Life as an MBA student

Hey all,
Whew, it has been a while since I have updated the blog! Things have gotten a bit busy with the start of the fall semester and I let this slip! I am actually forced to write a blog-post for my communications class (15.280), but that is besides the point.
I have ten minutes to write this blog, so I'll keep it short. I think if I had to use one word to define the MBA experience I would use the word 'buffet.' I've used this term many times with myself and classmates as we learn to successfully (or unsuccessfully) balance juggling all of the demands we have on our time as MBA students. For instance, this past semester I have had to balance a few competing demands:

• 4 MBA core courses: Econ, Accounting, Organizational Processes, and Communication.
• 2 to 1 MBA electives: I was signed up for finance, added marketing, and then later dropped marketing as I determined that my class load was too high.
• 1 engineering elective: ESD.260 which is Logistics Systems. This is a great class for LGOs as we enter companies as operations/supply chain professionals. Right now we are learning about forecasting demand which is super important for most companies that manufacture products.
• 1 significant club activity: I applied for and was accepted to the DesignWorks seminar hosted by the MIT Sloan Design Club and Continuum Consulting. 12 of us from MIT Sloan have been selected to work on design projected in Cambridge with a local company! Sweet! 
• 3 other clubs I am involved in: Korea Club, Technology Club, and the Design Club. 

Classes have been very interesting and relevant to the business world. Andrew Lo is my finance Professor and I feel like I leave his class appreciating the world of finance more and more. Right now we are learning about fixed income securities and I talk to my LGO classmates about how the math is not difficult, but we feel like we are learning a new language every time we sit in his class. Chris Caplice is the primary instructor for Logistics Systems and he uses a very innovative style of lecturing wherein he has all 85 students in his class vote on different questions during class. For instance he offered up the introduction of the Ipod in 2001 and asked us what type of new product introduction it was. Most of us selected either a new to the world or another type. It is a form of quick crowd-sourcing of information and gauging the general knowledge level of the class. 

Business school intensity has really ramped up this semester compared to the summer semester. Even the other LGOs are fairly busy with classes at very different times and locations. I am trying to manage the buffet well so that I eat enough to learn all that I can, but not so much that I get sick! Last week was fairly intensive because the LGO '14s were all back in town for knowledge review. Most of them (about 30 or so of them out of a class of about 48) are on their internships and they came back in town to update the LGO staff and partner companies on the status of their internships. Interspersed were sessions with companies (networking) and other LGOs. All in all the buffet will not slow down for the foreseeable future! 

Please let me know if you have any topics you would like me to cover in future blog posts.

Trip to Digital Lumens

During the summer we (meaning LGOs) have made a few trips to local companies in the area. One of the companies that we visited was ENERNOC (see my classmate Maxine's post on the trip http://yangtothemax.blogspot.com/2013/08/enernoc-plant-tour.html).

We also went on a trip to visit Digital Lumens (DL) before the end of the summer semester (see http://www.digitallumens.com/). Joe (a former MIT Sloan MBA and the product manager at Digital Lumens) hosted us for our trip to DL. We learned about the founding of the company from one of the founders of DL. The founders came from Color Kinetics after the company was acquired by Philips. The first niche that the company found itself serving was in cold storage. DL's main product is a system of LEDs that are smartly controlled for industrial applications. In cold storage the lower heat out-put of the lights plus the smarter control of the lights led to a double savings for these customers.

In addition to a presentation by one of the founders, we had the opportunity to speak with their VP of sales and marketing. He told us that one of his biggest challenges was in defining his target customers. The titles of their customers ranged greatly from representatives, distributors, architects, facilities directors, etc... This is an interesting marketing and sales problem because DL really needs to reach customers that have budgetary authority in their companies. Often-times lighting and electricity use is not something that companies think through, so DL not only has to educate them about their products but also why these products would work for their particular use.

Lastly, we had a final session with Joe and a colleague of his that graduated from Cornell's MBA program. We had a chance to talk about careers in cleantech and startups. Working for a startup seems very worthwhile but it can be risky because jobs are not secure until right before graduation (at least for MBAs). They also gave us advice to network continually because we never knew where our next job would come from. As MBAs at Sloan we were humbled by the amount of time and attention the senior employees at DL provided for us. Thanks again DL!

Picture of Joe showing us one of DL's products. 

Another picture of Joe (Thanks Albert for taking the pictures!)

Overview of summer classes

This blog post is about the various mandatory classes that LGOs take during the summer. To preface my blog post I want to let you know that MIT students like to refer to courses by their number and not by  their title (maybe it is more efficient?). I'll refer to both the number and course title for each of the courses I write about below.

15.761 Operations Management: As LGOs this course is mandatory (I guess that should be obvious because of the O in LGO) and necessary for most of the other courses most of the LGOs are going to take in subsequent semesters. We're learning about very interesting subjects like capacity, inventory, queuing theory, and others. We have a very engaging Professor (http://web.mit.edu/~zlisto/www/) who is actually about the same age as Susan and I! We recently had a class on risk management and as a case study we read and discussed the positive impact Wal-Mart had on New Orleans post-Katrina. 

15.064 Probability and Statistics: This is a unique class that all LGOs take. What makes it unique is that we learn from one Professor (Arnie Barnett) for the first half (Probability) and from another Professor (Roy Welsch) for the second half (Statistics). We all survived (I hope!) probability and are now learning Statistics. Statistics is very interesting and very applicable in this day and age of big data. I've used Minitab a bit in my previous job (at GE), but here at MIT we use JMP (another statistical analysis software package). As a six sigma black belt I learned statistical tools as part of my job, but his course has really helped me learn the theory behind the practice. I now understand (dimly but better than before) why I used to run F-tests, T-tests, and other analysis in Minitab! 

15.317 Leadership: Similar to Operations Management this is a mandatory class because of one of the letters in LGO (L). Leigh Haffrey facilitates this course and helps us think deep about leadership and ethics. We recently had a very enlightening discussion about the use of fear in the work-place (think Niccolo Machiavelli). Our class was split on the use of fear in the work-place as some of us thought there were appropriate reasons to do so while others disagreed and thought fear should never be used in the work-place. 

15.066 Systems Optimization: This is the most engineering of our courses (at least I think so). Professor Itai Ashlagi teaches us and he teaches us very well. We're learning about linear programming, non-linear programming, and other things as well. This is a highly applicable course for us LGOs for our internships and future jobs. It is cool to be able to use Excel Solver and @Risk to analyze business problems. 

ESD.60 High Velocity Systems: I read The High Velocity Edge (when it was called Chasing the Rabbit) http://www.amazon.com/The-High-Velocity-Edge-Operational-Competition/dp/0071741410 a year ago while working at GE (someone recommended it to me). The concepts in the book really resonated with me because he wrote about how Toyota and other high velocity companies LEARNED faster than other companies. Lo and behold at LGO I get to take the course about this system with the author of the book! WOO HOO. This course helps us really learn the material from the book via cases and discussions with the Professor and other classmates. I think this course motivates me to learn more about operations and other high velocity corporations (besides Toyota).

Overall I am very happy about the choice of summer courses that we LGOs are taking. Even though I have not been in school since 2006 all of us (LGOs) help each other out to learn subjects we are unfamiliar with. Five courses in one abbreviated semester seems like a lot for me (at Stanford I only took 3-4 courses at a time) and it is a bit, but the  highly technical courses (like Statistics and Systems Optimization) are well balanced with case heavy courses (Operations Management and Leadership). 

Why MBA and why now for Veterans

A few people have asked me why an MBA and why now. I'll try to write this from the perspective of a veteran with some civilian experience.

As I was leaving the military I had a difficult time choosing between going to an MBA program versus going straight into industry. At the time I had a great offer from GE in my hand (November) and had yet to hear back from the MBA programs I had applied to. My wife and I discussed our situation and decided that going to work was the best course of action for us because I was pretty sure I wanted to work in energy and rotate among different business functions (pretty much what GE was offering me). I thought that if I went straight to GE I could either skip studying for an MBA or do an MBA on the side.

I left the military to pursue a career in business because I thought that I could make a bigger impact in business rather than the military. At GE I was working in the quality function as a six sigma guy and learning a lot about operations. The more I learned the more I wanted to study operations formally. GE had a certain way of improving operations, but this did not correspond with what I was learning about how Toyota operated (the model operations company).

Ultimately, I left GE to learn more about operations and investigate opportunities at other companies and industries. In the military I was taught to be happy with the positions and units I was given by my branch manager, but while at GE I learned that I could be most productive and happy by pursuing positions and companies that I fit in best. I knew this theoretically, but making the decision to leave GE for business school was a difficult one.

Leaving a stable job in a booming city (Houston is doing very well right now due to all of the oil and gas companies in the area) was very difficult and scary. I think it would have been less scary if I did not have a wife and two young children that I was responsible for. I went from receiving a pay check to receiving tuition bills. So far one month into business school I have not regretted my decision at all, but I do consider myself blessed. Not everyone has the opportunity to leave work for graduate school. 

Why leaving GE was difficult

Related to my post about why MIT LGO and why now is this post about why I decided to leave GE and pursue a full time MBA. This post is about why it was so difficult for me to leave GE and come to MIT.

1. Unique rotational program for junior military officers.
At GE I was hired on under the Junior Officer Leadership Program (JOLP). What that really meant was that I was working as a Lean Six Sigma Black belt and rotating amongst different functions in GE Power and Water (the Aeroderivatives business which has now been subsumed into the Distributed Power business). Not many other companies of GE's caliber offered up true rotational programs for junior military officers. I did receive an offer from Siemens for the Sales and Marketing Development Program but the salary and rotations were really geared towards those straight out of college and not the military.

If you want to know more about the program you can see the link below:
http://www.ge.com/careers/culture/us-veterans/junior-officer-leadership-program

2. Opportunity to work in a great industry.
The energy industry is one that I have a great deal of respect for and interest in because it underlies most of what allows modern society to operate. I had a taste of working in that industry at GE and I would not mind working in it post-LGO.

3. Adding up a few more moves for the family.
Moving with a family is difficult and thinking about the added stress of a move to business school, a move for an internship, a move back to school, and then a further move to a permanent job was a bit daunting. After a year in Houston we were just making friends. 

Moving- Part 3: Preparing our toddler

Isn't it amazing how much children know? Many times surpassing our expectations of them. Our toddler continues to surprise me with how sensitive and aware he is about what is going on around him and how much he picks up from me and John.
The last time we moved, Isaac was too young to understand (or maybe he would have but I didn't try! gulp!), but now that he is 2.5 we put more effort into preparing him for the transition.

We showed him the pictures of our new house.

We counted down the days until the movers would come to take away all our things and then the days until we would actually get on the airplane to go to Boston.

We also borrowed books about moving.
Check out: Moving to a New House by Nicola Barber which Isaac really liked and related to right away with the pictures of people packing things in boxes.
Do not check out: Moving House by Mark Siegel which is actually about a house that moves.....great story...just doesn't fit the occasion.. (yeah...definitely one of those times i wish i scanned before reading to him....)

Since packing our own boxes was a long process, I think that gave him more time to get used to the idea. We involved him as much as possible in the packing process, such as letting him write on the boxes, and put things in boxes.

Finally, we took lots of pictures of our favorite places in Houston and said good-byes to our friends.

I also told Jonah (our 7 month old), but he just cried...

Interesting Operations Question: Should homes be designed to be modified

Below is a very interesting post about the Netherlands where architects and the government are collaborating to create affordable homes for first time home buyers. The interesting thing about these homes is that the interiors are designed to be easily modified according to what the user requires (I think... The article digresses into a history lesson on the 'Grow Home' in Montreal which I think is similar). So if a new home buyer's family includes only himself and a significant other, then the second floor of the home may include one large bedroom. When (and if) the family expands then you can add modular walls to create more bedrooms, thus re-configuring the home as needed.

I think that the ability to reconfigure your home is a very interesting feature that may be important for mainstream home building.

Article from treehugger:
http://www.treehugger.com/green-architecture/grow-home-back-these-flatpack-houses-dutch-first-time-homebuyers.html?utm_source=feedly&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+treehuggersite+(Treehugger)

Article about the 'Grow Home' from the Atlantic:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1991/02/living-smaller/306205/?single_page=true