Archive for January, 2009

One of the main goals of all of us coming to business school, is naturally to find a great job afterwards. It can be finding the right partner for opening a new venture, taking on a more senior position in your field of interest or switching to a new career track, job search is one of the main things that occupies our minds since day-1 at school. There are tons of activities in school to support us in this quest. Here are some of them:

Companies - On Campus

Since the first week of school companies start coming to school to present themselves, their culture, the students they look for and potential positions (although at this early stage most of the sessions are more general than specific. This is a great opportunity to learn about companies you are interested in, network with some of the company’s current employees and understand differences between companies (for example, when a company says Product Manager - what are they really talking about). Most companies also give some fun collectibles (although some have real attractive raffles - Microsoft gave an Xbox, Adobe gave the entire Creative Suite etc.).

(Exhibit 1: The pens)	(Exhibit 2: The not-pens)

In addition, once in a while there will be a firm night dedicated to specific industries (consulting career night, tech career night etc.). In these events companies of the same industries come to campus to meet with students interested in this industry. In some cases, companies will attend a special discussion or sessions - one such example was the case competition Facebook conducted on campus, allowing students to work on a real business case for Facebook.

Companies - Off Campus

The proximity of Berkeley to the Silicon Valley allows us to reach out to companies quite easily. The High Tech club organizes career treks to many companies in the area. so far I visited eBay, Adobe, Symantec, Yahoo! and Google and next Friday we’re at Facebook. Another great initiative that is unique to Haas is “Rich’s Silicon Valley Tour”. In this half-day tour, Rich Wong, our Tech Account Manager (from the Career Services Office) takes groups of five students each day for a tour around the silicon valley, including lectures on the area’s history, geography and culture and, of course, about companies we see along the way.

(Naveed, Kazu, Hannah, Akhil and me @Intel)

On the next posts I will cover other opportunities we have in the area of job search, and a few words about the current economic turmoil

This year we celebrated our first thanksgiving with our new friends from Haas. As I’ve mentioned in the past, there is an amazing group of people living in the UC Village (aka “The Village People”) that became really close friends, and we try to celebrate all major events together.

Progressive Thanksgiving Meal
The holiday events started with the traditional thanksgiving meal, only due to the large number of participants, it was split into three events. We started at David and Hannah’s apartment with drinks and appetizers.


After everyone got into the right holiday spirit, we moved to Christine and Vince for the main Thanksgiving meal, including the traditional turkey, professionally prepared and cut by Vince’s father - a turkey expert. During the meal Vince told us the story behind the holiday and each of us wrote (anonymously) what he or she are thankful for this year.

After the meal we all went to Sagy and Moran’s for deserts and (some more) drinks. At this point the Texan people in the group went to see the traditional thanksgiving football game while the rest of us went to play the traditional Rock Band game (we are turning this into a tradition, just have a little patience).

Black Friday
The Friday that follow thanksgiving is known as Black Friday, and it marks the beginning of the huge sales season that ends after the new year arrives. It is called Black Friday because this is the day in which most retailers more from red ink in their books (i.e. losses) to black ink (profits). One of the traditional ways of celebrating the day is DoorBusters - special offers of products in really cheap prices that are offered in a very limited number to the first customers. And the stores are opened at 5am. This creates huge lines throughout the night of people trying to be the first to win these sales. This year things went so crazy that a WallMart employee died as the crowd tried to get in the store. I had to see this for myself, so I woke up at 5 am and drove to the nearest WallMart, but since I arrived at 6am, most of the attractive items were already gone. Yes, it’s that crazy.

Going Out
That very Friday we went out with the Village People to celebrate Jack (Amanda’s husband) birthday. We went to a great Italian restaurant in Berkeley, had some great Italian wine and shared huge family-style dishes. From there we continued to the Albatross, a very nice American-style Berkeley pub, which not only offers all kinds of beer and snacks, but also has several special darts booths. I would be really Happy to meet the guy who thought that giving sharp, dangerous objects to drunk people is a good idea. Luckily, the evening ended without casualties.

Movie Night

The Village Thanksgiving weekend events ended the next day (Saturday night) at our place with a festive screening of the 80’s classic Top Secret. Jack and Amanda brought home-made Hummus which was absolutely fantastic, Shauli brought old scotch and cigars and everyone got into the right mood for this hilarious spoof.

Last Sunday, we lost one of the most inspiring professors in Haas - Bill Sonnenschein.

When we just arrived to Haas, we could sign up for two modules in the pre-school summer camp. One was math/finance/accounting introduction, and the second was Communication Workshop. We didn’t really know what exactly to expect from that second workshop, but I decided to take it anyway in what turned out to be one of the best experiences I could have before Haas.

Bill was the professor leading this workshop and he immediately captured us with his unique approach to communication, public speaking and people in general. The workshop was full of activities that allowed us to get to know each other better, while improving our ability to communicate regardless to our country of origin.

Bill was also our professor in the Leadership Communication course during fall A, and here too he managed to create a learning experience that was unlike any I’ve had before. He built a wonderful team of GSIs (Graduate Students Instructors), which were second-year students that practically led the class and I don’t think there is even a single person in class that didn’t become a better public speaker by the end of the semester.

Bill spent the last few months in Madagascar as a communication consultant for the government there. He was extremely excited about this opportunity and told us lots of great stories in class. unfortunately, after only few hours of intense gastric illness, Bill passed away last Sunday in the small village of Maronsetra on the East coast of Madagascar.

We will all miss him at Haas, his great sense of humor, his unconventional way of thinking, his ringtone (Hendrix’s solo in All Along the Watchtower) and most of all his genuine passion for people and for experiencing life to the maximum.