It's unbelievable...

...Once you start, time goes really fast.

It’s unbelievable but I am already half-way of this amazing adventure. Next week we will have our mid-summer review and I am very excited to hear how I have been doing so far in my new role. I have tried to meet as many people as people in order to arrive at the review well prepared and not too much stressed.

In terms of the workflow, it has always been really busy. During the past week I have been staffed on five different deals and I have been learning tremendously. Everybody is willing to help and people in my group are extremely nice and friendly. Every time you need help, you can just shoot an email or walk to the desk of any colleagues and they are ready to guide you.

My ‘junior’ mentor has been very helpful in giving me great advice during the past weeks. We have a coffee chat once in a while and he updates me on what’s going on in the news and in the group. We also have a monthly M&A meeting where the head of the group is showing us all the financial results of our group. Each meeting he brings in different representatives from the bank and outside of the bank that can give us interesting different perspectives.

Last week it was the 4^th of July weekend. I had to work but I managed to go home at a reasonable time in order to see the fireworks from the rooftop of my building. It was great!

This weekend we have to prepare a presentation for a Monday meeting. Even if it is weekend, we are all together in the office and with a great team hours goes fast and hopefully tonight we will all find ourselves at a bar with a drink in our hand after an intense week of work.

Keep you posted!

Matteo

Wk 7: Almost done

I have just started the second half of my internship. I am in the thick of my cost benchmarking activities. This second phase of my project is very difficult because most of the comparable peers of the Bhutan companies are unlisted and therefore, do not disclose annual reports. This makes my job difficult in getting enough and relevant data to compare the cost of local companies with that of international companies.

Oh, and guess what? I have two new project deliverables! The CEO of a company I am studying informed me a couple of days ago. I am happy to have had a long conversation with a CEO to discuss business. It was interesting to hear his thoughts on the local market, business constraints, and potential growth opportunities. I am excited to hear that my new cost project deliverable would greatly help improve their operations. I am going to a forest this Saturday to observe the operations of the Natural Resources Development Corporation. I have five more weeks to finish all my projects.

On another note, I have been wearing Michigan gear almost every day hoping to meet a fellow Wolverine here. But, so far I have no luck in finding one.

What I did encounter is this:

Bhutanese: Where are you studying?

Jofresh: At Michigan

Bhutanese: Oh, Michigan State

Jofresh: (gasp!) No! At University of Michigan

Bhutanese: Ah…

Hmm… the locals seem to know Michigan State more than U of M…

Last week, the other interns went to a city 8 hours away from Thimphu to see a festival. I did not join them because I had work. Nevertheless, I went on another trip to a nearby city to see a different festival. We went to the Haa district. Below are some pictures of the colorful festival.

Waiting for the event to start

Opening ceremonies

Traditional song and dance

Stalls

Delicious buckwheat momos (dumplings filled with vegetables and cheese)

Internship ++

It's been a while, and it's been busier...

True, I've learnt a lot about the industry and how things are done. I'm also more comfortable with the people around me, who I work with, and also my daily tasks - therefore I finish my work faster. However, work never ends.

There are 13 interns within Market Risk Management and Analysis, some are PhD students (modelers), some are undergraduates (analyst) , and some are MBAs (corporate). The intern manager in my department gave us a new intern group project to use our skills cohesively to analyze crises. Yeah, that's vague.

My team tries to work on the different matrices and indices to look at the risk factors and correlations between crises. We're not set yet, but we have a solid game plan. I think this topic is very challenging. The fact that it's open ended made it more difficult, and with only 3 weeks to go, we're concerned that we will not have time to finish this. Most interns sacrifice their weekends to finish their current daily project already, with this additional project, we will have to prioritize on which one is the most important one.

Additionally, our buddy gave us this tip: the first half of the internship is about task quality, the second half is about networking. We're required to meet with different people from different departments to learn more about them, at the same time learn more about our department. That is time-consuming. There is so much to do in so little time.

While most people are enjoying the sun in NY City, I guess the Market Risk interns will have to enjoy the ultra-violet ray from our Bloomberg Screen.

Cheers!

Hanging out in Chicago

It was a long weekend last week for the independence day. All of the interns left this small town to enjoy the long weekend. I decided to go to Chicago to hang out with my friends.

On Friday, I watched a firework show sponsored by the company that I interned with. It was not a big show if compared to the government organized firework show in China. But is was great to sit outside and watch it with friends around.

After some shopping on Saturday afternoon, I hung out with couple of Chinese MBA folks in Chicago. We had some great and cheap Cantonese food in China tonw and headed over to the bar area. Unfortunately, a friend of us locked his car key at the trunk. We felt very sorry for him as he was so worried about it. We stayed with the friend and waited until he figured out how to get the key out.

Then, I had a big day on Monday. I want boating! It was my first time in US or let me say, it was my first time boating with my friends only. We had great weather that we prepared enough foods for this event. After one hour sailing on the lake michigan and enjoying the sky line of Chincago, we anchored somewhere in the lake. I jumped into the lake and swam. But the water is still very cold. It was a great Monday and I was glad that I spent time with my friends. I am pretty sure that I will come back to Chicago again this summer.

I am almost half way on my intern. Wish myself good luck.

Marie Claire: The Wisdom of Editors

It's been a few weeks now since the Claire Editor-Intern luncheons began. I was lucky enough to snatch a seat around the lunch table to listen to Katie Connor (Fashion Features Editor), and Suzanne Sykes (Creative Director). Lunch with Katie was excellent - I think maybe it was because she was closer in age to us interns, but she shared with us her story of how she got to where she is now. It was easier to relate to her, given she started out as only an intern at Interview Magazine. She said that afterwards she moved around the industry a bit (however mainly focused on fashion writing) and took all of the opportunities that fell in front of her. She was very down to earth and humble, which really put me to ease when I listened to her tell us about her background.

Katie Connor, Fashion Features Editor

Just last week I went to the luncheon with the Creative Director, Suzanne Sykes. Hands down, a brilliant and intelligent woman. I found out that she actually launched Marie Claire UK, and that it was rather successful overseas. And coincidentally, she received a call from the US offices, (which, at the time, had no clue she was a big player over at the British offices) offering her a position. Suzanne's job as Creative Director includes literally looking over each and every page of the magazine (ads included!) and checking for mistakes and editing every layout. So, the color combinations and word placement on every page of Marie Claire is run through the hands of Suzanne before going into print. Suzanne also introduced us to a new segment of Marie Claire - one which is processed via Tablet. There have been several apps produced for users of the Tablet, including the entire magazine transferred electronically onto the device, as well as a beauty station where you can literally put makeup onto a virtual model. She has told us that the company is expecting to achieve a lot, little by little, in the near future with their expansion into the electronic world.

Suzanne Sykes, Creative Director

I am waiting to have lunch with Joanna Coles in a little over a week, and I am very excited to get the chance to hear about what she has to say about the magazine, general life tips, and of course, about her background!

Also, to add on to what I wrote about in my last post regarding the Marie Claire Front Row Challenge, I officially submitted my application for the contest last Thursday. Now it's up to the judges to decide... I will keep you posted!

Hi!

I finished already seven weeks of my internship, which means that less than half to go. I didn't understand how much time I am working at my Business Unit until the second group of SLP interns joined the program three weeks ago and I saw how much I can help them or at least point them to the right person. It makes me feel good about how much I integrated with my team. The project is on the fast track and we are on schedule, which is impressive as this is the biggest competitive strategic sourcing the company has done. I also started meeting both my Business Unit President and my Senior Vice President on a weekly basis, so I get better understanding about the strategy behind the process. Last week I even participated at the board meeting of my Business Unit and learned the future growth strategy of Kenmore, Craftsman and DieHard.

Another exiting event that happened this Friday was going to a Hot Road race in Route 66, where I was a guest of DieHard which is the main sponsor of one of the teams that competed. I never imagined I would be in such an event.

One last thing I would share in this post is how much Chicago is amazing in summer. I tour the city, going to its museums and walking a lot in downtown where I live. Right now I came back from the movie Transformers 3 which was almost entirely filmed at the block I live in and where the teater is located. For the first time in my life I stepped out of a movie and felt I am part of this movie, a feeling which was much more exiting than the real movie...

Life in the Twin Cities

I am at the mid point of my internship at Ecolab. On the work front, I scheduled a couple of mid point check-ins with my manager to ensure that we are all on the same page. The response has been very encouraging and the team is very excited to see the final presentation.

That said, I think the highlight of the week was getting a chance to tour the Twin Cities. HR organized a half-day tour for the interns, and for me, it was a great way to get a sense of the place, and ultimately decide if this is somewhere I can live in and consider a long-term career. We started the tour at Summit Avenue at downtown Saint Paul, a street known for its historical Victorian-style buildings. The architecture of the houses, churches and schools were breathtaking. It is rare to find old buildings that are so well preserved in today’s day and age – it almost felt like I was momentarily transported back in time.

We also drove to a couple of lakes: Lake Harriet and Lake Calhoun to name a few. People were out and about, and everywhere you could see Minnesotans jogging around the lakes, kayaking or simply lying out in the sun to enjoy the outdoors. If you are a nature love like I am, Minnesota is definitely a place to consider doing a summer internship. Borrowing the words of our tour guide, despite how brutal winter is, summer is so gorgeous that it compensates for the cold weather. Indeed, there is a reason why Minnesota is known as the “Land of 10,000 Lakes”.

We ended the tour at Minnehaha Falls, which unfortunately, was the number one attraction in Minnesota until the Mall of America came along. I can’t deny the benefits of tax-free shopping and having an indoor amusement park, but personally, I would prefer the falls any day.

Well, that’s all for now. I am heading out to enjoy some sun, before calling it an early night. Tomorrow is going to be an exciting day. The interns are taking the day off to participate in Habitat for Humanity. Time to roll up our sleeves and get some work done!

Social games are changing the industry

Halfway into my internship at Ubisoft. It keeps getting better. After working on various projects in digital casual games, my supervisor put me on the GRO team.
GRO stands for Ghost Recon Online. Ghost Recon is a award winning, 10 years old franchise, based on best selling author Tom Clancy novels. The background story revolves around a fictional secret military unit (the Ghosts), which serves as the last resort of the U.S. Army when stuff gets really bad. The games have generally been first or third person shooters , with a strong emphasis on cooperation and team strategy. Ghost Recon online will be a free to play game. Players will download it on their computers and play online for free. Thanks to Ross , a lot of us ended up working with great stuff such as bleach, food, drugs.. or Ghost Recon http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-6P5rE9L4o

As the title of this post mention, Social games are changing the videogame industry. and this is good news for any MBA who wants to be in this field. The industry has been recession proof since the nineties, and thanks to Facebook, broadband and the Nintendo Wii, a new , huge market was born. Social and Casual games are all the games that.. people who dont play videogames play. Farmville, Cityville, Bejeweled, but even Guitar Hero, Angry Birds are played by women in careers, bored fathers, grandparents. The market is so much wider and there is so much money to be made. Companies like Zynga receive skyhigh valuations , while giants like EA purchase smaller companies (Playfish, Popcap maybe) for impressive prices. Social gaming is about number, how many people play, how many people pay. It is not as artistic as gaming , and require a lot of analysis, promotion, marketing strategy and pricing. Several MBAs are getting into those new companies, using their business skills to improve the games and to find out what happens behind the scene. While I cant say I love casual and social games now, I am very intrigued in seeing what will happen and how this industry will evolve. It feels like the videogame industry is going to change impressively (probably in less than 10 years we will have no consoles anymore), and the industry leaders are acting as pioneers. I cant wait to see what will happen in five or six years, and how the whole system will evolve. And hopefully, I would like to be a part of this.
Speak soon.
Nicola,

Hello Rossers!

So it has been again two weeks since my last post. I am right in the midpoint of my internship which means my midpoint review is due this Friday and I am writing this post before that so I will not know if they “recommend” me for future opportunities at Microsoft Corporation (hopefully I will have a nice weekend with a “yes”).

These couple of weeks have been interesting, we are finally getting to a point with the agency where we are all comfortable with what they are developing, drafts have been presented and approved (or at least not vetoed) by senior management, the rest of the team has been a bit late on presenting what I need (I guess part of being an intern is having to make other people work *for* you when you are an intern) so this last week I have been stalking all of them (since before I was stalking the agency). The project is going well and if nothing (bad) happens we will be online with the campaign in early August just a couple weeks before I have to (sadly) leave.

One of the things that MS encourages its interns to do is to go and talk to people around the organization, so this week I decided to go and do that. I went and talked to a Group Program Manager to understand what they do, how they do it and how they relate to the marketing team. It was fun (and interesting) to learn how they do work, how they plan it and then how they develop it (though PMs are considered part of the engineering team they are more of a business part of engineering and the liaison between marketing and developers/testers). They write the specifications for any given feature and it was interesting to see on how they have to think about a problem to be able to solve *every* possible outcome (decision trees!! Remember them? They do come in handy).

Other than that, I had a very nice 4^th of July (if you end up in Seattle, you should go to Bainbridge Island it is not amazing, but the ferry ride is nice and only $7 and they have an amazing ice cream shop – Mora) and I will be waiting for my review (if things go like I feel they are going then I should have a nice weekend) and enjoy the weekend!

See you all in two weeks!!

Gabriel.

How many weeks do I have left?

A couple weeks into the internship at Merrill along with living in NYC! Wow, I'm giving myself a pat on the back for that one. There is a park outside my dorm - it's the only thing keeping my sane. Don't get my wrong, I love the city. It's just I need some quiet time to myself to just chilax a little bit. I really have been learning a lot though, which is kinda why things are getting a little slow actually, but shhhh don't tell anyone! Since I have learned the fundamentals, it's on to the busy work. I really am liking the guys I am working with though. We sit very close to each other, so we really are a closely knit team. My manager has been out of town a lot of the time, which lightens things up a little bit even though he really is a great guy. Despite all of this, I am not sure working in sales with concentrated equity will be part of my career in the long term. After experiencing my first real job, being an entrepreneur sounds pretty good to me!!

-alex

Summer Slowdown

So I'm a bit more than halfway through my internship now and things are coming together pretty nicely. I'm comfortable with everyone in the office and I'm getting to know the other interns better, which is cool. As unlicensed wealth management interns we can't really do a lot of work that has a real impact but we help out as much as we're able to.

Things have slown down a fair amount since my last post. Between bosses being out of the office and two other guys starting on the same team as me, the work is spread pretty thin lately. My daily responsibilities haven't changed much, but my longer term projects are wrapping up so I've begun to think about the next step. Rather than just do what I'm asked for the rest of my time at UBS I've been brainstorming projects to work on that would have an impact even after I've taken my last steps out of the office at the end of the internship. When I;m able to start working on it I plan to put together a report for my FA about the local economy and outlook over the next decade or two. If I'm able to identify where the growth will be in this time frame I'll be able to recommend strategies for him to build his group's book of business and tap the market by targeting small business, the lawyers and CPAs who workwith them, and support networks. It's a longer term project but could actually be useful, as my team is constantly in acquisition mode and this would expand the landscape some.

In all, I'm a little surprised by how laid back this segment of the finance industry can be, but that's turned out to be a good thing so far. Rather than spending all my time sitting behind a computer staring at excel all day, I'm able to do things like chat at the coffee machine for a few minutes without feeling guilty or go out to lunch and strengthen some of the new connections I've made. I've found a good balance between work and socializing, and I hope I'm able to continue to approach my internship in the way I've done up to this point.

Balancing work, training and social events

So, I just finished the third week of my internship. In fact, I would say it is the second week in terms of real job as the first week was almost full-time training. Now, I have clear the objective of my summer project. I have to analyze the strategy of an existing business card and create a new one to replace it, so it is very interesting and challenging at the same time. I have to recognize that I was concern if I would finish my project in the time that I have, so I started to plan how I would approach the project and set weekly goals. As my assigned manager is a vice president, she is really busy and difficult to talk with. This is why looked for a person within my group, whom I can ask and talk more easily. He is a senior manager and is helping me a lot as he has a great experience in credit cards.

In parallel, as part of the Internship program, Citi organizes a speaker series program where, once or twice week, different senior representatives from the bank talk to all Citi Summer interns. So far, we have heard the CEO, CFO and Chief of Technology Office. Additionally, we, the Consumer Summer Associates, have weekly lunch sessions with different senior managers from the Consumer Banking group, so they can talk about their areas and let us know beyond the areas we are working on. So far, I can say that I have learned a lot from all this sessions, and equally importantly I have heard amazing stories about professional experiences within Citi.

Last, but not least, we also have social events included in the program. For example, we have had happy hours with ex-summer associates (and now full-time employees), or networking events with Consumer Banking senior managers; and this incoming week we have a picnic with the Finance Summer Associates. Besides this, we have named a Social Chair in our group, so we also have our own happy hours and weekly lunches, so we have a lot of social activity.

I feel really lucky to been in this program, as not only I am working in a great project but also, I feel Citi is really concern about us to learn more about banking and Citi. And obviously, I am having a lot of fun with my peers in the program. As I mentioned in the previous post, our group is a really diverse group, you can see it in the picture I above. We took this picture in our visit to Citi’s Union Square branch, Citi’s flagship branch in NY, as this is how they want to be in the future. It is great; I suggest that if you are in NY, you go there!

Hope you enjoyed the post.

Shila Arias

My BJ’s intern journal, week 5

The past two weeks are a lot of fun! As China market is booming right now, some interns who are based in the US or Singapore came to Beijing to meet people and gather information. I led colleagues from Kellogg, Tuck and China Europe international business school to try the Beijing duck and traditional massage.

Luckily, I joined the bi-annual employee meeting last week. This event helped me better understand JD China’s overall performance and outlook. During the Q&A session, I threw a question to our head of business unit. “As a foreign company which has been in China for a while what’s JD’s biggest obstacle so far? He answered “Talent acquisition,” as there are more and more international companies coming to China, don’t know how to let the China talents know how good John Deere is. During the reception later, I introduced myself to the VP level management team and happened to know one of them is from Ohio….ohhhhhhhh!

One disadvantage of living in a big city is the bad traffic, especially in the rainy days!!!
I got my memorable Beijing experience the day after. It rained heavily from early morning. When I finally arrived in the office building around 8:15 am, I found thousands of people waiting at the lobby and escalators.

Later I found we had a terrible power off because of the bad weather. People just chatted with each other aloud, making the building like a real market. I finally climbed the stairs to 5th floor where our office is, working for 2 hours with my NB’s remaining electricity. Finally, HR announced the IT has to shut down the server so everyone can have an early weekend.

Another cons is that the housing problem is also getting worse in Beijing. A three-bedroom apartment 15 minutes away from work costs $1250 USD per month, while the average salary for a fresh graduate is only $650 USD. So after all my roommates decided going back to Taiwan, I am moving out again during the three month period……

Yea, here is some update about the projects I am working on. I am going to the field next week, visiting Yunnan, Guangxi and Guangdong these three major provinces accounting for 90% of the sugarcane output. The main purpose for the trip is to eliminate the understanding gaps in some major areas and potential customers. I planned the whole trip from scratch, from finding locations in the map, contacting the officials and booking tickets. From my communication experiences, sometimes you really need to insist on things you are not willing to let go or people would fool you around and find an easier way to do things. Wish me a good trip and I will share more interesting stuff next time!

The investment banking journey continues...

It’s been only two weeks of full time work and I learned tremendously. Working hours are pretty intense but once you start you get used to it quickly. The pace is fast, extremely challenging and every day there are new things to learn. It is exactly how I thought it would be.

My colleagues are very nice and helpful. Every time I have a question they are ready to sit down with me and help me. In my first week I got staffed on two live deals related to two different industries. It is very exciting because even if I never worked in those specific industries, I have the possibility to learn a lot in few days by reading reports, asking my colleagues and using all the resources that Citi has.

Two days ago I got staffed on a new project, my third deal. In banking you have to learn how to work in parallel on different deals, at different stages of the process and with different senior and junior people. You develop a unique set of skills that are and will always be extremely valuable for your present and future career.

All the people I met during the training week are now friends I can trust and on which I can rely. Every time our group has requests in terms of data I can ask my peers in the other groups and in few minutes I get what we need. I learned how important is to build relationships across different groups in the bank and to maintain them throughout my career.

I got assigned to a junior and senior mentor within the group. These are the people that will follow me through the process and will help me in case I have any problem with work, colleagues, etc. I have a bi-weekly coffee chat with my junior mentor, who is a director. It is very interesting to hear his perspective and also his background and role within the bank now.

Despite the fact that we work hard, we also love playing hard. Even if we go out of the office late at night, we try to find the time to hang out together. This is a great way to meet new people and to extend my network even further.

As always, I will keep you posted!

Best,

Matteo

Wk 5: Work + Fun at the Tiger's Nest

Wow, time really flies when you are having fun. I cannot believe that I am one-third done with my internship. I look forward to seeing my classmates again at school but I am also sad that my interesting, fun, and skill-building experience in Bhutan is almost over.

As always, I was busy with work these past two weeks. I continued my internal scan of the four Bhutan companies by studying cost trends, performing the tried and tested ratio analysis, and interviewing finance managers and CFOs. I am happy that the Bhutan companies have an open door policy. The top executives are all very accessible and helpful. They also do not sugarcoat financial results. It makes my job easier to know that I have the complete and accurate picture of their cost performance and activities.

Of course, I did not forget to have fun while working. An American lawyer, currently working at DHI, took me, my co-interns, and a visiting Berkeley MBA student, who did a project for DHI, to the most majestic place in Bhutan, the Tiger’s Nest. Taktsang Monastery, more popularly called the Tiger's Nest, is situated on a nearly vertical cliff at 3,000m altitude north of Paro in Bhutan. It is a prominent Himalayan Buddhist sacred site. Learn more about the Tiger’s Nest here.

I consider successfully hiking up to the Tiger’s Nest one of my best accomplishments to date. The climb up and down the steep mountain took four hours. It was raining that day so it was a very very slippery and difficult climb. I almost slipped a number of times and nearly fell face-down in the mud! Thankfully, I stuck my umbrella in the mud just in time to break my fall. Whew… The altitude also hampered my breathing and I was pitifully panting and taking deep breaths from my mouth. There were also numerous times when my legs refused to move another step but I stubbornly refused to give up. So, I pep-talked myself until my head convinced my legs to continue the hike. J I am happy that I persevered because I saw one of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen in my life. The Tiger’s Nest, perched on top of a mountain and partially covered by clouds, is breathtaking! I will definitely not forget this climbing experience.

This is the mountain we climbed. Do you see the white monastery near the top?

No?

Well, here is a closer look at our destination. It is partially covered by clouds (yes, so high up)!

Starting the hike

Slippery trail

View from the top

A mini waterfall and many prayer flags

Almost there…

Finally, the Tiger’s Nest!