they started charging the cover.

 

Alcohol (plus tips): $16.50.

 

Striking a random conversation with an undergrad and finding out what night the nursing students hang out at the bar: Priceless

 

Seeing that cute BSBA (Kenan-Flagler undergrad program) I have been noticing at McColl, introducing myself to her, and the getting to dance with her and her roommate: beyond priceless.

 

Note: this is not the undergrad cutie in my investment banking class that I blogged about earlier.

On the joys of academia

Today was the last day of class for the 2005-2006 school year. Toward the end of my accounting class this morning, my professor shocked the class when he got a bit emotional in telling about a conversation he had with his daughter recently (I am not sure whether this happened this year or in a previous school year). He called her on his way home and told her he had a meeting earlier with the dean where he submitted his resignation. She told him that “teaching is your life” and convinced him to retract his resignation the next morning.

The story goes to show that there is something about being in school, either as a student or a professor, that makes it a uniquely satisfying experience which cannot be duplicated elsewhere. I was reminded of this last night when I left Lucy’s and as I rounded the corner of Henderson and Franklin Streets, I ran into this one undergraduate girl and her friend as they were leaving another bar. I had first met them back in November right after the sorority mixer (I had left the mixer and gone across the street to Top Of the Hill to get sobered up before getting into my car) and we have since been randomly running into one another at the various bars along Franklin Street. After seeing the huge line that had formed outside Top Of the Hill, the three of us ended up going to I (heart) NY Pizza to get something to eat.

At the pizza place, we talked about our experiences with school. They will be graduating in about two weeks and talked about their plans for post graduation. I told them the one thing I find most amazing about my college experience (and to a lesser extend, my business school experience) is that you are in a concentrated population of people who are in the same “place” as you are. It’s a great time to build relationships, discover new things about yourself, and have fun along the way. Last Saturday I had a conversation with a second year student and she said she liked her experience at Kenan-Flagler so much she didn’t want to graduate.

I very much would like to be at that place a year from now.

An “alternative career path”

Tomorrow night is an event that is being advertised as the highlight of the MBA experience at Kenan-Flagler, the MBA Follies. It is an annual presentation of student-produced videos that mock or parody student life (or specific students) at Kenan-Flagler.

 

I am particular looking forward to see which of my classmates get smacked this year. In February I went to the website and watched some of the videos from previous years. There was one from last year that I thought was hilarious. It’s about students who decided to pursue an “alternative career path.” Now that we are in the last week of classes and I still have yet to find an internship, I am tempted to consider pursuing such an “alternative career path.” However, as the video will make evidently clear, I lack some of primary characteristics that would make me a successful applicant in such an endeavor.

 

(To view video, go to the web page, and click “Alternative Career Path.”)

 

Enjoy!

On sales and marketing

Today’s class was the last for the investment banking class that meets every Monday for four hours. We spent the day discussing the 2002 situation where Hershey’s was up for sale and potential suitors included Wrigley’s, Kraft, and Cadbury Schweppes.

In March when investment banker Gary W. Parr spoke to our class via teleconference, he talked about some of the skills that have made him successful. He said (paraphrasing because I lost my notes) “if I can’t convince a client why my team is better at analyzing a deal than everybody else in town, I have lost a client.” I thought about that yesterday when I talked to a friend from college. He now works for a high power finance firm in Boston and recently had the opportunity to overhear a conversation between the chairman of his firm and another passenger on an airplane. The passenger asked what the chairman does for a living and the chairman’s answer was very telling. He did not say he worked in finance. Nor did he say he worked in mergers and acquisitions. And it was not investment banking neither. He told the passenger he worked in sales.

My friend relayed that story to convey the importance of salesmanship skills in non-sales jobs. But it got me asking, “why stop there?” Hardly a week goes by when I don’t do something that requires sales or marketing skills. This reminded me of a line from the movie Boiler Room where Ben Affleck’s character was motivating his team of salesmen on the art of closing a deal over the telephone. He said (again paraphrasing) “every telephone call results in a sale. Either you sell the customer into opening an account or he sells you his explanation on why he won’t open one.”

Vice President Arnold Vinick?

When I saw the preview last night to next week’s West Wing episode, I almost gasped when it showed President-Elect Santos (Jimmy Smits) talking to Senator Vinick (Alan Alda) and offering him the vice presidency. I said “almost.” The only reason why I didn’t was because I was at He’s Not Here last week talking to two other classmates who watch the show and one of them predicted that Democrat Santos would reach out to his Republican opponent in an attempt to unite the nation behind his presidency.

 

With Sam Seaborn (Rob Lowe) as the chief of staff and Ainsley Hayes (Emily Proctor) as the legal counsel for the new administration, I am so sad this is show is about to come to an end.

Countdown to India

Two weeks from today I will be leaving with 24 other classmates, one program assistant from the Office of International Programs, and one professor to India for two weeks. This is part of the Doing Business In India class that I am taking. We will be visiting destinations in Delhi, Bangalore, Mumbai, and Agra. We will be spending our time visiting different companies, exploring the cities, and meeting local Kenan-Flagler alum and admitted students at a reception.

This past Thursday we had a briefing by the second year students who went last year. They gave us advice on what to expect and what we can do to minimize the hassles during the jam packed 14 days. The professor tried to mentally prepare us for the extreme level of poverty in India, saying every year there are students who are unable to emotionally get over the unimaginable level of poverty they encounter in some of the poorer parts of Delhi. One second year described the experience of walking around the major cities and being followed by hordes of people begging for food or money. She compared it to the scene from the Verizon Wireless commercial where a customer walks around town and is followed by a swamp of Verizon Wireless employees following him to support the network of services that are available on his cell phone. 

Earlier today I went scuba diving for the first time. The event was organized by the MBA Adventures Club and the instructor was a classmate who is a certified diver. We spent half an hour in the shallow end of the pool learning the basics such as how to flush out your mask if it gets foggy and how to locate your regulator (the breathing device) in the event it falls out of your mouth. We spent the remainder of the two hours frolicking in the ten feet deep water. The longest I spent underwater was about ten minutes. It was an amazing experience.

 

I carpooled to the scuba diving location with a bunch of Indian classmates. On the way there, the driver asked me if I would mind him putting on some Indian music. I said “I might as well get used to it so bring it on.”