Here I am in NYC!

New York looked different from the moment when I came here last winter for the internship interview. It might because I am finally settled down at a place in the city or I spent few days here and I started to love this city. Anyways, one fact that did not change was that I am as nervous as I was before. It is a different pressure. I really wanted to get this internship then and now, I want to do well, making mistakes as little as possible. To be honest, get the return offer but we will see how that goes!

As I mentioned before, I spent few days before I started working. I tried to navigate this big city as much as possible. I saw a Broadway musical and a theater, shopped at Soho and got lost at Central Park. I enjoyed everything because last time when I was here, I was not able to look around as much as possible because I was here for only two days and I was still in school. However, my favorite so far was the Flea Market on upper west area! I really liked the fact that I was able to see variety of things all at the same time and they were relatively affordable J

In the past week, I was at the training to get ready for the next week’s work at the client site. There, I was able to meet many Deloitte professionals and new interns. One interesting fact about the training was that interns who are still doing their undergraduates take the same training courses as interns who are pursuing their masters in accounting and MBA degree. Plus, there were some people who have been interning at Deloitte for three years! It was good in a sense that I got to see/hear diverse perspectives when we were in discussion. I am excited for this coming days at Deloitte.

Prior to the internship

Hello everyone! I am a BBA junior who will be interning at Deloitte & Touche, LLP in New York. A department that I will be working at Deloitte is assurance (audit). I honestly have not figured out what exactly my project is going to be other than a team I will be working with is focusing on financial industry clients. For some reason, I cannot access to my personal account in Deloitte website which contains details of my internship at this point but I will figure it out and update you on that soon.

Through my internship, I am expecting to get further practical knowledge in accounting field. Since it is critical time of my life in terms of choosing a business sector or a function that I want to work after graduation, I would also like to see my fit for the job as an audit. There are things that I am excited or nervous about the internship. I am thrilled to meet with various professional networks of people and work with them but at the same time, I am afraid making any mistakes or having too many questions and have lack of self-confidence when performing tasks. Thank you so much for reading my post and I am looking forward to sharing my experience with you.

Wrap-up and Final Presentatoin

Finally I have reached the end of my internship. This weekend, I am packing up all the things preparing to go back. In some sense, I miss Ann Arbor, but in others I miss Cupertino. Last Friday, I had a wrap-up meeting with my manager. Although my intern ends this coming week, since he is leaving for a business trip we had wrap-up a week before. I was told that overall my work was good. But Apple's recruiting system is not like other hi-tech companies, giving offer right at the end of internship. So I will have to wait for some time.


This week, I will have a final presentation on Thursday. I will report to my boss's boss boss, and some other staff related to my scope of work. On the same day, I will have another meeting set-up to expalin about my works so that someone here can follow-up those. Also, after all things are done, I am finally going to have a conference call with my boss to get feedback on my overall performance. I also have to give Apple a feedback about my intern experiences.


Overall, Apple's internship program seems to be very much organized, with diverse programs that interns can take advantage of. Although every people was busy, since I was assigned a manager and iBuddy, I could get as many information as I could, of course on the condition that I communicate with them in an efficient way. Besides work related stuff, there are lot's of extracurricular activities. Intern field trip to winery and SF baseball game, executive speaker series, department outing, meeting with senior managers and previous interns, lots of welcome/farewell parties and so on.
(Picture on right: Apple Corporate Games)

As a person having internship here, I am sure that future high-tech guys put Apple as their first priority intern place. You can work lots of smart Apple people, talk with them about their thoughts, sometimes see Steve Jobs at the cafeteria, sometime meet Woz and take picture with him, and also enjoy the beautiful weather at the west coast! Your experience here all depends on how you prepare and how you do at Apple!

Finale

Hello everyone,

This is it! My 2 months summer internship is over now. Time does fly by.... I am sad that I have to say good bye to this great experience. However, during the internship, I had a great time with two other MBA interns. Even though each has different personality, we have overcome humps. Each member respects and listens the others. Most of all, we became great friends. I hope that this relationship lasts forever. I also had a great time with co-workers. I do really appreciate their helps and insights. I pray that our project result contributes to the company's future strategy. Here are some points that I want to go over.

1) Final presentation
We ended up having more than 150 pages of powerpoint slides. Well, we had to shrink those into 10 pages. We almost spent 2 entire days just for shrinking. After strenuous works, we finally had a presentation in front of entire strategy team. Even though our result was not super creative, it was solid enough to satisfy our audience. I do still remember their sharp questions. Trying to persuade others was not easy.

2) Final hang-out
About 15 MBA interns got together for the last farewell party. Everyone was tired but satisfied with their works and friendship, which we made during last 2 months. We reminisced from the day one of the internship orientation to the first farewell party for early leavers who had shorter projects. We also shared about favorite Korean foods and hated ones too. Good bye my friends!

3) Lessons
In-class learning is not going to work 100% in real work place. We needed to adjust what MBA has taught us mightily and, at the same time, to keep persuading co-workers. Yes, this was not a easy task, but this experience itself was another great learning opportunity.

Thank you very much for your reading! It is time to go home!! See you in AA!!

byung

How to do a Good Internship?

Again, time flew and I have only three weeks left until the end of my internship. Most of my projects are now at the final stage. There were several things that went on well, but also several others that I feel more could have been done. All these will be an asset for me in preparing for my full time job search. I also got some feedback after my seventh week, which was really a valuable one. Here are some of my recommendations while doing internship.

First, before coming for the internship it would help very much if you have a high-level plan of what you will do during internship. For example, you can plan some networking lunches with people at Apple or even some other people at bay area high-tech companies. You can also plan to write an intern diary to track what/how you are doing to improve yourself every week. As for me, I memorized some things that I should do or shouldn't do, but I didn't write a daily intern diary. But I guess when you write one it will definitely help you.

Second, try to understand the industry so that you can communicate well throughout doing your project. Although you are working for specific company, while doing work your knowledge on the industry helps dealing with other employees at the company. They will know that you are prepared and passionate about what you are doing at work.

Third, as a perspective of balancing your work and life, I suggest you plan to enjoy your weekend. Sometimes, intern life can make you get stressed a lot. Especially for me who is an international student, I was stressed while communicating since I am not a native speaker. Especially for international students, conference call seems to be the hardest communication you have to overcome to communicate well in a US company.

Anyway I hope good luck to all of the interns!

2 more weeks to go!

Hi everyone. It has been already 6 weeks since I started the summer internship. Wow time does fly by~ Today I want to share how communication is important during the internship. The communication problem almost cost our project.

Since our project mentor had to take care of three other projects, we, three MBA interns, did not have real chance to talk to him for about two weeks. Yes, he was really busy and could not review our progress neither. Then problem occured. Our approach of project was not following the intension of our team leader, which he never mentioned before. A week before the interim report to team leader, our mentor noticed this issue and ordered us to redo the research in 4 days, which we have been doing for last two weeks.

Suddenly, we were under pressure. We decided to re-schedule the project and, painfully, shorten the project scope because we did not have enough time to complete the business proposal. To make the matter worse, we also had to complete extra report for the interim report: don't ask me why we have to write a report for a report. I guess that each team has its own working culture. Well, we did our best, and the interim report got a bad review by the team leader. But our team leader's frank opinion on the report greatly helped us to have clear understanding and picture of the project. His sharp comments helped us to build better framework, problem solving, and recommendation.

I am not blaming our mentor. It was our fault. We should have actively talked to the mentor, even though he was super busy. Helping him by not bothering him (no conversation) is not real help for both us and the mentor. Well, good news is that our project is heading right direction, and our team leader is fine with shortened project scope. We will see how our final presentation goes.

Half Way Through

Six weeks have passed since my beginning. I have been concentrating on gathering information for one of my projects and standardizing a process for another project. Since my boss and most of the team members were on a business trip, I got exposure into a new situation at Apple.

(1) Communication and Teamwork
While doing my projects, communicating with others at Apple was really important. It is quite common in all companies, but especially communicating well at Apple operations was really important. First reason is because Apple is so concerned about security. Since it is hard to get information, you have to be good in explaining well what you do and why you need the information. Second reason is operations specific. Since most of the people are traveling, e-mail communication skills are required. But before that, you have to meet as much people as possible during their stay at Cupertino campus. While my first MBA days, communication and teamwork was almost all that I learned, but using the skills and theory that I learned in a real environment gave me more takeaways.

(2) Function Based Structure
I had more executive speaker series with people at HR, operations, software. One thing interesting was one I heard from HR person. He told us the unique aspects of Apple organization. The one he emphasized was the functional based organization structure. He told us that functional based structure keeps Apple's employees professional in their areas and keep all people in a flat structure. I also had other chances to know about Apple operation by talking to senior leadership people of operations at a breakfast event. Apple gives as many chances as possible to let interns get to know Apple. I think I should utilize them more in my second half of intern.

(3) SF Giants Game
This week interns went to the SF Giants game. When I got to the stadium, I could see lots of SF famous players‘ biography with their signatures. Talking about baseball with colleagues seemed to be another way of enhancing communication and sharing each one’s interests. Good that I am a huge baseball fan.

Hi guys,

My internship is almost over. Two more weeks to go!! Yes!! I didn't realize that time does fly by~ So far, the internship has been a blessing. 1) I made 30 new mba friends, who are from all over the world. 2) My team members are fun too hang out. 3) I totally forgot about Korean working culture. 4) Re-learning about the importance of the communication


1) Seoul Trip
One weekend, my fellow intern friend and I decided to take 8 international mba interns to Seoul. Well, they were sick and tired of Suwon, where is full of factories and not a fun place to hang out.
Even though, the end of the trip, we walked more than 6 hours, we were proud that we toured the most of the northern parts of Seoul. We stop by the loyal palace, the inner city stream, the president house, a traditional street, and the shopping mall. Let me know, if you interested.

2) Project members
The more and more I work with my teammates. I am falling in love with them : ) They are all smart people, and they are classic mba students. They know when to work and when to play. They know how to work efficiently. Hopefully, I learn most of their merits before the internship is over.

3) Korean working culture
I cannot not reveal about the internship. But one thing that I want to share about the culture is 'passive, passive, and passive!!' But it is better than when I was working in Korea.

4) Re-learning about the importance of the communication
Due to our project mentor's crazy schedule, of course super busy, we, mba interns, could not talk to him about a week. Well, to be honest, we felt bad to bother him. Due to this mis-communication, we ended up reworking on 2 weeks' worthy of marketing research in 3 days. Isn't this crazy??!! I guess that I got affected by 'passive, passive, and passive' Korean culture. Wake up! Byung!!

Talk to you guys later

byung

My Intern Life So Far

Time is going so fast and 4 weeks have passed since I got here. Since my first posting, there have been several things going on.

(1) Work
Some of my project scope has been finalized and I am trying to keep pace with the schedule. Unfortunately I can't tell you about the details of the project, but I want you to know how important Apple thinks about confidentiality. As for each of the projects, I have to work with 3-4 Apple employees, some of whom are in other countries. To get to know each other, I organized several one-on-one interviews with them for introduction of myself and my project. One thing unique about Apple. When you begin your internship, you are assigned an i-Buddy. i-Buddy helps you with almost every issues and it was very helpful to me getting used to Apple and its people. Another thing I want to tell is that people here are really busy these days. Since the launching of i-Phone 4, almost all the operations people are busy whole day to resolve some follow-up issues. I see their passion and professionalism, and understand what made Apple at this position.

(Above you can see a pic of me and Woz. I hope I can finally be friend with Apple like the pic)

(2) Intern Events
As I said in the first post, there are lot's of intern events here. One is the executive speaker series. There were several speaker series since my first posting, including Steve's and Jonathan. I guess all knows who Steve is, and Jonathan is a SVP of industrial design at Apple. Recently he was announced as one of 50 smartest people in tech by Fortune. Again, the details of the speech is also a confidential, but I just want to tell you these events are really interesting and I gain a lot getting to know their experience and thoughts. There was also intern welcome dinner, field trip to winery etc. I am also in one of the teams for the corporate game, which is like Apple Olympic.

(3) Cupertino Life
When you are considering for a full-time job, I guess one important thing is the environment of where you live. Cupertino is a small city, but the weather here is so good. I heard that during May-December it hardly rains. Every day it is sunny, and you can enjoy a lot of leisure sports. Last week I brought my bike to Angel Island and went around the whole Island. People here are enjoying the weather and all seem to be sports-lovers. If you are very active person, I am sure that you will enjoy your life here.

Just Like MAP!

Hi people, how are you guys doing?

Even though I finished almost the half of the summer internship, I think it is good time to go back when my internship begun. By the way, so far, my internship has been fun and challenging, but, luckily, MAP experience has saved me couple of times. Thank God that I am in Ross : )

1. Internship Subject
I got the internship opportunity in the strategy team in Samsung Electronics' semiconductor memory division. My internship subject is setting a market entry strategy for an upcoming product by studying current IT trends. I want to go deeper, but it is against NDA sorry..

2. Team members
I'm working with two other MBA students. 'J' is from MBA school in China and has been a great intermediate between me and 'P'. And 'P', who has pure engineering backgrounds before joining MBA in U.S, has giving us diverse perspectives. It took me first two weeks to figure out the personalities of my teammates. I found out that we have a perfect chemistry for the project!!

3. First impression on mentor
My first impression on my mentor is very good. Considering conservative Korean culture, he is the person who has very open mind and will to listen other opinions, which are against his opinion. He is also love to talk about classic guitar, body building, and soccer. Finally, he is the one who makes us go home as early as possible. I love it!!

4. Just like MAP
Every internship step reminds me MAP; the letter of the engagement, the way interacting with mentor and other teammates, the research methodology, and, of course, making attractive also persuasive power point slides. I did not realize MAP experience was going to help me to secure my fulltime position. Cross ma fingers!!

See you next blog!

First Week at Apple!

Hello All. It has been long since I first posted. Now I am at Infinite Loop 1 Cupertino, the place where Apple is. (See Picture 1)

Life at Apple is much more excited than I expected and I learn a lot everyday. All the people here seems to be very busy, but they are very open and cooperative. You can also see some people with strong characteristic. People who don't wear shoes, man wearing a skirt, people with long beard and so on. I can see that Apple is the company with the most creative and passionate people at Silicon Valley, leading technological innovation and lifestyle of future world.

Since this is the first blog, I will start with some introduction and things I felt at Apple.

(1) Where Apple is located. How it is like in Cupertino.

As I said, 1 Infinite Loop is where Apple is located. I-Phone users! Did you know that the icon of Maps designates Apple's location? I guess many of you didn't know about this.

The weather in Cupertino is the best in US. I heard that during May~December it doesn't rain. I think I am really lucky to have a chance to experience my internship in this environment.

To summarize, I am in such a good place!



(2) I saw Steve! Lot's of people at Valley Fair Store now for getting I-Phone 4!

At my first day, I was having lunch at the CafeMac. There I saw Steve! He was standing just in front of me to get some food, wearing the same clothes such as black turtle neck and jeans.

Tomorrow, people are going to get their pre-ordered I-Phone 4. Some of the interns including my roommate are going to get them. In the left is the picture one of the intern took today. Since Apple's security is very tight, I cannot explain in detail, but I-Phone 4 is a great product. I had a chance to look at it during my one-on-one introduction meeting. You should also try to get one!




(3) Projects going on. Intern events. Ross Bay Area alumni club.

As I said at my first blog, I am working in an operations department. I have several projects to finish for this summer, and am in process of narrowing down the scope of project with my boss. Unfortunately, this is all I can tell you about the project. APPLE'S SECURITY IS THE BEST. ALSO APPLE'S OPERATIONS IS BY FAR THE BEST. (Actually, I heard that Apple was selected the best company for operations)

I see that there are about 50 MBA interns here this summer. Interns are from a variety of schools, but mostly Top 10 + West-Coast based schools. Apple hosts many events for intern such as Happy Hour, Welcome Dinner(This is going on now!), San Francisco trip, Winery trip and so on. So I can enjoy my work but also enjoy gathering with other interns and finding out new things here.

I also have a Ross Bay Area event tomorrow. I will definitely participate and meet our alumni working at the Bay Area.

This seems to be all for today. I hope I can give you more exciting stories with some exciting pictures!

It's been a week and I'm still alive : )

First of all, I need to clarify my blog topic switch. My internship journey for social venture capital didn't work out well, so I decided to work for Samsung Electronics. Currently, I'm a part of a strategy team in a semiconductor division. I'm really sorry for the late notice.

Well, it's been a week since my internship got started. Time does fly by~ First three-day of internship was orientation, and I want to share what I have been learning so far.

1. Samsung's super tight security; worse than U.S. airport

I have never been in a place where I have to seal up my MP-3 player in a plastic bag, cover my cellphone camera lense with a small sticker, get a security tag on my bags, and double check my enterance permit. It was worse than U.S. airport. All these are for preventing information leak against Samsung product/strategy. Do I have to do this every morning during next 8 weeks??!! Sigh...

2. MBA interns from all over the world

There are about 30 MBA interns from Spain, Italy, Romania, England, China, India, and U.S.A. And thay are all crazy about the World Cup!!! I just realized how English is not patient only in soccer. Especially, when US tied with England, you should have seen the face of my colleague from England.

3. Cultural norms in Korea according to orientation.

I want to share some of Korean norms, which were written in a orientation material. I think these are funny.
-'One of the ways of developing mutual trust and cementing a personnel relationship is the practice of getting closer through sharing alcohol...'
-'How to get out of the drink-to-get-drunk-as-fast-as-possible: Keep your glass half full - never let it be seen to be empty or someone will feel obligated to refill it.'
-'There is no such thing as Dutch treat in Korea. Only one person will pay the bill when two or more people go out.'
-'Try to be aware of subtleties in communication, observing non-verbal and indirect cues that often suggest the true sense of what is being communicated.'
Tough, aren't they? If you want to visit Korea, never forget these norms : )

Next time, I'll share about my internship life.

See ya!!

The First Step to being a Social Venture Capitalist

Hi everyone! My name is Byung Lee from South Korea. I am a first year MBA student at the Stephen M. Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan pursuing a social venture capital career. I have diverse experiences as an industry researcher at a central bank, a high-tech engineer, and an oversea sales representative. Before I start writing, I want to let you know that I haven't secure the internship in social venture capital(SVC) YET, still on the process *sigh* : ) But I want to share some tips for future Ross international SVC pursuers.

1. What do you believe?

Do you believe that traditional philanthropy offered by public institutions and foundations is the solution for social problems? Do you believe the government has to take the role of being a main social impact driver? Then you have an inaccurate, I dare to say, belief. All theses will address the most immediate needs but these are not for long term solutions. You need to believe that in order to create long-lasting social impact, sustainable market-based approaches must be employed. And you need to believe SVC will be the key player.

2. Congratulation! You are in Ross

Do you know that Ross is one of the most prominent and respected MBA within a social sector? Thanks to Prof. C.K. Prahalad and Ted London. They are experts in the bottom of the pyramid, the concept prasied by many people. According to Bill Gates, it "offers an intriguing blueprint for how to fight poverty with profitability." The bottom of the pyramid is a new business models targeted at providing goods and services to the poorest people at the bottom of the pyramid in the world. You should read 'The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid' by C.K. Prahalad, the book inspired many social venture capitalists.

3. Social Venture Fund

Last year Social Venture Fund(SvF) was launched in Ross. It is a student led investment fund, which will 'target and invest in innovative companies that place the generation of a significant social impact at the heart of their mission and way of doing business'. SvF is great way to maximize Ross exprience, if you want to pursue SVC career. Contact a coordinator of SvF. write 'I am interested in getting into your radar and next year...'.

Next time, I'll share more about how real SVC life flows.

Hello!

My name is Chang Lee and I am a first year MBA student at the Ross School of Business. This summer, I am having my internship at Apple which was my top choice among all the high-tech companies. I am very excited and looking forward to meeting the people there.

I am planned to get involved in an operation project, and so far there seems to be several projects that I will be working on this summer but I don't know the exact scope of the project. I am planning to contact Apple to get to know about my project in more detail.

As a person who worked at Samsung as a business strategist, I am willing to get some business experience at a more global setting. Also, since Apple has been at the forefront of leading innovation through technology, I think my understanding in high-tech industry will increase after my internship. It is also important that I can work at the center of Silicon Valley with lots of high-tech companies such as Google, Cisco being there. I will meet various people from diverse background and function, and form a broad and deep relation with them.

One worry that I have is about the language since I only have business experience in Korea. But I am pretty sure that I will get over those problems well after having finished my MAP project at Microsoft.C