random access memories

as the entire internet is abuzz about, daft punk’s new album “random access memories” is dropping may 21. i’m so excited…my favorite band with a disco sound and their new outfits are fittingly all sequinned out courtesy of hedi slimane of saint laurent.  there’s so much anticipation and i love that they’re going back to disco amidst all this freaking edm hype.  watching the collaborators videos about making the album is pretty inspiring too.

i can already tell i’m going to love this album from what’s been teasingly released so far…i mean it’s disco!  and “get lucky” features one of my celebrity crushes, pharrell.  it’s serendipitous that it’s been released on my birthday.  so of course i already pre-ordered it.

i’ve had some great things coincide with my birthday in the past…sun god festival (the only day that ucsd becomes a party school) and shrek 2 (yes, shrek).

this year is the first time i’ll experience having my birthday with final exams and actually have an operations quiz that day. i’d been wanting to a disco theme, and actually even go to a disco, for my birthday but thought nobody would really be into it. but i think daft punk will make things so much easier and actually get people to start liking disco too i think.

safari disco club

so a lot of my posts are kinda depressing generally i think.  well, i recently got back from spring break.  i was so excited to finally travel somewhere…which i thought the mba was all about.  i didn’t get to travel before school and it’s been a few years since i’ve traveled internationally so i was happy to spend my spring break trek in two continents that were new to me–africa (south africa) and europe (netherlands).

our trek went to johannesburg and cape town in south africa, with a layover in amsterdam on our return flight back for a few hours.

we went on a couple safaris and saw a lot of animals:

zebras on the mabula game reserve

giraffes

impala

a lot of baby animals (!), including this playful baby rhino with mama

lions

king of the jungle

…er, the bush

hippos

much better weather than i’ve returned to in nyc…with beaches and…

a yacht

human pyramids

lighthouses

waterfronts

mountains + clouds

cable cars

even penguins!

and of course, vincent…with a special appearance in his motherland

and lots of jumping, cartwheels, flips, ACTION shots…

and of course a lottttt of drinking, dancing, and getting turnt up…

recruiting

yes, what the image says.  i signed my summer internship offer letter yesterday and i’m thrilled to be done recruiting.  it’s been a real pain in the ass and tiring.  after applying to at least 50 (no exaggeration) places and interviewing for over a month for both spring and summer, i’m finally DONE.

i’ll actually be taking my first offer, from nordstrom, for the summer, although i did get offers from johnson & johnson and sears (this was hard to turn down, they pay very well).  i also interviewed with coty (withdrawn), amazon, co:collective, estee lauder, gilt (pending), the jones group (pending), kurt salmon, pepsi, quidsi, unilever, sony, and urbn/urban outfitters.

and for the spring, i’ll be doing consumer marketing for mandarin oriental hotel group.  i didn’t get any other offers for spring, but talked to tory burch and louis vuitton (pending).

so let’s see the breakdown…like 47 applications, 15 multi-round interviews, and 3 offers for the summer.  3 applications, 3 interviews, and 1 offer for the spring.  although some stuff is withdrawn or still pending decisions…that’s a pretty terrible yield.  let me tell you kids, it’s no easy thing to get an internship/job in bschool.  sure, they guarantee everyone will get something that pays 6 figures but they lie.  first of all, only banking/consulting really pays 6 figures…and sears apparently.  the minority of your class are done recruiting on campus in january (so odds are that you won’t be done, but don’t sweat it).  and yea everyone will get something, but it’s always been a question of whether i’d get something i actually want…which is much tougher.  fortunately i am doing something i want but that could’ve easily not happened.  there are plenty of people still recruiting and it definitely sucks.

i honestly felt like i’m going to die this semester with the combo of classes, projects, the cfda consulting project, recruiting, and competitions.  thankfully recruiting and the macy’s challenge are done but now my spring internship will commence and i’ll probably still die this semester.  on a bright note, south africa in a few weeks!!

i select you

keeping up with my valentine’s tradition, here are some new valentines from repeat valentine illustrator ben kling. his previous collection was dictators and it looks like he removed the be mein/hitler one, too controversial? these ones should be more pc, it looks like they’re notable luminaries from academia.

check out the rest of series on ben’s site.

and spend the day by sharing a hot beverage with this starbucks offer:

first offer!

school just started up again less than 2 weeks ago, so what have i been doing this entire time since i came back to nyc right after the new year? well, i’ve been going through the painful process of recruiting–preparing for and actually interviewing. so although we were technically on break, it wasn’t much of a break. i am certainly glad we didn’t have classes at the same time though. that’s what i’m currently doing and it’s been torture with classes, extracurriculars, and recruiting for both summer and spring. the recruiting that takes place upfront that early is mostly for more traditional mba career choices like banking, consulting, cpg marketing, etc. i haven’t done well with that stuff and i’ll make a post later on with more details after i accept an offer.

it’s been pretty discouraging since i did reasonably well with interview invites but haven’t had any offers. just further reinforces my theory that i don’t interview well. but it’s also because there are so many qualified candidates, many of whom do interview well.

but onto the good news! i got my first offer and i’m super happy because it’s definitely something i wanted (not that there weren’t times i didn’t get stuff i wanted, but let’s not get down again). my first offer is for nordstrom! since i want to do luxury fashion/retail, this works out quite well. i got the call today and am waiting for the written offer but i’m so relieved to have an option and know i won’t be unemployed this summer.

after i got the call, i realized how similar my feelings were to when i was accepted to ross. ross was the first business school i was accepted to after a few rejections, so it’s a similar scenario. i find a lot of things similar now to when i was applying to business school but more on that later.

so yes, in short: i have an offer for a summer internship at nordstrom and i’m happy and want to go crazy!

paperman

loving this new oscar-nominated short from disney. it sort of reminds me of my thesis project back when i was trying to be an animator (and now i’m in bschool).

it was made by a first-time director using innovative technology that merges computer and hand-drawn animation.

good job, disney. i see having john lasseter at the helm is really helping. although i haven’t seen wreck it ralph (yet), that had a lot of promise too.

25%

so i’m now done with my first semester of bschool…i can’t believe i’m 25% done.  i always thought 2 years seemed short.  to be honest, i don’t quite feel like i’m in a place i would’ve liked to have been by now.

as i’ve mentioned in previous posts, finance and accounting were quite challenging for me.  i guess it’s true that you can’t really fail in bschool because i didn’t and i also don’t need to fear losing my scholarship…at least for now.

next semester i’ll be able to take more electives and there are so many classes that i either find interesting or would just be good for my own development that it’ll definitely be difficult selecting which ones i’ll actually be taking in my remaining time here.  some classes i registered for next semester were advanced marketing planning strategy (which is supposed to be good for brand management), corporate finance (yea, another finance class…what am i thinking. but it’s supposed to be good and it’s taught by renowned professor damodaran), and luxury branding/luxury marketing (two 1.5 unit, half-semester classes).  i was also accepted into a stern consulting corp project where teams of 2 mbas will help designers in the cfda.

i had also registered for dbi hungary (budapest) but dropped it.  although i’ll definitely be doing dbi italy (milan) next year, i’m torn about how i feel about dbis.  the main reason i want to do them is to be in a foreign country…but since it’s a class, it’s not like you’ll be able to explore or enjoy much.  so why not just actually travel.

speaking of travel.  during spring break, a lot of students will be going on different treks and i’ll be going to south africa.  our returning flight has a long layover in amsterdam.  i’m really excited…i’ll be going to 2 continents i’ve never been to before (africa and europe).  and it’s been so long since i’ve been out of the country or traveled.  i didn’t really get to do that prior to stern like many other mbas since i was working.  it would’ve been nice to have gotten my scuba diving certification by this time but i doubt it’ll happen within 2 months.  sigh, am i ever going to get certified…

stern’s on break right now; we don’t have classes until the first week of february.  although we have a ton of time and it’s opportune travel time, like many of my classmates, i came back to nyc to prepare for interviews and do on-campus recruiting/interviews so we don’t really get to enjoy it too much.  i am grateful we aren’t interviewing while we have classes though.  i can’t wait for next year when i’ll just be traveling during this time like the other mba2s.

besides interview stuff, i’ve been drinking a lot less than i had been before (no beer blasts since there’s no school) and more cultural stuff.  just this past week i went to 2 art museums (i don’t expect this to continue though).  yesterday was pretty great luxury-wise since i had an interview with estee lauder, followed by a meeting at louis vuitton, then shortly found out who my cfda partner is and which brands i’ll be working on (m.patmos and reece hudson).  there was one team who will be working on loeffler randall…that’ll be really exciting.  i really do like the experiential aspect of the program at stern.

since i want to work in luxury goods, a lot of the internships/jobs i’m interested in won’t be through our office of career development.  but i wanted something more structured for my summer internship and applied to a bunch of stuff on-campus.  i think i may have gotten a little too carried away and applied to too many, too different things; should’ve focused more.  this past week i interviewed with pepsico, unilever, quidsi, and estee lauder.  this coming week i’ll be interviewing with amazon and kurt salmon.  i need to apply to like a billion more off-campus internships though…should probably do that now.

this past week also felt insanely long…probably because there are no classes and i wasn’t coming to school to do mock interviews.  it also was like a roller coaster of emotions where i felt really miserable being in nyc, but ended on a high note as the week concluded with estee lauder/lv/cfda and i had a good time with my classmates last night.

ok, time to be somewhat productive.