Pepperdine MBA Blog, by Brian Jenkins

Blog 64 - Its All Over.... I am now an MBA!!!

2010-05-10T16:45:00.000-07:00

This is a crazy feeling to have. After two of the most difficult and transforming years of my life, my MBA program is complete. Sometimes I still don’t believe it... logging into my Pepperdine WaveNet email address expecting to be looking out for next semester’s class selections!

Graduation Weekend

Pepperdine’s graduation was on April 17th and was held in the gym on lower campus. I was really excited that not only did my family come down for the event, but also my girlfriend Sheila from Spain. The end of the year festivities were numerous... including a Boat Party for the students, a graduation dinner and the actual ceremony itself. During my graduation weekend I enjoyed spending time with my family and a trip to Six Flags Magic Mountain to help celebrate!

Plans for Summer

In between my graduation from Pepperdine and the start of my program at Cornell, I will be spending the summer working for Pelco once again. Pelco was the company I did my first summer internship at last summer. I was very happy to return to work with Pelco. I have been assigned a wide variety of interesting HR projects to work on during the summer including a Global Mobility/Rotational Program and a Customized Employee Development Plan for several of the company’s top performers. I will also get the chance once again to be mentored by David Whitehorn, the VP of HR for the company.

Other than work, my two big goals for the summer are to spend time learning Spanish and to workout as much as possible. So far I have been pretty good about both of them. Although, my workout program was recently tested when my mother brought home a full platter of doughnuts, muffins, candy and just about every unhealthy food imaginable! Even with the full time workload and abundance of unhealthy food, I’m still going strong and very sore to prove it!!

Starting at Cornell

My program at Cornell officially starts on August 18th with the MILR orientation. I am incredibly excited for the start of my second masters program. I have reserved my apartment in Ithaca and am currently in the market searching for extreme cold weather clothing! During my visit out to Ithaca, I was able to meet many of the students that I will be going to school with this fall. I am looking forward to all of the new relationships and networking that will be right around the corner.

Reflection Upon MBA...

At this point in my life... I can say that my decision to earn my MBA was the best decision that I have ever made in my life. When I look back at my other options that were before me coming out of undergrad... I can safely say that none of them would have resulted in a scholarship to the Ivy League, the experience of studying at Oxford, my hugely international network of friends, industry connections, global job offers, a girlfriend in Madrid, academic expertise in various functional areas of business or the vast majority of what I experienced over the last two years.

A huge piece of my “MBA Takeaway” is the amazing people that I met, interacted with, worked with and became friends with. While the numbers of people I met are sometimes staggering... people like Frankie Warren, Mark Cathy and Jenna Burkey have changed my life forever. The people listed above, as well as many others, will remain lifelong friends of mine. I feel incredibly fortunate to have met the many people I did during my MBA program.

Is It For You?

The decision to pursue an MBA is a huge, life-altering decision. The workload is crazy. The tuition is insane. The sleepless nights are many. The stress is high. For me however... in the end... the rewards of the program far offset the cost.

To those of you who have been following my blog for some time now... I thank you for your continued support through the two years. Who knows... maybe Cornell needs a blogger? Haha... we’ll see!

Officially Signing Off,

Brian Jenkins, MBA

Blog 63 - Final Countdown

2010-04-11T11:45:00.000-07:00

First off... I would like to apologize for my lack of writing the last week and a half or so. My time during the MBA program is very quickly coming to an end. The end of the session, just like all of the other sessions, is a very busy time for MBA students. The dates for projects, papers and presentations all approach at the same time. Last minute group meetings, all day Sunday work sessions and final cramming are all very common during this time. The workload is heavy... but the conclusion is right around the corner. At the time I’m writing this, I have 3 more days left until I will be done with classes. When I look at what needs to be done between now and then, the “to-do list” looks incredibly long.

Thankfully though, I have my good friend and amazing teammate Jenna in all of my classes this session. If you don’t know Jenna, please refer to my blog post #49 to get updated. As I type this I am waiting for her in the parking lot of school preparing for an all-day work session for the classes Change Management, Human Resources and Business Strategy. We are pretty much planning on an all day and possibly all night work session.

To add to the workload, I had my “Discover the MILR Program” event at Cornell this past week. I am incredibly excited about my new program. I was able to meet members of the faculty, get introduced to many current students and get a glimpse of what my life will look like next fall. I spoke with some of the 2nd year MILR students and they said one of the most difficult aspects of the program was deciding what Fortune 100 companies to interview with, as so many of them recruit there on campus. Some of the students said they conducted 20+ interviews with top companies! The access to top-tier recruiting is unmatched compared to any other HR masters program. I found out that if I decided to stay a second year in the program that I might be able to obtain at TA position that would involve me teaching a basic undergraduate class in HR! I am now more excited than ever for both the program and my future.

My upcoming calendar of events list week is very packed. Three classes worth of papers, presentations and finals. My girlfriend Sheila is flying in from Madrid this wednesday to attend all of the graduation festivities this week. In true Malibu style, our graduation party will be held on a 4-story mega yacht off the coast of southern California this Thursday night. We have a graduation dinner this Friday and our actual graduation ceremony will be held next Saturday. My family will be driving down from Fresno to attend the event.

Have no fear, I will post a final blog post about my experiences during this program... but I won’t have the time until its over! Off to work!

Blog 62 - SHRM HR Games Competition

2010-03-27T21:39:00.000-07:00

This past weekend, I travelled with my undergraduate faculty to attend the HR Games competition. The competition was was hosted by the University of Nevada, Reno.

The competition consists of a series of head-to-head matches where the teams are tested on various Human Resources terminology. Topics covered include HR Strategy, Compensation, Employee Training, Globalization, Labor Unions, Landmark Legal Cases, Management, Motivation Theory, Technology, Staffing, Recruiting and Leadership. The game structure is similar to the format used in Jeopardy.

Many schools compete against each other in the regional HR Games competition. In Fresno State’s region, they compete against Boise State, University of Hawaii, Washington State, Cal Poly, CSU Bakersfield, and CSU Stanislaus. Each university sends two teams of three students a piece. Fresno State won the competition with flying colors.

Events like these are an important part of MBA networking. Attending this event allowed me to mentor Fresno State’s undergraduate team members, keep connections with my undergraduate faculty and meet other HR professionals. Getting the chance to hang out with undergraduate students gives me a chance to talk with them about their futures and answer their questions about graduate school. Keeping connections with my undergraduate faculty allows me to continue to be mentored by my former professors. Meeting HR professionals allows me to ask questions to people currently working in the industry that I want to work in.

My advice to MBA students is to make an effort to maintain their connections to their undergraduate institutions and their faculty. Being an active alumni, maintaining relationships and staying involved are all important aspects of networking.

Blog 61 - Religious Affiliation and Social Enterprise Week

2010-03-23T14:43:00.000-07:00

Pepperdine’s undergraduate program is a religious institution. Undergraduate students are required to attend 14 religious events throughout each semester. If students don’t attend the events, it will be negatively reflected in their grades.

This is not the case however in the MBA program. The business school is not directly linked to any religion and does not require its students to be associated with any religion. What does translate into the MBA program though, is a large focus on business ethics and corporate social responsibility. Almost every class has a section, lecture or case that is linked to corporate ethics. Many of our most popular student-run organizations are somehow related to ethical business practices.

At the forefront of the ethically focused clubs is Pepperdine’s Net Impact Club. Every year in the MBA program, Pepperdine’s Net Impact Club hosts an event called Social Enterprise Week (SEW). During SEW, each club hosts an event for the student body centered around a socially ethical business practice related to their functional area. The SEW website explains the event like this:

“The aim of Social Enterprise Week is to communicate the values of social and environmental responsibility as well as sound ethical practices in business through a week of events hosted by GSBM's clubs and student leaders.”

The event featured Dan Bross, the Senior Director of Corporate Citizenship at Microsoft. Below is his a brief background and outline of his presentation:

The Consulting Club sponsored a lunch event with a guest speaker. Our club brought in Brendan Edgerton, a LEED Consultant and Project Manager at Green Dinosaur Consulting. A LEED consultant is a person who helps clients build energy efficient buildings and facilities. Brendan has worked on several high-profile projects including the Montage Hotel in Beverly Hills and the Regency Tower. His presentation was a great way for our club members and Pepperdine students to see the progression of the green consulting industry.

Blog 60 - The Next Step... Ivy League Here I Come!!

2010-03-05T19:41:00.000-08:00

Just yesterday... I found out. I was accepted into Cornell’s Master in Industrial Labor Relations Program on scholarship! Cornell’s program is the top human resources program in the world. This solidifies the next major step in my post-MBA career. In August, I will be moving to Ithaca, NY to start my program. I am incredibly excited about this amazing opportunity!

More School? 2nd Masters? Why?

My Pepperdine MBA experience was amazing. It was truly a life-changing time in my life. In terms of foundational knowledge acquisition, experience building and personal development I couldn’t possibly have asked for anything more. Four major factors played into my decision for pursuing my second masters. Those factors were specialized learning, program ranking, access to recruiting and networking.

My Pepperdine MBA gave me the foundational knowledge that I need to build my business career. The MBA degree comprises of a vast selection of core business courses like accounting, marketing, finance, economics, IT systems, organizational behavior, and strategy. In my particular “niche” of human resources though, Pepperdine only offered one class in HR (which I’m in currently). I want to take graduate level courses about topics like talent management, compensation strategy, HR information systems, employee relations, internal communications, corporate safety and employee development. I can draw a comparison to a specialized surgeon. A surgeon first goes to medical school (my MBA program) to learn the foundational knowledge needed to become a doctor. The surgeon then goes on to specialize in his area of focus by attending more school (my MILR program) to learn the advanced critical skills needed to be successful. I want to be an expert in my field, and this program will substantially help me achieve that goal.

Let’s talk for a second about rankings. Now, I will be the first to admit that a program’s ranking is not the “end all, be all” of a program’s overall value. However, when a program is a highly ranked program like Cornell’s it opens up some opportunities that may not have existed otherwise. To put it in perspective, Pepperdine’s MBA program was ranked in the 50s out of 600+ MBA programs in the US. As an overall university, Cornell ranks between 5th and 15th in the US. The program I am attending is the number one HR masters program in the world. Cornell is the only Ivy League school to have a masters program in HR.

Now high ranking alone is nice, but the real value of the high ranking comes from what that ranking does for you. A key advantage of a number one ranked program is the extensive recruiting that is done at the university. I will have access to a vast number of Fortune 100 companies that come to Cornell to recruit students. I know that several companies that I am interested in working for recruit at Cornell.

Maybe the most important takeaway from this next masters program will be the network that I take away from the program. Let me mention something about a difference in generational career paths. In my parents generation, it was very common to sign on to a company and work for them throughout the rest of your career. My father is a perfect example of this. When he was 25 years old, he signed on with DuPont. He has worked for them for 35 years now. My career path will likely be very different. It has been estimated that students in my generation will have more than 10 jobs throughout our career. With this in mind, my network will be vitally important. The phase “it’s not what you know, but who you know” is more true than ever before. Let me explain...

When I enter Cornell’s MILR program this fall, I will enter with 150 of the top HR students in the world. That group of students will become my classmates, my group assignment team members, my social contacts and most importantly my friends. When our class graduates from the program, our 150 students will explode out of Ithaca, NY into top companies all over the world working in various HR functions. Being in human resources and coming out of the #1 program in the world makes this class of students very powerful in the business world. Having a network of 150+ top HR professionals in Fortune 500 companies would be an amazing asset to anyone’s network.

Conclusion

Getting into the Ivy League, on scholarship, is the compilation of more than 20 years of hard work in school. Countless nights studying, cramming, researching, typing, etc. Being able to tell people that I am going to Cornell is something that I am incredibly proud of. My Pepperdine MBA prepared me to take this next step in my life, and for that I will be eternally grateful. Go Big Red!!

Blog 59 - The Beginning of The End

2010-03-01T08:17:00.000-08:00

Well, this is it. Today marks the first day of my last quarter in the MBA program. It seems like just yesterday I was moving my stuff down to Malibu for the first time. It is very crazy to think that in just 47 days I will graduate with my MBA! The next 7 weeks should fly by. My final quarter will consist of only 3 classes, instead of the normal 4 or 5 classes. The program allows you to take a reduced workload in order to allow students extra time to conduct their job search and plan out their next steps. These are my classes:

Change Management

By Professor Kent Rhodes

This is the course description and overview:

The pace, the volume, and the complexity of change itself have increased significantly during the last decade, and the forecast is for no less in the years ahead. The topic of managing change and implementation often resided as a mere module in organizational behavior courses. For the professor, and presumably for the students who enroll in this course, there is a need to deepen our understanding of the challenges, the techniques, and the burdens associated with making major change in an organization. Indeed, today, many managers view their jobs almost entirely as managing change. The cases and materials in this course give students as much as possible the sense of “being in the shoes” of managers facing situations of change—in most cases as the change agent, but also as the change recipient.

Anyone involved in organizations experiences the need to think about change. Organizations are constantly changing. Sometimes the changes occur as the result of careful thought and action. Sometimes the changes occur with little forethought or oversight. The more informed we are about the nature of change and the various approaches to managing it, the more effect we can be as members of organizations.

This course provides an introduction to and overview of the many kinds of planned change efforts which are undertaken in contemporary organizations. More specifically, the course focuses on the application of Organization Development (OD) methods and the unique role of the organization change professional. Major topics addressed in this course include: 1) the role of the change agent, with emphasis on values and skill sets, 2) introduction to some tools for assessment and diagnoses of organizations, 2) an overview of various kinds of change intervention strategies, with emphasis on the action research model, and 3) the evaluation of change efforts. The approach to these topics is designed to help the student develop a “cognitive map” for planned change activities as a leader as well as for the student’s own understanding and preferred approaches to managing change.

The learning process used in this course will include all of the following activities 1) reading about the theories and concepts of organization change in the course texts, and in additional materials which will be assigned throughout the course; 2) classroom lecture and discussion; 3) in-class analysis of cases; 4) simulations exercises to stimulated self-reflection and critical thinking 5) written reflection papers and team projects.

Org Development & Human Resource Management

By Professor Lori Heffelfinger

This is the course description and overview:

This course examines the powerful set of concepts and techniques used in organizations for improving effectiveness in dynamic and changing environments. Study concentrates on linking learning experiences in organizational development and human resource management with assessed competencies judged by experts as essential for graduating business students. This course will deal with issues related to human resource practices such as legal environment, planning, staffing and recruitment, performance appraisal, compensation, succession planning, and workforce planning. This course also examines the concepts of organization practice and general strategies on organizational development; structural organizational interventions; power; politics; effective consultant behavior and techniques; and application in the entrepreneurial, public, and private sectors.

Strategic Management

By Professor Otis Baskin

(Continuation from session A)

This is the course description and overview:

This course is designed to be a “capstone” for the MBA to integrate the knowledge and skills gained during the program from the perspective of the chief executive officer. The purpose of business strategy is to provide frameworks and tools for conducting strategic problem identification, analysis and decision making for improving overall organizational performance. It is designed to prepare students to analyze the company as well as its environment. The course is integrative in that students will constantly be using skills and knowledge from various functional business areas such as accounting, economics, finance, marketing, production and operations, and quantitative methods. Therefore, students should expect to revisit knowledge gained in earlier in their studies with the intent of applying this information to gain a holistic view of the enterprise. This course will help students develop skills related to critical/multidimensional thinking, analytical reasoning, argument construction, debate, project management, running effective teams and written and oral communications. In addition to analysis and planning particular emphasis will be given to application and implementation of strategy.

Blog 58 - Your Ever Important Laptop

2010-02-28T23:43:00.000-08:00

A requirement of just about every MBA program is that every student needs to have a laptop. Laptops are required for everything that we do and it would be impossible to complete our program without one. In following the previous post, our laptops are a key part to our communication ability for all school related things.

In-Classroom Use

We use our laptops to follow PowerPoints, take notes, and run spreadsheets. Some classes (stats, strategy, finance, IT, etc) even require us to purchase computer programs that we run in class on our laptops. While a few “old school” professors still maintain “no laptop” policies, they are in the minority. Laptops have revolutionized the classroom due to the ease of looking up relevant data. For example, if a professor mentions a company you haven’t heard of... just Google it to find out the company basics and its financial performance.

Group Project Use

Every group project we do (which is many) involves everyone sitting down in front of their laptops discussing issues and researching their respective parts. Sending emails containing word documents, spreadsheets and PowerPoint slides happen constantly. Some group meetings can require sending/receiving 15+ emails around the group.

Personal Use

I have found the more I use my laptop for work related things, the more I use it for personal reasons as well. Whether it is catching up on the NFL, Skype video chatting with my girlfriend in Madrid or watching the latest Netflix movie online... I am always on my computer. If I am not at the gym, asleep, showering, driving or with friends... it is a fair bet that my computer isn’t too far away.

A Mission Critical Piece

In the MBA program, there are lots of things you could do without if you really had to. You could (and sometimes do) go without sleep some days. You could go without eating a whole lot some days. You could (shouldn’t, but could) go without buying all of the required books. You could not attend any school related events (again, not recommended). You could try to get by living far from campus. This list is a list that could go on for awhile. One thing that will NEVER be on this list is getting by without a computer. As students (especially me) we are incredibly dependent on our laptops. With this in mind, the idea of having my laptop crash or get stolen/broken would be a major disruption to my everyday life. Here are some pieces of laptop advice:

Advice #1: GET A GOOD ONE!!

With your laptop being such a vital piece of your MBA life, how someone could think that saving a couple hundred dollars could possibly be worth the risk of poor laptop performance is beyond me. Our program (both faculty and students) don’t accept any form of technology excuses. If I didn’t check my email for more than 48 hours, that could be a bad thing. If I didn’t have a laptop to bring to class for an in-class exercise, the professor would not be overly sympathetic. Having a laptop alone is not enough. Having a high quality, reliable laptop is the real requirement.

Anyone who knows me, knew this paragraph would be in here. This is my single paragraph highlighting my support of Apple technology. Yes, I am a Mac person. Being that I am a Mac person, I am biased towards their technology. Before I started my MBA program, I knew that I needed a high quality laptop. Apple is the number one selling laptop for college students in America and Consumer Reports ranked Apple’s 15 and 17 inch Mac Book Pros as the best laptops on the market. I invested about $2,500 in my 15 inch Mac Book Pro before I started my program. I say “invested” because after almost two full years of constant, hard daily use it continues to function the same as the day I bought it. I know some Mac users who use their Mac laptops for 10+ years. It is fast, reliable, compatible and easy to use. I absolutely love everything about my Mac. Apple’s sales growth, expanding market share and incredibly vocal user group are a clear indicator of their superior technology.

Advice #2: Be At Least “Good” With Technology

The MBA experience is one that requires a student to be “good” with technology. This means keeping your technology operating, being a whiz at Word, creating impressive PowerPoints, easily navigating the Internet for research, using Web 2.0, creating powerful spreadsheets, using video chat, using various media forms (audio, video, etc), organizing tremendous amounts of files on your computer for quick access, etc. If you were able to do the entire list above comfortably and quickly, your computer skills would be considered average for an MBA program. The students with “Great” computer skills are doing many of the same things, but doing them much quicker utilizing keyboard shortcuts and small tricks only experienced users know.

Advice #3: Have a Plan B and Backup

Since we are so reliant on our technology, it is important that students plan for the possibility of our technology fail. The first part of this preparation is having money set aside that could be used to purchase a backup computer if needed. Hopefully this wouldn’t ever be needed, but if my computer was stolen/lost I would need a replacement ASAP. The second part involves backing up your files on a weekly basis. If my computer died, I would need/want all of the files on my computer.

Conclusion

In summary, your laptop is vital to everything MBA related. Pick a good computer, become a “good” computer user if you’re not and have a backup plan. This aspect of a MBA program will continue to become more important as technology is used to an even greater extent than it is now.

Blog 57 - Web 2.0 and The MBA Experience

2010-02-28T22:22:00.000-08:00

With this post I am going to be addressing something that many of you are probably already familiar with, and that’s Web 2.0 technology. I hope to be able to shed some light as to how it is used in our graduate program and provide some tips when using it.

What is Web 2.0?

For those of you who may be a little unclear as to what exactly Web 2.0 technology is, I will provide a brief overview. Web 2.0 technology is a group of various applications that are designed to provide information sharing and communication services through a user-centered design. This is all accomplished through the Internet using a wide variety of different applications. Some of the most popular applications include YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, flickr, and Linkedin. Although each application has a slightly different purpose, style and overall theme to it... they share many common characteristics.

How We Use It

The first thing that needs to be stated is that in our MBA program, I believe that 100% of our class has a Facebook profile. I have not met a single student who does not have one. The next thing I would point out is that the vast majority of students are VERY active in using it, checking/updating/communicating several times a day. Many of our professors use it as well as many members of Pepperdine’s administration. It is so widely used and frequently checked that it has become the standard communication medium for all informal communication in our program. Most students also have some form of Internet enabled smart phone that allows them to access Facebook from their cell phone for the few times they are away from their laptops.

Because Facebook is so widespread, we use it constantly for almost everything it can be used for. For example, if I have a homework question, I’d check my Facebook chat to see if someone from my class is on to ask them. If I wanted to have a social event with some friends, I would let them know the details through a Facebook Event that would be sent to all the people I wanted to invite. If I wanted to let all of my friends know something, like I was going skiing for the day (aka in the mountains with possibly limited Facebook connection), I would send it out as a Facebook Status Update.

Advice #1: Have It, Update It, Check It

If you are not already one of the hundreds of millions of people that have a Facebook account, you should get one. Facebook has revolutionized the way that we communicate as a society and most definitely as an MBA program. The list of advantages of having a Facebook profile is huge, most importantly communication and networking. Setting up a Facebook account is free, quick and easy.

Once you have your Facebook account, become an active member. The way to get the most out of Facebook is to put the most into it. If people know that you respond to Facebook messages within a few hours, they are much more likely to communicate with you. Being able to check your Facebook from your cell phone, in less than 30 seconds from anywhere makes staying current very easy.

Advice #2: Be Professional At All Times

Many people don’t understand that everything that they post online on Facebook has the potential of being seen by other people. Posted pictures, comments, status updates and even potentially “private” things like messages and chats can become public information. It is a common HR practice for a company to Google someone’s name at some point during the hiring process and it is inevitable that their Facebook profile will come up.

While the site’s privacy settings can be adjusted, it is important to view everything you do on Facebook as something that a potential employer would see. Try to look at every picture of yourself on Facebook and ask yourself if you would feel comfortable showing that picture to someone who could potentially give you a job someday.

I try to utilize my Facebook profile in a different way... I try to use it to my advantage. I create my page with the hope that a potential employer would find it and be able to see it. With that in mind, everything I post onto Facebook is a positive reflection of myself. My pictures are professional, my profile contains my detailed bio, my education section is completely filled out, my status updates are professional, my comments are positive, I am mindful of my spelling & grammar, etc.

Conclusion

Web 2.0 technology has arrived and has become a norm of the business school environment. This technology can make your life much easier if used correctly. It is important to know that your profile and actions represent you as an individual. That’s about it for this topic... time to check my Facebook and get to bed!

Blog 56 - Importance of Personal Branding

2010-02-10T22:26:00.001-08:00

In the MBA program, it seems like you are able to classify students into one of two job seeking categories: those who know exactly what they want to do and those that are searching. This post is going to be designed for those who know what they want to do in their post-MBA world. I have a piece of advice that can seriously help students in their networking and job search.

This piece of advice is to use personal branding to your advantage. First let’s talk about what personal branding is. Personal branding is labeling yourself as “officially targeting” a particular industry, job function or company. Using myself as an example, if you were to ask pretty much any student in my program who I was... they would probably respond with, “Brian Jenkins? Yeah... he’s really into human resources.” That is the first step of branding. I make sure that every professor, student and networking contact knows right away that I am focused on human resources. This opens the door for networking without even thinking about it. For example, I recently was giving a presentation to Dean Livingstone and I mentioned (as I always do) that I am interested in HR. She later connected me with Steve Milovich, a Senior HR manager at Disney. With this connection, I have a phone interview planned for later this week. If I didn’t wear the fact I’m pursuing HR on my forehead, I wouldn’t have made that contact.

The second aspect of branding yourself is to become an expert in your field. You have to find your niche. Business as an area of study is so broad that it is impossible to become an expert at everything. Because of this, students should carve out a specialty. This speciality needs to be deeper than just a general concentration in the program like finance, marketing, accounting, etc. When you set out to be an expert in your particular area, any chance you get to focus on that area in school you should take. Meaning that when taking classes, try to custom tailor your papers, projects and readings to encompass as much of your specialty as possible.

In addition to your normal classes, you should seek out people with knowledge in your field. For example, the first day of my Leadership class with Dr. Kevin Groves I found out that he had extensive knowledge in human resources. That same day I arranged a meeting with him for the following day. During our meeting, we reviewed my career development and future job plans. He gave me valuable advice and shared some of his HR research with me, deepening my knowledge in the field even more. To add to your area of focus knowledge pool, Google “Top Ten Books in _______”. Go on Amazon, grab a couple and start reading. Its this outside the classroom effort that will make a huge difference in building your knowledge base.

Networking is a word used in a MBA’s everyday language. Everyone talks about how to meet people, where to make the connections and how to target certain industries. What students don’t seem to focus on as much is how to impress an important contact when you finally do come face to face with them. Looking back at how I got my summer internship, I met a VP of HR in a sauna and had 10 minutes to impress him. If I hadn’t focused on HR as part of my personal branding strategy, my chance of getting the internship would have been small.

The result of all of this work is two main objectives: have everyone know what you want to do and become an expert in that field. Accomplishing this will go a long way towards helping a MBA student obtain a job in their career field of choice.

Blog 55 - Networking Events

2010-02-06T14:59:00.000-08:00

Its that time of year in MBA world... job hunting time! Second year students are busy searching for jobs and first year students are searching for internships. This past Thursday night, I attended a career seminar for people looking to work in the defense industry.

The event was held in Manhattan Beach with the companies L-3 Communications and Raytheon. The event consisted of two guest speakers from the companies to give us an overview of their companies and the industries they compete in. The speaker from L-3 Communications was Wes Motooka, President of Integrated Sensor Systems Sector. The speaker from Raytheon was Dr. Thomas A. Kennedy, Vice President of Tactical Airborne Systems. After the presentation, they opened the event up for a question and answer session. The remainder of the night was spent networking with the two speakers and their company’s HR representatives.

Networking events such as this one are great chances for MBA students to interact with people in their desired industries. They allow students to get the many questions answered about what its like to work for a particular company and what that company is looking for in new hires. Often times networking events have the company’s HR representatives there who can help explain the application process to potential applicants.

Students planning on attending networking events should have a couple things in mind. First, students should be professionally dressed. In the short amount of interaction time a student has with a recruiter, it is very important to make a good first impression. Second, students should have their “elevator speech” down really well. An Elevator Speech is a short paragraph that sums up their major career interest and major qualifications. My elevator speech for Thursday’s event went something like this:

“Hi, My name is Brian Jenkins and I’m an MBA student from Pepperdine looking to pursue a Human Resources career. This past summer I did an internship in HR and completed my PHR certification. I am planning on getting my 6 Sigma Green Belt Certification this upcoming summer. The defense industry is something that I am really excited about and has been something I have always been interested in. Can you tell me a little more about your Human Resources Leadership Development Program?”

After the elevator speech, it is important to have some followup questions prepared for the company. The questions should be informed questions vs general questions. This is an example of an informed question:

“I have researched your HR Leadership Development Program, and I was wondering if members of the program are allowed to take international assignments during one or more of their three, 8-month assignments?”

Vs an uninformed question:

"Does your company allow employees to work abroad?"

Being knowledgeable about the company is an important component to have before going to a networking event. Students should be familiar with both the company and their industry. For example when I was speaking with the VP from Raytheon, I asked him about the growing importance of international markets, citing the recent $6 Billion arms deal completed with Taiwan. Instantly I saw his eyes light up a little as he knew he was talking to someone who “spoke the language” of the defense industry.

However, the most important piece of advice concerning networking events is just to go. I know some MBA students that aren’t happy with their current prospects for a job, but when asked if they are working with career services, attending networking events or reaching out to alumni their answer was no. Careers don’t magically happen for people, our students have to go out and make it happen for themselves. Networking events are a great way to be proactive in the job search arena.

Blog 54 - A New Important Person in My Life... Meet Sheila!

2010-01-30T21:20:00.001-08:00

The last couple posts of mine have been very “MBAish” in nature... addressing topics such as tuition costs, student loans, starting salaries and my new acquiring wealth class. As this blog is supposed to cover both the professional and personal side of my MBA, I think its about time that all of you met my girlfriend Sheila Exposito. She actually doesn’t know that she is going to be the topic of this blog post so I hope this goes over well!

Sheila is 23 years old and lives in Madrid, Spain. Its about this time in the story that people raise their eyebrows and think I’m a little crazy! Then when I add in the point about how we met in the airport in Oslo, Norway some people begin to lose faith in the credibility of the story! This is our story...

I met Sheila for the first time on April 30th, 2009. I had just finished up my study abroad program at Oxford and was visiting Ireland and Norway for a week before I came back to start my internship. I met Sheila in the airport first when I got to Norway, and then once again as I was leaving. At that time, she was managing a restaurant in the airport that my friend and I were eating in. After meeting her the second time and speaking with her for about 15 minutes, I asked for her Facebook contact information (very 21st century!).

Over the course of the summer and fall we began to video chat on Skype on an almost daily basis. What started out as a cool international friend soon became much more. After literally several hundred hours of video chatting, we decided that Sheila should come out to the US during my winter break from the MBA program. Our break was a full month long so we figured that we would have enough time to spend together to find out if our new international connection was something serious worth pursuing.

Sheila came to the US for the first time on Dec 2nd. That day started the best month of my life. I did my best to show Sheila my entire world in only 26 days! We toured Malibu, walked through Santa Monica, went to Vegas, traveled to San Francisco, drove along the CA coast and spent Christmas with my family in Fresno. The month was amazing to say the least. We had many long conversations about the future and what we wanted in life. I think we were both a little surprised at how much we had in common coming from such different backgrounds.

Let me tell you a little about Sheila, as she is a very impressive woman! Sheila was born and raised in Madrid, Spain and comes from a very large family (27 members vs my 4). Sheila graduated from the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid in 2008 with a double bachelors in International Journalism and Audio-Visual Communications. During her undergraduate studies, she was a reporter for the newspaper La Razon publishing articles about international issues, politics and sports. After taking a “gap year” (year off after undergraduate education, common in Europe) in Norway, she started her masters program in Audio-Visual Communications. In addition to her impressive background, Sheila is fluent in 8 languages! No that isn’t a typo... Sheila is completely fluent in Spanish, Portuguese, English, French, Italian, Norwegian, Swedish and Danish. As you can imagine, being that I am still trying to master English, that is incredibly impressive to me.

Currently, Sheila is finishing up her masters program and will graduate in June of this year. She got a Public Relations internship with the New York based fashion design company Carolina Herrera at their Madrid office. Once she has completed her first masters and internship, Sheila has plans to pursue her MBA in the US.

We are both very excited about our future together. In an attempt to bring this back to the MBA program, I think that Sheila and I are a perfect example of how an MBA program can make you more global. Since starting my MBA, I have lived with students from China, South Korea and Botswana. I have travelled to England, Ireland and Norway. I have good friends all over the world from places like Egypt, El Salvador, India, Germany, Japan, China, and Ukraine. I worked for an international company for my summer internship. And now to top it all off... I have a girlfriend in Madrid. Crazy times we MBA students live in.

Blog 53 - Acquiring Wealth, Power and Success

2010-01-22T18:45:00.000-08:00

In keeping with last week’s blog about student loan debt and starting salaries, I would like to share with you some of the financial dreams that many MBA students have... to become wealthy. A topic that I have recently become very interested in is personal finance. In the near future I should be making substantially more income than I have ever made before, and properly managing that income will be vital if I am to meet my financial goals.

Much of this newfound interest in personal finance comes from a class that I am taking this session, titled “Acquiring Wealth, Power and Success” by Professor Dennis Torres. Professor Torres is the perfect professor for this course not only because he is a Pepperdine Alumni, but but because he is a multi-millionaire. Taking financial advice is much easier when the source of the information is living proof of the strategies he is sharing with you. Professor Torres has had an incredibly amazing life and he has many real life examples that he shares with us. An example of a Professor Torres story: One time to get a better perspective on life, he went to live in the Amazon Rainforest by himself and lived in the jungle for 6 months living off the land.

The class has a very non-traditional feel to it to say the least. The class seems like much more of a discussion session than a traditional lecture-style class. The format is very open and our conversation topics change often. In a single 4 hour class session, we could cover consumerism in America, global poverty, women in the workforce, global warming, major purchase decisions, lifestyle perceptions, religion, politics, occupational choices, management theory and more. Professor Torres has a very “probing” style of facilitating class discussions. Anytime a student makes a statement, you can be assured that Professor Torres will respond with, why do you think like that, how do you know that or what’s so good or bad about that? His style is very effective at developing our critical thinking skills. In a nonjudgemental and non-offensive way, he is able to effectively challenge any belief or perspective that we bring to the discussion.

This class has created a fire inside me to fully understand money and the process required for creating true wealth. In the class we learned a very universal, yet relatively odd truth. That truth is that “Almost everyone wants to be wealthy, yet almost everyone doesn’t become wealthy”. It seems strange to me that having wealth is such a universal desire, but people don’t make the right decisions to make that dream a reality for themselves. For example, in class we learned a very interesting fact. A researcher did a survey among varies income groups, ranging from households that made $30,000 a year to $500,000 per year. The question has how much money would you need to feel comfortable with your financial situation. The amazing thing was the answer... across all income groups the answer was about 20% more! So it didn’t matter really how much money the people in the survey were making, the end result was that none of them felt comfortable with their financial situation.

I have always been a goal oriented type of person. Every day I wake up and create “my list” for the day listing all of the things I want to accomplish that day. This class about acquiring wealth I’m taking during my MBA program I believe will have the greatest overall impact on my life compared to my other classes. This class has inspired me to become knowledgeable about my personal finances, my lifestyle choices, and about planning out a strategy that will lead me to becoming truly wealthy in my future.

The first question usually asked is, “what exactly is wealth?” In one of our textbooks, “The Millionaire Next Door” it states that being wealthy is being able to maintain your current lifestyle for 10+ years without earning another dollar from your traditional job. One of the main concepts taught in the book was the difference between true millionaires and aspirationals (people who display nice things, but will never be wealthy). The authors compare this two groups in almost every category of life such as home purchases, car purchases, investment decisions, lifestyles, hobbies, incomes, occupations, educations, etc. Then in a follow up book by the same author called, “Stop Acting Rich and Start Living Like a Real Millionaire”, he turned the data from the first book into practical advice when making financial and lifestyle choices. Both books are very accessible and not requiring someone to have their MBA to make sense of them.

An interesting fact brought up in the books, was that often times households that make $70,000 in annual income often times acquire more wealth than households that make $200,000 in annual income. At first I didn’t believe him... how could a family make twice the money as another but then not acquire nearly the same amount of wealth? The answer came from lifestyle choices. For example, the traditional $70,000 earning family could consist of a plumber, a pair of teachers or a person in sales. Those “blue-collar” workers usually live in lower middle class homes, don’t drive fancy cars and don’t send their children to private school. Their lifestyle is a very low-cost lifestyle. Their is very little societal pressure on them to conform to lifestyles above their means. In contrast, look at the occupations of households that earn around $200,000 a year. This group could consist of lawyers, physicians and middle level corporate managers. Those occupations face more societal pressures to live in bigger houses, drive imported luxury cars, have country club memberships and purchase luxury items. Everything in their life pushes them to spend more money than they make.

The book summarizes the money game into two broad aspects, offense and defense. Offense is the amount of money that your household can earn. Defense is the ability to be frugal and make conservative spending decisions. The book and our class talks a lot about maximizing our offensive potential, while playing great defense. If I can grasp those two concepts, I will be well on my way to becoming wealthy someday.

Blog 52 - Student Loan Debt and Starting Salaries

2010-01-14T18:13:00.000-08:00

When talking about MBA programs, a key motivator in pursuing an MBA is the increased salary an MBA graduate can command in the workplace. Money as a motivator is the most often talked about benefit. But that benefit is discussed at the surface level most of the time. In this blog post I will take a more detailed look at the financial side of the MBA.

Student Loan Debt and Costs

The cost of attending an MBA program is steep. According to several websites, the average tuition of a two-year MBA program costs $80,000. The cost of tuition is just the beginning of it though. The tuition doesn’t include things like books ($1,500), new laptop ($2,500), school supplies ($500) or my study abroad trip in Oxford ($4,500).

For the length of the program, it is impossible to work. In MBA words we call the money lost during the time you’re in the program that you could have been making as an, “opportunity cost”. Although figures vary, the 2007 census shows that the average full-time working male with a 4-year degree makes approximately $40,000 annually. Multiply this by two years, and you could have made $80,000.

During the program, particularly in Malibu, the living expenses of normal life continue. Rent, power, water, gas, Internet and food add up over the cost of the two years. This may cost $30,000 for the entire two year period. Add a $1000 for a little entertainment(networking events, mixers, DVDs, eating out, etc) and then you’re about there.

Before we get to summing these figures up, you should know that these two years were not spent living a glamorous lifestyle. There was no real “shopping” as normal people with incomes do. Books were bought used and online if possible, Top Ramen was a common dinner and I haven’t gone out drinking socially during the second year at all.

The expenses of my MBA were almost completely paid for by student loans. My parents continue to help me out with my cell phone, gas, car insurance and health insurance, but school related expenses are mostly mine. The total amount of my student loans is approximately $120,000. Add to it the amount of money that I could have been making in the workforce ($80,000), and the total cost of my MBA program is $200,000.

Starting Salaries and Signing Bonuses

Gosh, that last section was a little depressing. Sometimes thinking about the student loan debt mountain that accumulates during the program is a little overwhelming. The biggest fear many students have graduating the program is that they won’t be able to find a job that pays enough money to cover the impressive student loan payments that will be due.

The average MBA starting salary is $90,000 a year, based upon a variety of online sources. However, the recent downturn in the economy could send that number to somewhere around $80,000. The range of salaries is quite large as well, ranging from $65,000 to over $135,000. The choice of career path post-MBA is a large determinant of the starting salary. Careers in non-profit and government tend to be on the lower end of the spectrum, with careers in finance and consulting tend to be on the higher end of the spectrum. This data is a little dated (2006, pre-recession), but here are some general expected starting salaries:

• Consulting $101,736

• Energy Utility $100,263

• Finance $103,122

• Health Care $111,477

• High Tech $98,621

• Manufacturing $98,417

• Nonprofit/Government $73,125

Products/Service $94,558

Many companies also offer newly hired MBAs signing bonuses as well. The average starting signing bonus hovers around $20,000. The range for signing bonuses ranges from none at all to $30,000 or more.

Conclusion

While the starting salaries are usually much higher than what people made before business school, the major takeaway we hope to gain from the MBA is upward career mobility. We all want our MBA to help us ascend the corporate ladder so one day we will be sitting around the executive table. That’s where the big money is. But for now, many students are busy weighing their different options for when they graduate... this April 17th.

Blog 51 - New Year, New Goals

2010-01-07T15:23:00.000-08:00

Well... its here. 2010. It seemed like just yesterday I was graduating from high school (2003). Last year was quite a year for me; Oxford, Internship, PHR, etc... but 2010 is promising to be bigger still. But there’s no time to think back about past accomplishments, if I’m going to hit my goals for this year it’s time to get to work!

A tradition that most of us have every New Year’s to to state our “New Year’s Resolutions” about what we want to accomplish in the upcoming year. I will give you my list of New Year’s Resolutions about what I would like to achieve this year. This list is in no particular order by the way...

Graduate with my MBA in April. I am definitely on the home stretch of my MBA now with only a single semester left. It is crazy to think that 14 weeks from now I will have completed my MBA.
Learn Spanish. With my future international career getting closer by the day, I need to expand my horizons and learn a new language. Learning Spanish will help prepare me for a potential future position in Spain or in South America. I have purchased Rosetta Stone and will try to complete a Spanish lesson every day. Now if I could only learn to roll those R’s!!
Read More. Being an MBA student requires a vast amount of reading. This session I should be able to find time for some non-school related reading. I have purchased a handful of books and hope to read at least one a month. If I read one that is exceptional I will write a blog-review about it.
Be Accepted into My Second Graduate Program. I have applied to 4 different master’s programs in the field of human resources and I am awaiting their confirmations. While everything is submitted and the work has been done, I can now only wait for what I hope will be my acceptances.
Work Out More. The tried and true New Year’s Resolution. When I work out on a daily basis, I feel better about everything.
Help My Sister Get Into Grad School. My sister has a lot of work ahead of her in the next year if she is going to get into graduate school. Studying for the GRE, a summer internship, researching programs, finding recommenders, writing essays, etc... all in addition to her normal coursework. I know the profound positive effect that graduate school can have on someone’s life and I hope to be able to help give my sister the graduate school experience.
Have a Positive Outlook. This is one of the most exciting times in my life. There is an incredible amount of uncertainty. Where I will go to school, where I will work or even what country I will live in are all up in the air right now. Maintaining a positive outlook and not worrying about things outside of my control will be very important to me in 2010. 2010 will present a vast number of both opportunities and challenges to me. I need to be able to take all of them on with a good attitude and be prepared to make smart decisions.

Well I think that sums up my major New Year’s Resolutions. I’ll try to keep you all updated on my progress on all of the goals. Hope 2009 was great for all of you and that you are all looking forward to a great 2010!!

Blog 50 - Trips Home and Family

2009-11-28T16:42:00.001-08:00

Hey everyone... this session is winding down and soon I will be on my winter break. Looking back at this last session, I really enjoyed being able to go home and visit my family a few times. Being home allows me to see old friends, relax in a comfortable environment and hang out with my family. I even got the chance to go to a Fresno State football game with my Dad. It is a really nice break from the MBA program to be able to take a few days off and visit family.

As I am getting older I am beginning to realize a few things in life. One of them is that regardless whether my next step is another school or a job, it will take me far away from my family. I am finding that I value the time I get to spend with my family more and more. So in this blog, I am going to introduce you to my family.

John Jenkins

My father is 57 years old and has worked for DuPont in their Agricultural Chemical Division for 35 years. His job involves a lot of client relationship management and business development with local growers. He oversees the sale of various herbicides, insecticides and fungicides. My Dad grew up in Yakima, Washington and has lived in Davis, CA and Yuma, AZ. My father has always been an important mentor in my life and I try to keep him up-to-date with all of the latest happenings in my life and career plans. He has a very logical and analytical mind which helps me a lot in my decision making. In his spare time, he enjoys fishing, golf and military history.

Kristi Jenkins

My mother is 54 years old and works as a teacher at a local junior high school. She met my father while they were attending Washington State University where she earned her degree in English. She has always been very involved in her children’s lives, from throwing the most amazing birthday parties to keeping up with various dating drama, she has always been in the middle of it. My mother is quite the social butterfly. Various parties occur at my parent’s home for every occasion imaginable. As you could imagine, holidays are a very big deal in my family. I’m not just talking about the big ones... we throw a huge St. Patrick’s Day party every year! My mom is very outgoing and loves to have a good time.

Suzanne Jenkins

My sister is 22 years old and attends Fresno State University. She is majoring in Communication, with minors in Mass Communication & Journalism and Philosophy. She holds several part time jobs including medical billing and babysitting. She has 2 semesters left until she will graduate from college. Next summer I am going to try to get her an internship at Pelco, the company I interned with last summer. Post graduation, she is looking at attending a graduate program in public relations or marketing. In her free time Suzanne enjoys the things most girls her age do, such as partying, shopping and dating. My sister loves to be the center of attention and lives for the moment at hand.

I am really looking forward to December and the time that I will get to spend with my family. Only one more week of school until winter break! Alright... back to studying for my Quantitative Business Analysis final :(

Blog 49 - The Best Group Member I Have Ever Had...

2009-11-11T19:48:00.000-08:00

In some of my past blogs... I have written stories about my roommates and some of my close friends. This past semester I met a new student whom I have been very impressed with. I knew from the first time I saw her notes accented in three different colors of highlights that she meant serious business! Without any offense to any of my past group members (Frankie Warren and Mark Cathy particularly)... this girl has been the best group member I have had at Pepperdine.

Her name is Jenna Burkey and you couldn’t ask for a better group member. Ya know when you’re working on a group project and there is something that needs to be done for the group that no one really wants to do? Jenna is your person. When your group is bummed out because you have to meet on a Saturday morning... Who has brought cupcakes for the group? True story. When you have to do background studies for a particular project topic... Who actually enjoys research? Yes, also true. When you’re juggling multiple classes, many deadlines and are confused as to what has to be done... I think you’re starting to get the picture.

Jenna Burkey is easily worth two or possibly even three group members in terms of adding value to the team. I was fortunate enough to be able to work with her last session in our “Designing and Managing International Organizations” course and now once again in our “Creating and Leading Teams” class. When we got the chance to select our teams for our current class, I jumped at the opportunity to work with Jenna again. Having Jenna as a member of my current group gives me the upmost confidence that not only will our project turn out well, but that the group will have a great time during the process. I know that if it comes down to the wire... and we needed to overhaul the whole project the night before, I know that she would be there with me until the end.

Jenna is a member of a program at Pepperdine called “The 5-Year MBA”. In this joint undergraduate and graduate program, she will earn both her Bachelors in Business Administration with a concentration in Non-Profit Management and her MBA in Organizational Leadership and Change Management. The fact that she came straight from college into her MBA makes her contribution level that much more impressive. In terms of group performance, Jenna outperforms experienced professionals with 5-10 years of work experience.

Post-MBA, Jenna is planning on continuing her work with her family’s nonprofit foundation called “The Wood-Claeyssens Foundation”. The foundation provides grants for select organizations in the Santa Barbara and Ventura counties. Jenna is already very active with the foundation holding a director position and attending many foundation-community events. You can check it out at woodclaeyssensfoundation.com.

When I try to picture my future career performance, I will strive to be seen as “The Jenna Burkey” of my future teams. And yes... the picture below is the thank you card she gave out to each individual group member on our team after the successful completion of our final presentation. Yes I'm serious... that is the spirit of Jenna Burkey. We love you Jenna!!!

Blog 48 - Introducing a Standout Professor... Dr. Kenneth Ko

2009-11-09T20:44:00.001-08:00

Pepperdine’s MBA program, like every academic institution, has its standout professors, its average professors and those professors whom students avoid at all costs. I’m writing to you today to introduce one of our truly outstanding professors, Dr. Ken Ko. I am in Dr. Ko’s monday morning Quantitative Business Analysis class. Now throughout our MBA, there are classes that are generally considered more exciting than others. Classes like strategy, marketing and organizational behavior seem to be enjoyed more than some of the quantitative courses like accounting, finance, stats and QBA. While we understand that all of the courses are required for a well-rounded MBA experience... that doesn’t mean we enjoy them all equally!

With that being said... QBA is a course that has the ability to be really, really dry. It wouldn’t be hard to imagine an older, monotone professor discussing the details of linear programing and decision trees. In the class, we study how to apply mathematical models to business constraints like budgets, the labor supply & raw materials. When the models are properly implemented, we are able to make the best business decision available to us. QBA is definitely a vital course to our MBA, but again... I’m sure you’re thinking, “Creating and applying mathematical models... how could that be fun?”

The answer to that question... is Dr Ken Ko. Without a doubt, Dr. Ko is the most engaging professor that I have had at Pepperdine. His classes are so easy to understand and so engaging it’s almost as if you’re surprised when the class time is over. Dr. Ko’s energy, enthusiasm and truly unique personality make him a favorite among his students. Sometimes Dr. Ko will start a class with a funny story or an engaging experience of his. He gets the class involved throughout the class period, referring to his students as “his players” and himself as “our coach”. While it took about a full class period to get used to his style (example: he routinely calls his students “baby” lol)... I am incredibly impressed by his teaching style. Before I wrote this blog, I knew that it would be impossible to really capture the brilliance of his teaching style without adding some video clips. So one day in class, with his permission of course, I took a couple clips for you so you can see what I’m talking about!

During the first class period I had Dr. Ko, I was so shocked by his teaching style that I wanted to figure out where he came from. While I’m always interested in my professor’s academic and professional backgrounds, I was even more interested with Dr Ko because of his crazy and outgoing personality. Upon further review, I found out that Dr. Ko had graduated from UC Berkeley with honors for his undergrad and then went on to Stanford for his PhD in Management Science and Engineering. Very impressive academic credentials to say the least! Dr. Ko has worked as a product manager for Hewlett-Packard, a business manager for PricewaterhouseCoopers, and a management consultant for Strategic Decisions Group where he is currently an outside consultant. His combination of academic background, work experience and unique people skills makes him a very valued asset to Pepperdine’s MBA program. To any first year or prospective student, if you have the option to take a course from Dr. Kenneth Ko... I would very strongly recommend that you take him.

Blog 47 - Session A Down... 3 More to Go!!!

2009-11-01T19:48:00.000-08:00

After a short break... I am back blogging again! So here are the latest updates!

Session A this fall was the first time that I had attempted 5 classes in a single session. It was an interesting session for me particularly because many of my team projects focused on my summer internship experience with Pelco. It was cool to be able to see the interconnectedness of what we learn in the program and my real-world experience. The above picture is of my group’s final project presentation in our Designing and Managing International Organizations class. My group did an overview of Pelco’s future business ventures in China.

Looking back at session A, I had a much different experience than I did during session A last fall. When students first get to the MBA program, they generally become very social and work to develop their new friend base. First year students attend most mixers, school events and fundraising functions. They must balance this active social life with a very demanding workload from their classes. If you look back at some of my posts from last year (archived to the right under the drop down menus), you see posts of ‘Red Bull Nights” and “Finals”. This past session had a much different feel...

This past session I felt that I was much more in control of my life. I had free time that I could allocate to things like trying surfing, hanging out with Frankie (the roommate) and seeing friends visiting from home. My classes seemed easier (other than business law) and the work was much more interesting to me as it seemed more relevant to my future career. Another big difference I noticed was my own physical health during the 7-week session. Last year, from the beginning of school through December, I gained 25 pounds of “not muscle”, didn’t sleep regular hours and ate horribly. This past session, I went to the gym every day and got much more sleep. In all, I really enjoyed the lifestyle change from last year.

When I received my grades for the session I was really excited to learn that I did really well. This past semester was my best session thus far in terms of overall experience and GPA. It is so nice to be able to mostly focus on classes that are in my area of interest, as apposed to “foundational classes” such as economics and finance.

Session B should consist of a much easier workload for me, as I am only taking 3 classes this session. My classes for session B are Quantitative Business Analysis, Creating and Leading Teams and Business Law (continued from session A). Business law is seeming to become more difficult by the week and I look forward to the day when that class will be over. If I ever had the idea that I wanted to attend law school, my business law class has definitely confirmed that’s not for me!

Blog 46 - C4C Beach Battle!!

2009-10-04T20:35:00.001-07:00

This past Saturday, one of our school clubs called Challenge for Charity held their annual Beach Battle event. The “Beach Battle” is a beach volleyball tournament played at Will Rogers State Beach in Malibu. Teams of four enter the competition for $15 that is donated to charity. In the club’s own words, this is what they do:

“For 25 years, the MBA Challenge for Charity (C4C), a non-profit 501(c)3, has drawn on the talents, energy and resources of MBAs from West Coast business schools to raise funds and volunteers for the Special Olympics. C4C organizations are active at Stanford, the University of Washington, University of San Francisco, UC-Berkeley, UC-Davis, UC-Irvine, UCLA, USC, and Pepperdine. Our goal at C4C Pepperdine is to inspire and develop business leaders with a lifelong commitment to community involvement and social responsibility. Pepperdine Challenge for Charity's mission is to support Special Olympics of Southern California and The Children's Lifesaving Foundation.”

During the tournament, we won our first game with a dominating victory. Our success in the competition was short lived however, as we were eliminated in the next round. Some teams took the event a little more serious than others... I believe one player actually had to go to the hospital with a head injury suffered during a diving incident! While I don’t claim to be any professional volleyball player, I had a great time playing with my friends. We continued to play pickup games throughout the afternoon. Everyone out there had a great time and it felt even better contributing to a worthwhile cause.

Blog 45 - Amy’s Cooking... a Homemade Treat far from Home

2009-10-04T19:57:00.001-07:00

Many of the students that attend Pepperdine don’t originally come from southern CA. This means that from time to time, students will find themselves missing some of the comforts of wherever they call home. I am no different... and one of the things I find myself missing is a home made sit down type of dinner meal.

Several things in my life make this a somewhat difficult problem to solve: 1) lack of a dining room table, 2) Usually eating by myself due to Frankie and I sometimes having different schedules and 3) Usually not having many traditional kitchen items. This is really embarrassing to admit, but our neighbor came over asking to barrow white table salt because she ran out while baking her cake... and I had to tell her we didn’t have any! Haha... the life of the single grad student!

One element in my grad school life that helps out with this... is the amazing cooking of Amy Cathy. Amy is an experienced and motivated chef who always likes to try out new recipes. Often times during our football practices, she can be seen sitting in her beach chair checking out the latest recipes in "Real Simple" magazine. Anytime I get the chance to get in on an Amy Cathy dinner... I am always quick to jump at the opportunity!

Last week, Amy and I were having a conversation about the possibility of me living in Spain if I worked for Schneider Electric. She told me that not only was she a Spanish major in undergrad, but that she lived in Spain for four months! While talking about what it is like and what she saw, she told me that I should come over sometime to try Spanish food! I was excited at not only the idea of Amy’s cooking, but also trying a new dish from a country that I might live in someday.

So we arranged a night when we were all free and I came over to the Cathy home. Amy had spent two hours preparing a Spanish dish called “Paella de Valenciana”. The dish was a combination of chicken and shrimp, over a particular type of rice and beans. The dish tasted really good and it was exciting to try something new. If any of you are really adventurous, check out her blog post about it here: www.amycathy.com. For those of you that know me, you know I am a really picky eater. Amy is so kind to make things she knows I’ll like and check with me before hand so I can be sure I’ll like everything served.

On a more personal note, I enjoy hanging out with Mark and Amy as a couple as often as I can. I can see that their marriage has a substantial amount of value in it and I think there are many things I can learn from them. They are a very loving and mature couple, and I know that I benefit greatly from having them in my life. So if you ever get the chance to try Amy’s cooking, or just to enjoy their company... by all means consider yourself lucky!

Blog 44 - Field Trip to Baxter BioScience Plant

2009-10-04T18:07:00.000-07:00

This past week in my Designing and Managing International Organizations class, we took a field trip to a production plant of Baxter BioScience, located in Thousand Oaks California. On this tour, our class was able to speak with local managers and see the facilities of a major company. While reviews were mixed from the class... I’m going to try to give you an overview of the event from my perspective.

Choice of Company

Baxter BioScience is truly a global business. In 2008, more than 60% of Baxter’s employees and revenue sources were located outside the United States. While their headquarters are located in Illinois, Baxter has significant operations set up in Europe, Latin America and Asia/Pacific. The company is also a major player in its market, with almost 50,000 employees and 5.3 billion in revenue for the year 2008. The company invested $868 million in 2008 research and development. In Baxter’s own words, this is what they do:

“Baxter is a leading manufacturer of plasma-based and recombinant proteins used to treat hemophilia. Other biopharmaceutical products include plasma-based therapies to treat immune disorders, alpha 1 antitrypsin deficiency and other chronic blood-related conditions; biosurgery products for hemostasis, wound-sealing, and tissue regeneration; and vaccines. Baxter also is a leading manufacturer of manual and automated blood and blood-component separation and collection systems.” (Baxter Website)

Personally, I was very impressed with the company. It has a very strong international presence, is a large and growing company and appears to be very well managed. Prior to the plant tour, I was really looking forward to getting a great insight into how this large international science company operated on a global scale.

Positives

I would say that the main positive of the day was that we got to hear from several of the top managers who ran the plant in Thousand Oaks. They gave us a PowerPoint about the overall company and the history of Baxter. The managers were good presenters and were well prepared for our visit.

A second positive of the day was that we go to visit a large company’s facilities. I know this seems trivial to some, but many of the students in our class hadn’t ever been to a large corporate environment before. Some of our students came to Pepperdine straight out of their undergraduate college and hadn’t ever seen a plant before.

Negatives

The most common complaint from the class, was that way too much of our allotted time was spent on the very scientific process that Baxter uses to create its products. What we as MBA students wanted to learn about the company was how it is run, what is their organizational strategy is and the current/future management level issues they have had to deal with. While its important to know the industry and the particular products they produce, most of our students didn’t care as much about the science piece of the tour as they would have the management side. This caused many of the students to become bored and disinterested when they were learning about the fourth stage of synthetic protein dilution. To put it into perspective, on the tour one of the speakers wanted to confirm with us that we all had backgrounds in chemistry before she said her piece of the tour. When asked about our chemistry background, she was met with many blank stares...

When the tour was concluded and we finally got to sit down and speak with the managers, we had about 15 minutes left before we had to leave. If we could have taken an hour out of the tour and had gotten to spend more time with the managers, it would have added much more value to the experience. The time management looked something like this:

9:00 - 9:30 - Intro Presentation

9:30 - 11:30 - Science Based Tour

11:30 - 11:45 - Q&A with Managers

Conclusion

When I think about this day in perspective, I look at what I wanted to get out of it and what I got out of it. What I wanted to get out of it was international corporate management perspective. I wanted to hear out the challenges associated with cross-border communication, cultural differences and international business development in emerging markets. More specifically, I wanted to know about their global HR functions. How do they recruit, train and retain the world’s best talent? How do they manage their top performing employees and how do they improve their weak links?

What I got out of it was a lot of in depth scientific information about the very complicated production process of “plasma-based and recombinant proteins”. I’m trying to be as optimistic and positive as I can be here... but I’m still trying to think of a time in my professional future that is knowledge will be relevant.

Blog 43 - Friend Nadia’s Visit and Deer On Campus...

2009-09-30T22:35:00.000-07:00

This past weekend my friend Nadia Dwidar came down to visit me. I have known Nadia for many years, first meeting during high school swimming way back in the day. Nadia recently graduated from UCSB with a degree in sociology. She is now going to school in Fresno to pursue a career in nursing. Nadia and I get along great, and have a very strong common interest in swimming. One of the nice things about Pepperdine, is that when your friends and family come to visit we have a beautiful campus to show them. Not to mention, the whole ocean thing is quite a draw for people from Fresno, California!

On a side note... when I first came to Pepperdine, I thought that it was a joke when someone told me that deer often come onto Pepperdine’s campus. I figured it was the age-old story they told new students. Boy was I mistaken! Deer can be regularly seen on Pepperdine’s campus in the early morning and at dusk. They usually travel in groups of 5 or 6 at a time. While it can cause a driving safety issue (a roommate of mine wishing to remain nameless, recently had a driving incident involving a deer), the deer on campus are just another addition to the already impressive scenery.

Blog 42 - Student Leadership Team Meeting

2009-09-30T21:56:00.000-07:00

Last week, for the first time this school year all of the school leaders got together at a meeting with Associate Dean Dr. Mark Mallinger. The school leaders group consisted of the school government members, our “Emerging Leaders” group and all of the club presidents. In this meeting we discussed the vision, mission statement and future goals of the Pepperdine MBA program. Here’s what we have...

Vision

To Achieve global distinction for advancing knowledge and developing leaders that create value for business and society.

Mission Statement

To develop values-centered leaders and advance responsible business practice through education that is entrepreneurial in spirit, ethical in focus and global in orientation. As a professional school growing out of the tradition of a Christian University, we seek to positively impact both society at large and the organizations and communities in which our students and graduates are members. Therefore, we affirm a higher purpose for business practice than the exclusive pursuit of shareholder wealth. We believe that successful management seeks collective good along with individual profit and is anchored in core values such as integrity, stewardship, courage and compassion.

Future Goals for 2015

Enrich Learning

Value-Centered Leadership
Collaborative, Experiential Learning Environment
Center for Teaching and Learning Excellence

Enhance Thought Leadership

Hire and Develop High Profile Faculty
Center for Values-Centered Leadership and Responsible Business Practice
Center for Applied Research

Cultivate Community

Engage Alumni
Create Learning Communities

Build Partnerships

Develop Strategic Partnerships with Top-Tier Universities Domestically and Globally to Create Academic and Business Opportunities
Develop Strategic Partnerships with Non-Profit/ NGOs to Drive a Focused Business Development Initiative Locally and/or Globally

Advance Reputation

Develop Highly Effective Marketing Strategy to Promote the School and its Accomplishments to Key Stakeholder Groups
Pursue Leadership Opportunities in Key Academic, Program and Professional Organizations

Blog 41 - “If Everybody had an Ocean...”

2009-09-28T00:58:00.000-07:00

With my last several posts being very serious in nature, I figured it was about time to post a more informal blog about my weekend. This past weekend, for the first time in my life, I tried going surfing! It was so much more difficult than I ever thought it would be.

Now that I have started my second year of the program, some realities are starting to hit me. First, that I see the light at the end of the tunnel. Meaning that in the now foreseeable future, my time here at Pepperdine will be finished. Second, that Malibu won’t always be my home in the future. Meaning that the beach, the amazing view and the perfect weather won’t be constants in my everyday life forever. Third, that my amazing classmates won’t be in my life like they are now. These realizations have led me to change my focus a little on how I manage my time and what’s important to me.

When I was thinking about this, I realized that while I had been to the beach last year, I had never tried surfing. I had lived in Malibu for an entire year, the home of the Beach Boys and had never tried surfing before. So I talked to my good friend Mark Cathy (an avid surfer) after one of our football practices and we decided to go surfing.

We headed out to Surfrider Beach in Malibu for my first day of surfing. Our good friend and classmate James Imatani came along with us. My first day I had a great time surfing. It was much tougher to “pop up” than I thought it was going to be. The waves were great and the weather was perfect as always. Other than James crashing on a rock one time, we all had a good time. I hope I am able to go again in the near future.

Now when I look back at my life when I’m older, I can someday tell my children about the time I went surfing when I lived in Malibu, CA... just like the Beach Boys!

Blog 40 - Career Services... A Hot Debate Among Students

2009-09-18T19:53:00.000-07:00

The primary reason students choose to pursue their MBA is to acquire higher level and high paying jobs in organizations. While there is a ton of personal development, networking and even some fun during the program... everyone knows why we’re here. We all want to make it big and we see this program as a stepping stone to achieving our dreams.

During the first year of the program, students try to survive the tremendous class load while attempting to acquire an internship. Many of the classes we took during our first year were considered “foundational” meaning that they were generally out of our area of speciality.

During our second year, the atmosphere seems to be very different so far. Other than our business law requirement, all of our classes are electives this semester. These classes aren’t necessarily easier, but generally seem easier because they are in our areas of interest and focus. The catch however, is that for most second year students, this is the time that they need to find their ever important job.

The first job someone takes upon graduation from their MBA program is a vital piece to their career puzzle. If you land a great job with a reputable company, you become much more marketable and valuable 5 years into your post-MBA career. If you don’t land that initial job with a good company, it can seriously delay all of our “make it big” goals. Being with a company that understands the value of an MBA and has early-career management development programs in place is a huge asset.

To help us navigate the ever complex and changing job market, Pepperdine has provided us with the Career Services Office. The career services staff is made up of 5 Pepperdine staff members dedicated to helping individual students with their career development and job search. Each student is assigned an individual career counselor that we are able to schedule meetings with pretty much as often as we would like.

The value of our career services office is a hotly debated subject among many of our Pepperdine MBA students. This vital piece of the MBA program operates very differently than some of the other MBA programs in the area. If you are a MBA student at UCLA or USC, you are constantly being recruited by various companies that have recruiting relationships with the schools. On-campus interviews are very common and often times companies come in and hire entire groups of students.

Many of our students are not happy with the quality and the quantity of companies that do on-campus recruiting at Pepperdine. Their main complaint is that career services doesn’t go out of their way to help the average student as much as other higher ranked programs. When looking at the MBA program, there are generally two sides: the academic learning side and the job placement side. Our students feel that the allocation of resources is skewed largely towards the academic side, leaving the career services side lacking.

In my opinion, the main problem that career services has is that they are understaffed. First lets talk about basic numbers. The career services office serves as a resource to both 1st and 2nd year students, from the programs 12-Month MBA, 15-Month MBA, 20-Month MBA, International-MBA, MS in Applied Finance and MS in Global Business. Added together, this equals approximately 400 students. One of the career service staff members works as an administrative role, which leaves 4 career counselors to be divided up among the 400 students. So each career counselor is the “go-to” person for the career advice, planning and preparation for 100 students from various backgrounds from all over the world going into different industries.

When looking at what an “ideal” counselor-student relationship would look like, it becomes almost unimaginable how a single counselor could create that with 100 students. Career counselors help with industry selection, target company lists, alumni contact, networking, career advice, resume building, cover letter writing, locating job postings, connecting students with industry professionals, salary negotiation skills, mock interviews, etc. It is a tremendous amount of work for even the student who knows exactly what they want to do. So the idea proposed by many of the students is that if we were able to increase the number of career counselors from 4 to say 10, then the relationship between the average student and counselor would become closer to the “ideal” stage. This would bring the ratio of counselor to student from 1 - 100 to 1 - 40, which would be a significant improvement. Because many students in the program know how over burdened the career services office is, students have begun taking their career searches into their own hands.

The second point that it usually brought up about the career service counselors is that there isn’t any categorizing of students with particular interests to counselors with particular areas of expertise. For example, take a primary MBA subject like finance or investment banking. Those industries are incredibly unique and have very set ways they acquire new employees. At this time, Pepperdine doesn’t have a single career counselor that has industry knowledge, networking contacts or insights into the application processes at any well known firms. In an ideal setting the school would have one counselor for each major industry discipline, or at least on for every concentration the school offers. So for example, the ideal office would have a marketing career counselor that would work with all of the students interested in pursuing a career in marketing. This counselor would have industry knowledge, connections to marketing firms, contacts for students to meet and marketing experience of their own. With the current system, many times the students know more about their particular field of interest than their counselor does.

While I do agree that career services is understaffed, I have had an overall good experience with career services. I see Pepperdine’s career services similar to many other aspects in life, you get out of it what you put into it. Meaning that if you take the time to stop by and schedule continuous appointments, they can provide a lot of value on the career development side. But most of the work, the networking, the target firm lists, the finding contacts, figuring out what it is you want to do, getting interviews... is conducted by the student. Personally this has worked out for me so far, as I have gotten good advice from my counselor and have been successful in my own career development and job search thus far.

While it would be nice to envision these “ideal career counselors” and “ideal office setup” I would imagine that there would be a strong resistance to change in this area of our program. Budget cuts, perspectives on priorities and people trying to maintain the status quo would make any change substantially more difficult. But one can’t help but weigh the pros and cons of having that 3rd accounting class or second IT class vs having a substantially upgraded, more connected career services office. It goes back to why we as students are here... to obtain that higher level, higher paying job. With that in mind, it is clear that a new strategy in career services would add tremendous value to the MBA program.

Blog 39 - The Consulting Club... A Total Revamping of the Club

2009-09-04T16:27:00.000-07:00

This is officially my first full year as the “President” of the Management Consulting Club. After a very disorganized first year, I have learned a lot about how I want the club to function differently this year as opposed to last year. Last year, while I was an officer, I wasn’t able to really have much input on the overall goals and mission of the club. This year will be different...

Last year our club was run with the assumption that all of the club members were very knowledge and interested in consulting. Going with that assumption, our club’s primary focus was case interview preparation. While case interview prep is important for consulting interviews at some firms, many students wanted to just explore the field of consulting and find out what it’s all about. Our club, in addition to not having regular meetings... didn’t serve the needs of the majority of the membership.

This year the club will be run drastically different. First of all, the scope of the club will change slightly. The major change is that our club will now also incorporate the field of Human Resources into our area of speciality. I wanted to expand the club because it was a niche that wasn’t being filled by other clubs and I believe that I have experience that could help someone interested in becoming involved in the field. This is our new club mission statement:

“To prepare interested Pepperdine graduate students with future careers in consulting and human resources through exposure, education and career path development.”

These following points are designed to guide us in how we plan to operate the club:

“We Understand That Students Have Different Levels of Interest, Knowledge and Commitment to both consulting and human resources. Our main goal as a club, is to provide individual career development value to interested students regardless of their level of knowledge in the industry. Our club will function more like an interest group focused on the individual’s needs and how we can jointly help each other as a club with common interest.”

This year our club is planning on having monthly meetings where we bring in a speaker from the consulting world to speak and give advice on what it is like to be in the business world of consulting. In addition to our meetings, we will have individual career development sessions offered to our members where we as officers sit down with them and help them with their internship and job searches. As a club, we want to be able to provide as much value to the individual members as possible.

I am joined by two fellow club officers, Olga Litnska will serve as our Vice President and Shivani Chander will serve as our Industry Outreach Liaison. Both of my fellow club officers had impressive internships and have bright futures ahead of them. I am lucky to have them with me to help run the club.

If you’re a current Pepperdine student interested in joining the Consulting and Human Resources club, please send me an email at brianjenkins36@gmail.com.

Blog 38 - Start of the 2nd Year... One Week Down!

2009-09-04T15:02:00.000-07:00

Ah... here it is again. The start of my 2nd and final year here at Pepperdine. I was fortunate to be able to have a couple weeks off in between the end of my internship and the beginning of school.

As many of my long time readers know, last year I lived on campus in the graduate dorms. This year however, I am living about 20 minutes away in a small town called Calabasas. The traffic in the mornings is a little intense sometimes, but it is very manageable. I’m living in the Malibu Canyon Apartments with my previous roommate Frankie Warren.

I know that last year I recommended living on campus to incoming prospective students, but this year I think the smarter move was to move off campus. Living on campus is a great way to meet people, but it costs approximately $1500 a month per person in a dorm-like setting. You have 3 roommates you don’t get to pick, no dishwasher, no microwave and the laundry room was 4 floors away from us. Luckily last year I really liked my roommates, but I know other people who didn’t have as positive of an experience.

My new apartment is on the ground floor (helps for moving in), has laundry inside the unit, has a dishwasher, has a microwave, has bigger rooms with real carpet, a nicer kitchen, more storage and amazing air conditioning. In addition to a nice gym and pool area... my overall living situation has improved in my opinion. When you also factor in that my portion of the rent in Calabasas is $750 compared to double that ($1500) on campus.

This session in school, I’m doing something I haven’t done before yet... I’m taking 5 classes instead of the traditional 4. This means that much more reading, projects, quizzes, tests and papers to prepare for. In the fall semester, Pepperdine divides the semester into 2 sessions. In the first 7 week session I will have 5 classes and in the second 7 week session I will have only 3 classes. So basically, I have to push it hard to survive this first 7 weeks and then I should be able to coast for a bit.

The classes I’m taking this semester are Business Law, Family Business, Organizational Development and Change, Designing and Managing International Organizations and Management Consulting. So far it is looking like Business Law will be by far the toughest class I have and it will last through both the first and second session. Wish me luck!!

Blog 37 - From the Sauna to the Boardroom... My Amazing Summer Internship

2009-08-21T15:47:00.000-07:00

Internship Introduction

As MBA students in the full-time, 20-month program, we are required to complete an internship during the summer. This internship is a very important piece of our MBA experience. For many students in the MBA program, their internship is their first opportunity to have “MBA Level” experience in their chosen field. When in interviews for our future jobs, it is very important for us to be able to discuss the real world applications of our school teachings. These experiences often come from our summer internships.

It is important to note the difference of an “internship” and an “MBA level internship”. A basic internship, usually occurs during undergraduate studies and many times involves very low level activities (filing, phones, paperwork, etc). MBA level internships often involve some sort of higher level project and job shadowing of higher level employees.

Due to the economy this year, it was very difficult for MBA students to find high quality internships. I had not originally planned on interning for Pelco and was pursuing an internship with the consulting organization Gallup, based out of Omaha, Nebraska. I passed multiple interview rounds before eventually finding out that Gallup did not think they were going to have consulting interns that summer.

Needing an internship and having exhausted nearly all of my leads I went back home to Fresno, CA to visit my parents. During my trip home, I went to the local gym as I normally do. After one of my workouts, I went into the sauna to relax. While sitting in the sauna, I struck up a conversation with a man sitting across from me. When I asked him what he did, he told me he was the Senior VP of Human Resources for Pelco, the biggest company in the area! I was incredibly excited... I had just met the #1 person I would have wanted to meet in the entire central valley. After a brief chat about my background and interests, I obtained his contact information. That contact info eventually led to an interview and an internship offer.

Company Profile and Overview

Pelco is the world leader in video security camera solutions. Pelco’s products include both the actual cameras themselves and the video systems needed to run the overall systems. If you have seen the movie Ocean’s Eleven, the scene where Andy Garcia’s character Terry Benedict walks into the main security office that ran the casino through hundreds of cameras and monitors, you have seen an example of the technology Pelco sells.

Pelco designs, produces and sells its cameras all over the world. From its corporate headquarters in Clovis, CA Pelco manages the entire value chain of its products. Meaning that Pelco conducts its research and development, testing, fabrication, production, shipping and all support activities from the same location. In today’s business world, this is very rare. With the popularity of outsourcing rising, Pelco’s strategy of operations makes it unique in its industry.

Pelco dominates the upper-end video security market. Their clients include many government agencies, large corporations and foreign governments. Pelco cameras protect places such as the White House, the Pentagon, the Statue of Liberty, the Great Wall of China, the Sydney Opera House, Fort Knoxx, various Olympics locations, the offices of Homeland Security, Buckingham Palace, the Capital Building and most major airports around the world.

Pelco was founded in 1957, and was run as a privately held company until October 2008, when it was acquired by the French giant, Schneider Electric. To put it in perspective, Pelco has approximately 2,500 employees and does 400 million in annual sales while Schneider Electric has 114,000 employees and does 18 billion in annual sales. Pelco is currently in a state of transition, changing the organization from a family run type of business into a competitive global company. Pelco competes with Bosch, Panasonic, Siemens, Axis and Samsung in the industry. For those of you that would like to find out more about this amazing company, check them out at Pelco.com.

My Project

At Pelco, I was given a specific project to work on throughout the summer. My project involved, obtaining a business network analysis software program, conducting surveys in various departments and analyzing the results. The steps to my project project consisted of:

1. Research and select software needed for project

2. Present my recommendation for software to VP of HR

3. Create and fulfill a Request For Proposal for the software

4. Create “Pitch Presentation” for department VPs

5. Meet with the five VPs involved and gain support from upper management

6. Present to involved departments informing them of the project

7. Complete training on software conducted by its creator

8. Brainstorm questions to be used in the survey, meeting with VPs to get input on the questions to include in the survey

9. Complete final questions list and submit to our outside consultant for approval

10. Write a survey to be used by each department

11. Administer the distribution and completion of the survey

12. Take data and convert into digital format through data entry

13. Work with consultant to input digital data into the software program

14. Run various analytic functions to turn data into workflow information

15. Present findings to department VPs

16. Distribute Survey to VPs on the findings

17. Review project and tool, looking for improvements to be made

18. Cross train other members of staff to be able to conduct surveys and utilize the tool in various functions beneficial to the organization

My Exposure

While my project was both a challenging and exciting part of my internship, my biggest takeaway from my internship was the amazing exposure I had to various HR topics. During my internship, I gained firsthand experience in all of the following areas:

Executive coaching, the initiation of a mentoring program, business continuation planning, employee discipline issues, strategic business partner meetings, hiring process of various engineering positions, exit interviews, employee relations issues, performance reviews, management of poor performers, compensation strategy and negotiations, employee bonus restructuring, web recruiting video, safety meetings, discrimination issues meetings, key potentials career development planning, fund selection and review of employee 401k plans, handling of dangerous employees, succession planning, employee terminations, paid time off benefits issues, morale boosting employee events and the opening of a China-based manufacturing plant.

Being exposed to this vast list of of topics gave me great experience in the world of human resources. Gaining this real world experience in my professional field was a life changing experience. It is one thing to read about concepts and strategies in our textbooks, but seeing them put into action confirmed that human resources is the field that I want to pursue.

David Whitehorn (Far Right in Picture)

I was incredibly fortunate to be able to meet David Whitehorn, the Senior Vice President of Human Resources for Pelco. For the first time in my life, I was able to meet and interact with someone who has done exactly what I want to accomplish in my career. David and I met every other week where he sat down with me to plan out exactly what I wanted to do with my career. He explained to me what I needed to do to accomplish my goals.

David Whitehorn is an HR visionary. He is well respected by both his peers and subordinates. His vast knowledge from both his previous time with Raytheon and his international experience was invaluable to me during our mentoring meetings. He has lived in several foreign countries and speaks many languages including French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Arabic. David spent a considerable amount of time in the Middle East living in Saudi. He earned his MBA from Boston University. David has become a very important mentor to me in my life.

Nora Barber (Right of Me in Picture)

If David Whitehorn is the “visionary”.... Nora Barber is the “in the trenches” point person on many of the most important HR projects at the company. Nora is the Sr Human Resources Manager for Pelco. Nora was a key part of what made my internship an amazing experience. Throughout the summer, Nora consistently went out of her way to expose me to everything she could. She often took time out of her incredibly busy days to show me something she was working on, invite me to attend a meeting or even just share her perspectives on different HR issues.

Nora is a vital piece of the HR puzzle at Pelco. She provides the day-to-day leadership needed to run the human resources operations of the company. I saw on a daily basis, people coming to her from many different departments seeking her knowledge, perspective and expertise. In addition to her tremendous workload, she was selected to work on what Pelco calls a “PM1 Project”. In this project, Nora and an international team from various Schneider Electric companies around the world attempt to solve a critical business issue and present their findings to the company executives. During the initiation of this project, she travelled to China to meet her team and will present their results in Paris this fall. She recently decided to pursue her MBA and I wish her the best of luck in her studies. I was very impressed with Nora both personally and professionally, and I hope to have the chance to learn from her in the future once again.

Jennifer Herrera (Left of Me in Picture)

Throughout my entire internship, I spent more time with Jennifer than I did anyone else in the company. Jennifer Herrera is an HR Business Partner for Pelco and also holds the title of Corporate Staffing Manager. Before she worked at Pelco, Jennifer had more than 8 years of HR experience working in southern CA for the companies SAIC, Sempra and the ICW Group. I spent pretty much every day with Jennifer this summer. Through the course of the summer we became very close friends, going to lunch almost every day.

Seeing firsthand how Jennifer handled the day to day operations of an HR professional was important to my experience. It always amazed me how Jennifer always had the “pulse” of the organization. She was always up to date on what was happening in the organization at all levels. Her ability to form interpersonal relationships with various people in the company was very impressive to me. Many times, I saw other people at Pelco go out of their way to help Jennifer and this is a testament to her ability to work well with others. Her organizational ability and communication skills make her a valued asset to the Pelco company.

Future Possibilities

One of the exciting aspects of working for Pelco was knowing that they are owned by a much larger global company. During my many mentoring sessions with David, it became very clear to me that if I want to achieve my long-term professional goals, that I will have to have experience working overseas and further developing my international business skills. This means living and working abroad, learning languages and cultures, and developing a more global view. With Pelco’s parent company, Schneider Electric... I might get the chance to do just that!

While nothing in the world of business is guaranteed, was told that I may have a future opportunity with Schneider Electric or even Pelco itself! I was very excited to learn about a program of Schneider Electric’s called Marco Polo. The program is designed to provide high-potential employees with international experience across various business functions. This summer, I was able to go to dinner with Yvette Stortz, Head of Recruiting for Schneider North America to learn more about the program. The opportunity of working overseas with a global business giant like Schneider Electric is very exciting to me.

Impact On My Life

Before my internship experience... part of me slightly doubted the value of an internship. There was a huge “pain-in-the-ass” factor of researching companies, applying to many, hearing back from almost none, interviewing and hearing over and over, “we’re just not having interns due to the economy”. Add to it that all of this internship searching was during the most intense academic program I have ever been in, and it became quite stressful at times. Then factor in relocating my life back home to take a summer internship without pay... you get the picture.

But now, after having had my experience... it’s hard to even begin to tell you how wrong I was. Without a doubt, the most important and valuable takeaway I will have from my MBA experience is my summer internship with Pelco. It was more important than all of our textbooks, our financial models and possibly even more important than the amazing network we establish. To a student debating between the 20 month program (with internship) and the 15 month program (without internship) I would highly recommend the 20 month program.

My internship confirmed both exactly what my long term career goal is and how I’m going to get there. Before my internship, I was a student of ideas. I had ideas about what I thought I liked and what I thought I’d be good at. Now, I am a student with purpose working towards specific goals I know are in line with my bigger life plan. I am now more confident in both what I want to do with my life and my choice to pursue my MBA. My summer internship at Pelco, along with my MBA are the two most defining life transitions I have ever had. I am incredibly appreciative to all of the wonderful people at Pelco that helped make that happen.

Complete Amazing Summer Internship.... Check!

Blog 36 - Beware... I Am Now PHR Certified!!

2009-07-19T11:29:00.000-07:00

Just as the fields of accounting, nursing and law have certification tests to differentiate levels of expertise, knowledge and accomplishment... the field of human resources has created a 3 test series of exams to add credibility to the field and its professionals.

The 3 test series consists of the PHR test (Professional in Human Resources), the SPHR test (Senior Professional in Human Resources) and finally the GPHR (Global Professional in Human Resources). This summer, I studied for and passed the PHR exam.

Professional in Human Resources (PHR) is an industry certification for people working in the human resource management profession. The certification, awarded by the HR Certification Institute, signifies that individuals possess the theoretical knowledge and practical experience in human resource management necessary to pass a rigorous examination demonstrating a mastery of the body of knowledge in the field.

PHR, SPHR AND GPHR EXAM OVERVIEW

PHR and SPHR Exams

The Professional in Human Resources (PHR®) and the Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR®) exams are both based on U.S. federal laws, regulations and practices and are generalist in nature (i.e., they assess all the functional areas of the HR field). They differ in terms of focus and the cognitive level of questions. PHR questions tend to be at an operational/technical level. SPHR questions tend to be more at the strategic and/or policy level.

Test questions on both exams reflect the most recently published test specifications (see Appendix A). The exams are multiple choice and consist of 200 scored questions plus 25 pretest questions randomly distributed throughout the exam (a total of 225 questions). Each question lists four possible answers, only one of which is the correct or “best possible answer.” The answer to each question can be derived independently of the answer to any other question. Four hours are allotted to complete the exam.

PHR Candidate:

■ Focuses on program implementation.

■ Has tactical/logistical orientation.

■ Has accountability to another HR professional within the organization.

■ Has two to four years of exempt-level generalist HR work experience, but because of career length may lack the breadth and depth of a more senior-level generalist.

■ Has not had progressive HR work experience by virtue of career length.

■ Focuses his or her impact on the organization within the HR department rather than organizationwide.

■ Commands respect through the credibility of knowledge and the use of policies and guidelines to make decisions.

SPHR Candidate:

■ Designs and plans rather than implements.

■ Focuses on the “big picture.”

■ Has ultimate accountability in the HR department.

■ Has six to eight years of progressive HR experience.

■ Has breadth and depth of HR generalist knowledge.

■ Uses judgment obtained with time and application of knowledge.

■ Has generalist role within organization.

■ Understands the effect of decisions made within and outside of the organization.

■ Understands the business, not just the HR function.

■ Manages relationships; has influence within overall organization.

■ Commands credibility within organization, community and field by experience.

■ Possesses excellent negotiation skills.

GPHR Exam

Globalization is the defining political and economic force in the world today. It requires new ways of thinking and responding. For HR professionals, recognizing and understanding this phenomenon is fast becoming a job requirement. The purpose of the Global Professional in Human Resources (GPHRTM) certification is to assess your mastery of the necessary knowledge to be successful in this worldwide marketplace. The exams are multiple choice and consist of 150 scored questions plus 15 pretest questions randomly distributed throughout the exam (a total of 165 questions). Each question lists four possible answers, only one of which is the correct or “best possible answer.” The answer to each question can be derived independently of the answer to any other question. Three hours are allotted to complete the exam.

GPHR Candidate:

■ Establishes HR policies and initiatives that support the organization’s global growth and reputation as an employer.

■ Designs organizational structures, programs and processes to achieve worldwide business needs.

■ Oversees international assignment strategies and policies.

■ Develops, implements and evaluates programs, processes and tools to ensure that they align with competitive practice, the organization’s objectives and legal requirements.

■ Oversees the processes and practices that ensure favorable employment conditions balancing employer needs with employee rights and needs.

■ Has core knowledge of the organization’s international HR activities.

What Is Certification?

Certification is a voluntary action by a professional group to establish a system to grant recognition to professionals who have met a stated level of training and work experience. Certified individuals are usually issued a certificate attesting that they have met the standards of the credentialing organization and are entitled to make the public aware of their credentialed status, usually through the use of acronyms (e.g., PHR, SPHR or GPHR) after their names.

Why Is Certification Desirable?

Certification sets those with the credential apart—or above—those without it. There are a number of advantages to seeking certification. Certification becomes a public recognition of professional achievement—both within and outside of the profession. For many, achieving certification becomes a personal professional goal—a way to test knowledge and to measure it against one’s peers. Others see certification as an aid to career advancement.

Purpose and Use of Certification

PHR, SPHR and GPHR certification shows that the holder has demonstrated mastery of the domestic or international HR body of knowledge and, through recertification, has accepted the challenge to stay informed of new developments in the HR field.

The PHR, SPHR and GPHR exams are completely voluntary. Organizations or individuals incorporating PHR, SPHR or GPHR certification as a condition of employment or advancement do so of their own volition. Individuals should determine for themselves whether the use of this process, including its eligibility and recertification requirements, when coupled with any other requirements imposed by individuals or organizations, meets their needs and complies with any applicable laws.

The PHR, SPHR and GPHR designations are a visible reminder to peers and co-workers of the holder’s significant professional achievement. PHR-, SPHR- and GPHR-certified professionals should proudly display their certificates and use the credentials on business correspondence.

Blog 35 - Oxford Study Abroad Trip

2009-07-06T13:15:00.001-07:00

Oxford Reflection Paper

This past spring, I attended the Oxford short course study abroad program through Pepperdine’s MBA program. If someone now would ask me if knowing what I know now, would I recommend it, I would be undecided. My overall experience had some very distinctive ups and downs. I do believe though, that with some adjustments to the structure of the program, great improvements could be possible. First, my paper will address the positive aspects of the program. Then I will discuss the negative aspects of the program, followed up by an overall conclusion with some suggestions.

Positive Aspect #1: Oxford University as a Program Choice

The best overall aspect of my experience was the Oxford University location of the program. I believe that of all the global short course location offerings, Oxford would provide the best experience to the students.

In short, Oxford is an amazing university. Its rich history and impressive campus was a huge part of my experience. Walking around Oxford, viewing the different colleges and seeing the students dressed in their exam uniforms gives students in our program an insight into the workings of one of the best universities in the world.

Positive Aspect #2: Housing and Food during Program

Throughout the program, I enjoyed the food for the most part and we stayed in comfortable, clean dorms. The food, even if it somewhat lacked variety, was good throughout the week. It is always good to start a day of lectures with a solid breakfast, and that was provided for us each day. The rooms were clean and each had their own bathroom. Having the front desk people ready and willing to help us with the various issues that came up during the week was nice as well. In summary, our living accommodations were above what I was expecting during the week.

Positive Aspect #3: Resume Impact from Oxford Reputation

Oxford being one of the top universities in the world, adds more value to the program and to the students who take it. It is well known and respected around the globe. In contrast to some of the other short course location offerings, Oxford will be well known and easily recognized in any future interview. One of the main reasons I selected Oxford as my program choice, was I didn’t want to have to explain in an interview someday where exactly my study abroad university was and that it really exists.

Positive Aspect #4: The Siemens Manufacturing Plant Tour

The factory tour of Siemens was my favorite part of the program. I loved being able to meet and talk to European business professionals and view their work environment. Being able to talk to them about things like how they view management and the different strategies they use to maximize productivity was a great experience. The tour gave me a new, European perspective on many of the concepts that I study in school.

Negative Aspect #1: The Overall Cost-Benefit Analysis

When looking at the total cost of the program including transportation expenses, the amount of money is close to $4,000 spent on this trip. The program itself costs about 3,000 and it takes roughly $1,000 to pay for the plane ticket and public transportation costs. The main issue that I have, is how was most of the program different from what someone could have experienced going there on vacation? I wonder if I just decided to take a trip to Oxford for a week, stay in a local hotel and take some tours… if it would have been an equivalent experience.

Looking at what specifically this program offered us was a place to stay, food, a tour of Oxford, a tour of Siemens and approximately 3 hours of lecture a day. In my opinion, you could have gotten 90% of the experience for 50% of the cost. If someone was to take a week vacation to Oxford and put in a little effort, I think they could have had a very similar experience.

Negative Aspect #2: The Overall Quality and Style of the Lectures

Referring to the paragraphs above, what we as students really paid for in the program was the lectures. I think the major drawback from the program, was that most of the lectures were either too general or not focused on European business practices. It is important to remember that we are MBA students, and hear these types of business lectures on a daily basis. Many of the lectures were identical to ones that we have already heard. For example, one lecture on marketing discussed market segmentation and how to use various marketing channels. In Pepperdine’s MBA program, all of us had just finished a 14-week marketing course that covered all of the marketing courses in great depth.

With the exception of the Virgin CSR presentation, many of the presentations lacked a good presentation style. One presenter actually just came in and sat down, no visuals, and started talking. Many people in our class had a very difficult time paying attention, and some even fell asleep!

Negative Aspect #3: “The Vacation Feel”

Throughout the entire experience, as a student you couldn’t help but feel like you were on vacation. When I sign up for a “study abroad” course at Oxford, I am not looking for a vacation-type experience. Even during the lectures, we always got the feeling like we were tourists dropping in, not MBA students really being exposed to European businesses. This environment of being on vacation was created by everyone; including the students, faculty and lecturers.

Suggestion #1: Market the Program Differently

If the same format and structure will be used for future programs, Pepperdine should market the program differently. Instead of marketing it as a “study abroad program”, it should be marketed as a conference or seminar. This would give prospective students a better idea of what to expect. When the program is marketed as a study abroad program, students get the idea that it will be more of an intense course as opposed to a lecture series.

Suggestion #2: Lower the Number of Lectures and Make them More Relevant

I think that if we would have had half the number of lectures, but on more relevant topics that it would have been much better. Any lecture that does not directly have major impacts on European business practices should be removed from the program.

Suggestion #3: Have more European Company Involvement

If you replaced half of the lectures with company presentations from European companies, it would provide more real world insight into what business in Europe really looks like. Being able to talk with business professionals like we did during the Siemens tour would be a great way to add value to the program. This could also open up a networking channel for those students who might be interested in working in Europe someday.

Conclusion

Overall, I am glad that I experienced the Oxford short course study program. Knowing what I know now, I still think that I would choose to go on the trip. However, I think that there should be some changes made to the program. With these changes I think that Pepperdine could turn this program into a much greater experience for its students.

Blog 34 - Alright People... I’m Back!!

2009-07-06T10:02:00.000-07:00

After an extended vacation from my blog postings... it’s official, I’m back! I have quite the list of topics I’m planning on going through. My Oxford study abroad experience, my newfound career opportunity and my awesome 4th of July trip will all be included. It is amazing how many things can change in the life of an MBA student in 3 months. Stay tuned to find out all the details! PS - and for those of you wondering... the girls in the picture are my sister Suzanne Jenkins and her roommate Megan Morales.

Blog 33 - My Favorite Activity in My First Year

2009-04-14T23:25:00.000-07:00

Currently we are in our last week of finals for the first year of our MBA program. Assuming that I survive my killer finance final this upcoming Thursday afternoon, I will have completed exactly half of my program here at Pepperdine. It is strange to think that it is already halfway over. Today I sat down and reflected over my past year. During this time, I came to several conclusions. Here they are: During the last year...

I have never worked harder in my life

I had more sleepless nights and stress-filled days than ever before

I met the smartest people I have ever known

I have grown the most as a person compared to any other year

I have learned more applicable knowledge than at any other time in my life

I have met several amazing friends

(And Lastly...)

My favorite activity, was our Intramural Flag Football League!

What began as a group of guys who got together once in awhile to throw the ball around, eventually turned into an extremely organized team of 14 MBA students competing for the league championship.

We practiced at least once a week throughout the fall, and had games most Saturday mornings. JC Garrett acted as our head coach, while Lee Rankinen ran the offense from the quarterback position and I ran the defense from the middle linebacker spot. We went undefeated throughout the season and playoffs, eventually winning the championship against the Pepperdine Law School Team led by former University of Texas cornerback, Jerren Wright. We won the championship game 6 - 0. My defense only gave up 12 points all season, including the playoffs.

The best part of the overall experience was forming the bonds with guys on the team. We had an incredible amount of fun and played to win. It was amazing how quickly we went from being individuals to becoming a team. We played with students from all over the world, some of whom had never played football before. It was a great experience for all of us involved.

If anyone reading this (current student, entering student or 5-year MBA student) is interested in playing with us next year, please contact Mark Cathy at smarkcathy@gmail.com or me at brianjenkins36@gmail.com. We practice once a week and have games Saturday mornings. We’re quite quite competitive, and felid the best athletes at the position. Anyone is welcome to come out and watch our games as well!

Blog 32 - One for all and all for One!!

2009-03-30T17:35:00.000-07:00

A very important part of our workload here at Pepperdine is our team projects. Team projects are required in just about every class we take. Our team’s generally consist of 3-5 people that we usually get to pick.

The collaborative team effort of business school is very different than the competitive environment of law school. Many of the students in both law and business, have considered both types of degrees. The two cultures of the different programs greatly influence both the students and their experience in the programs.

In law school, the students are ranked according to their performance in the program. Because the law school rankings are published, students are extremely motivated do anything possible to increase their rank relative to the other students. This fosters an environment that is very competitive, because any failure to one student benefits another. Top law firms only recruit from the top ranked students, which adds to the competition. I have heard stories of students giving fellow students fake class notes and mysteriously missing library books.

In contrast, business school has a very team-like culture. In every class, we have team projects that account for a significant part of our grades. In the business world, most work in done in teams. Unlike law programs, our class isn’t ranked and our GPA’s are not published. Some programs like the Haas School of Business have even gone as far to remove grades altogether. While at Cal everyone still gets grades, they just are not published or made available to recruiting companies. This allows students to take classes outside their area of focus and not have to worry about GPA requirements.

Here are some tips for working in teams in business school:

Create a diverse team. Team projects generally involve many different aspects of business. MBA students come from a wide variety of professional backgrounds and academic majors. Having a team without a quantitatively minded student, or a team without an extroverted people-person with a knack for presenting, the projects can get exponentially more difficult. Having a diverse team only works when people are willing to share their own opinions, no matter how different they might be.

Be open about your weaknesses as a group member from the beginning. Some groups take their work much more seriously than others, and if you sign up on a high-performing team be ready to put in the time required. This also goes in conjunction with being part of a diverse team, be upfront about your personal strengths and weaknesses. If a team needs a marketing person and you’re really good at accounting, you better let them know.

Be a good group member. Reputations are developed quickly and other students are quick to identify strong students in the program. If you show up late to meetings, fail to communicate regularly or turn in sub-par work, you will quickly be labeled as someone who wouldn’t be an ideal group member. This is an important part of both succeeding in the program and forming friendships in the program. No one wants to grab a beer with the guy who didn’t turn in his part of the term paper.

Utilize International Talent and Relationships. Many professors require at least one international student per group to help with student integration. Although some of the international students have some language barriers, most are incredibly bright and hard working. Forming good relationships with international students in the program is definitely a bonus to good group dynamics.

In closing, if you are a member of our program you will be involved in more group projects than you ever have been in the past. Embracing this fact and leveraging your group’s unique talents will be a key part of your success at business school. Business is a team-based sport, and you have to be a team player.

Blog 31 - Supply Chain Management and Root Beer Floats?

2009-03-25T23:55:00.000-07:00

I’ve decided with this post to give you guys an example of what one of our projects looks like and a feeling for what was involved for it. This project was for my Information Technology and Operations class taught by Dr Michael Williams.

The project was titled, “The Root Beer Game” and was a lesson on the importance of IT systems in the supply chain of a company. Our class was split into groups, with my group consisting of Mark Cathy, Kong Wei, Ashley Murphy and Simona Lederman. Each group member was assigned a role in the supply chain of the product. The roles included the factory (Me), Wholesaler (Ashley), Distributor (Simona) and Retailers (Mark and Kong Wei).

The objective of the game was to minimize the costs at each level in the supply chain. Each individual player would be charged for carrying too much inventory or having a shortage resulting in a backlog. Orders would be passed from one player to another, but without communication of what the demand would be in the future. Since each stage of production required a certain amount of lead time to produce their goods, it greatly added to the complexity of the game.

When the game started, we had serious issues. I (the factory) thought that it would be a great idea to carry less inventory to save on inventory costs in the beginning. Once my cost saving program got into full swing and I was producing only 40% of the average order, demand skyrocketed. Skyrocketed 10 and even 20 times what I was currently producing. I panicked, and ramped up production like the US in World War II. Soon my inventory was overflowing and at about that time, the demand just stopped. I don’t mean stopped like it lessened, but stopped as in I had zero demand for the rest of the game. My huge inventory cost me a fortune in inventory carrying costs and I’m sure in comparison to the other teams, our cost efficiency ratings will not be that impressive.

I really think that this was the overall objective of the game, to teach us how difficult it would be to manage a supply chain without the proper data or communication involved with the process. Without technology, it was little more than a guessing game. We had no determinants of demand and no knowledge of the industry. So yes Dr Williams (I know he reads my blog), we all understand that IT systems are a vital aspect for supply chain management!

And it wouldn’t be Pepperdine if we didn’t find a way to make it fun. We had my group over to my apartment for Root Beer floats and snacks while we played the game. Having the group together (we could have done it online) added a lot of fun to the process. Although sometimes it was frustrating not knowing the information needed to be effective at the game, as you can tell by our faces below, it was a great experience.

Blog 30 - St. Patrick’s Day Gold... in the form of an INTERNSHIP!!

2009-03-18T22:31:00.000-07:00

So during our program’s spring break, I travelled home to spend the week with my family. While I was back home, I tried to hit the gym as often as possible. My friend Jamie and I were in the sauna at the gym when we entered into a conversation with another man in the sauna. When I asked what he did, he replied, “I’m the Senior VP of Human Resources for Pelco.” I was actually so surprised by this I had to ask him again! of the 1.5 million people in Fresno county, I meet the senior VP of Human Resources of the largest company in the area! Ahh... the power of networking!!

Here is a little about the company from their website:

Pelco is a world leader in the design, development and manufacture of video and security systems and equipment ideal for any industry. With a long and prestigious history of offering high-quality products and exceptional customer service, Pelco has become the most sought-after product supplier in the security industry.

Pelco is owned by Schneider Electric, a French owned technology company. Schneider Electric has over 120,000 employees and operates in 190 countries. Pelco specifically has offices in 20 countries and approximately 2,400 employees.

Operating from the industry’s largest manufacturing complex, Pelco produces the most respected offering of discreet camera domes and enclosures, electronic access control, video matrix systems, next generation digital video recorders, IP solutions, and fiber optic transmission systems for video/data – and much more – in the never-ending pursuit of achieving 100-percent customer satisfaction.

Respected as a major product innovator, Pelco also manufactures a large number of special equipment items, including explosion-proof and pressurized camera enclosures, high-security housings, and thermal imaging pan-tilt-zoom positioning systems. Pelco produces the industry-acclaimed Spectra^®, Camclosure^®, Endura^® and Digital Sentry^® product lines.

In addition, Pelco demonstrates its commitment to being an Open Systems Provider with successful integrations and partnerships in such areas as Electronic Access Control, Video Analytics, Central Station Alarm Monitoring and Video Monitoring, Cellular Phone-Video Monitoring, Command and Control, Mobile Digital Video Recording, Point of Sale and Loss Prevention Systems.

Pelco constantly strives to maintain its position as the most reliable manufacturer in the security industry. And to that end, the company offers an impressive array of customer service programs including: Guaranteed Ship Dates, 24-Hour Technical Assistance, and 24-Hour Turnaround on Replacement Parts and Repairs, to name a few. Above all else, Pelco attributes its continued success and growth to the company’s ability to provide courteous, on-time service and dependable products.

From its impressive manufacturing facility located in Fresno California and through a responsive global network of professional sales representatives, Pelco continues to offer new technologies, products, and services that constantly confirm the company’s position as the premier security systems and equipment manufacturer and strongest end-to-end player in the security market.

My internship with Pelco will start upon my return from my study abroad program in Oxford. My internship is in the exact field that I would like to work in, Organizational Effectiveness. I will be put in charge of a new program at Pelco that I will design, implement, track and improve during my time with them this summer. I am very excited about this great opportunity!

Blog 29 - The Economy and Our Internship Search

2009-03-12T11:13:00.000-07:00

As I’m sure most of you reading this, the US is in the worst economy that it has had in several decades. This recession is spreading to almost every industry, and has even begun to effect our global trading partners around the world. This recession has caused mass layoffs resulting in drastically higher levels of unemployment. As you could imagine, this isn’t a picture-perfect world right now to get an internship in.

As a 20-Month MBA student, we are required to have an internship between the first and second years of our program. This internship, along with being required to graduate, is important for us to be able to gain experience in the industry that we desire to be employed in. For many of us, this internship will be the first “MBA Level” work that we have had a chance to do.

So the problem we have here is that it is ridiculously difficult to get an internship in this economy. One of the issues is that many of the layoffs in America have been highly skilled and experienced employees in the financial services industry. Many of these now unemployed and qualified workers, are competing with us for internships due to a lack of other options for employment. In addition, many firms are “trimming the fat” on their balance sheets and the title “intern” doesn’t provide a solid level of job security. When a company is looking to cut back non-core aspects of its business, interns are usually on the chopping block.

This economy has now personally effected my internship search, as I will explain. At this point in my job search, I have identified Gallup Consulting as my number one target company. They are the industry leader in organizational behavior and human resources consulting. Their headquarters are located in Omaha, Nebraska (pictured below). After working extensively with Pepperdine’s career services department, I learned that Gallup Consulting was actually visiting Pepperdine’s campus for recruiting! I was very excited to say the least. For weeks prior to their arrival, I read and studied everything produced by the Gallup Organization I could get my hands on. Once I met their great recruiter, Susan Shald, I was invited back to visit their offices that same day in Irvine, Ca. Their office was just as amazing as I had read in my research. I was sold on Gallup from day one. Gallup has everything I want in a future employer.

So I started their lengthy application process, which began with a talent assessment online. After passing the online talent assessment, I proceed to go through two more phone interviews. After being told that I passed all of the rounds of interviewing, I found out that they decided not to officially post the internship position and that Gallup didn’t think they were going to have interns this upcoming summer. On a positive note however, they did let me know that they were interested in me for a full-time position once I graduate. As happy as I am about the potential future opportunity, I still have to find an internship for this upcoming summer.

So if any of you reading this blog have any possible internship connections that might be able to help me out, I’d love an email about it! Haha... well I guess I’m back to the hunt once again. Wish me luck!!

Blog 28 - Pepperdine Application Essay, Personal Goals

2009-02-12T21:47:00.000-08:00

In continuing my application series I started two posts ago, I decided to post a second application essay I wrote for Pepperdine. This essay was a statement of Personal Goals. My essay was about my work experience and professional goals. The above picture is of me and my former manager, mentor and friend Jason Pritchard. The picture at the bottom is of me and my former coworker and friend, Landon Belmont. The page limit was two pages, although I used a pretty small font to fit it in there! This was my essay:

"You never achieve success unless you like what you are doing." — Dale Carnegie..:

My passion for technology was ignited 10 years ago when I was enrolled in my school's first "laptops for learners" program and bought my first laptop. Technology and I just "clicked". From building computers to networking the neighbor's house, I could not get enough. While in college, I took an Information Systems class that changed my perspective on what was possible with technology forever. Upon entering the class, I believed that technology was little more than a required tool used to accomplish daily tasks. However, learning about "Just-In-Time" inventory systems and next generation database technologies caused me to see that information technology is about potential. It empowers people to do what they want to do. It lets people be creative. It lets people be productive. And it enables people to understand things they did not think possible. I believe that every person and every company has the potential to be great, and technology can help an organization reach that realization. By the end of the class, my eyes were wide open to what technology had to offer. I decided to pursue a minor in Information Systems to support this deepened interest.

Halfway through college, I entered the workforce to gain practical experience. I knew that a technology consulting firm would be a perfect fit for me. When offered the opportunity to work for CompUSA's Business Consulting division, I jumped at the chance. I worked with CompUSA for almost two years and had the opportunity to offer technology solutions to business. Bringing positive change to a company and seeing that company thrive in part due to my contribution was a rewarding experience. Upon the completion of projects, several clients thanked me for improving their companies. From making something more convenient, to completely turning a failing company around, helping others was my favorite aspect of the job. This experience proved infinitely valuable to me, confirming my interest in working in technology and consulting.

I have often said, "it's all about the people." I did not realize until much later just how true this statement is. During my first year with CompUSA, I had an almost perfect manager, Jason Pritchard. He showed me my true potential. Jason taught me more about management and how to effectively lead people than all of the other experiences in my life. While he mastered he technical aspects of the job, it was his ability to form relationships with his employees and clients that made him truly exceptional. He was the type of leader "you would go to war with"; he had developed a sense of extreme loyalty among his employees. Our department had one of the lowest turnover rates in the company during his tenure.

That all changed when Jason left the company. Our new manager, Jeremy, operated on the other side of the management spectrum. While both managers were paid based upon our team's performance, Jeremy saw his employees as numbers that were only as good as their numbers produced. While there are obvious truths to performance ratings, Jeremy lacked the relationship building component that Jason clearly had. Our department became so discontent with Jeremy, that within a year of him taking the position, the department experienced one hundred percent turnover of fifteen consultants.

Witnessing firsthand these two opposing management styles and their effects sparked an interest in me to minor in Human Resource Management. Regardless of the company or organization, the most important component is its employees and their ability to work together to achieve common goals. What would an organization be without the people? The answer is clear, because the organization would cease to exist. This experience showed me just how important good leadership is to an organization, and I have dedicated my life to becoming a leader similar to Jason by putting others first.

It was the combination of a lifelong interest in technology and an observation of amazing leadership that has led me to pursue a career in management consulting and eventually start my own technology-based consulting firm. My dream is to be able to someday lead my firm ethically, while making a difference in the organization's of my clients. It was during my very first PowerPoint presentation to an executive board that I fell in love with consulting. I liked the pressure, the responsibility and most of all knowing that I could be a major source of positive change in the organization. I love being a catalyst for change, and it is in consulting that I can make the biggest impact. I enjoy the challenge of complex problem solving and then explaining the solution to the group involved. The feeling I get, when a CEO comes up to me after a meeting and thanks me for such a perfect solution to his needs, can not be beat. Finding solutions for businesses inspires me because I become the one to help a company reach its potential.

The combination of my experience with technology and being mentored by Jason, has set my foundation., yet I recognize the need to build upon that foundation with new skills and perspectives. While I was a technology consultant, I would often find myself wanting to create solutions for the clients I worked with that were outside the scope of technology. If I am to run my own consulting firm someday, I need to better understand how the technology puzzle piece fits in with all the other aspects of business. I must develop expertise in organizational behavior, strategic management and technological integration. These are skills that I can only get from a Pepperdine MBA. Pepperdine is a vital stepping stone in my career and will allow me to achieve my dream of running my own consulting firm someday. Pepperdine's elective offerings such as Communication Consulting , IT Decision Making and Business Planning for Entrepreneurs match my future career perfectly.

Upon completion of the MBA program, I will work as a consultant for a management strategy consulting firm. Pepperdine's unrivaled reputation and strong academic preparation will open the door to a top consulting firm for me. Through this opportunity I will build the experience and credibility needed to open my own firm. I need the experience of working with experts in the business world, in order for me to someday provide valuable consulting services to others. Someday I hope to be the one interviewing Pepperdine's graduates for positions in my future organization.

Blog 27 - A Challenge Here at Pepperdine

2009-02-12T21:25:00.000-08:00

I would like to start this blog by stating that I love Pepperdine and I am very happy with my overall experience here. I have met many amazing people and had many great experiences.

When I was asked to be a blog writer for Pepperdine, I was tasked with writing about my experience in its entirety. The assignment or job as you could call it, was to write about both the good and bad aspects of the program. This was to get a picture of what a true “day in the life” of a student was like. This will be my first semi-negative blog posting, and I am actually a little bummed out writing about it. I usually try to see everything in as positive a light as possible, but I feel that it would be “not telling the whole truth” if I left this post off of my blog as it has definitely been a part of my experiences. Before writing this, I spoke to many other students and found that many of them have had similar experiences.

To put the problem simply: There is a huge discrepancy in the workload and overall difficulty in the same classes based upon which professor that you have.

The primary issue with this is that it makes grades lose a lot of their significance. It is possible to have two students, with the same overall ability, put in the same amount of effort and get different grades due to who their professor was. Although students try to “ask around” or check “ratemyprofessor.com”, many times students end up taking a particular professor because they need the class at a certain time.

For example, some professors often times let their classes out a hour and a half early while others sometimes only give one break to attempt to fit in more material. Some professors provide study guides for exams while others don’t. Some professors have quizzes everyday while others “don’t believe in quizzing”. Some professors allow midterms and finals to be taken “open note” while others don’t believe in even clarifying exam questions. The number of chapters a student is responsible for on midterms and finals differ greatly depending on the lecturing style of the professor. Some professors set their classes up for people with an interest / background in the subject, while others provide more of an introductory approach. Some professors would never round a grade not matter how close it was, while other professors (quote) “Have a little Santa Claus in them” when it comes to grading. The list goes on and on to say the least...

Now I do not want to be misunderstood here at all. I am not saying that classes are necessarily too hard or too easy, just that the workload and overall difficulty varies too much from professor to professor. The problem I’m proposing may or may not have a feasible solution.

One idea that I have thought about, would be having structured tiers of required classes. For example, all of the students have to take a 2 session long finance course. It is a requirement and an integral part of our core business foundation. But the well known differences in the difficulty of the professors should be acknowledged by the program. Pepperdine could create a Finance 614 A class and a Finance 614 B class. The A class would be designed for students with a background and interest in pursuing finance and would be taught by the more difficult professor. The B class would be designed for students whose main emphasis would be in subjects like marketing or organizational behavior, and be taught in a more introductory approach. This idea would allow students to be pushed harder in their areas of emphasis and lessen the workload for what they considered less important to their professional development.

I know that this blog posting probably won’t change anything in terms of our program here, but it is a frustration that many students here on campus have to deal with on a regular basis.

Blog 26 - Pepperdine Application Essay, Personal Statement

2009-02-08T18:44:00.000-08:00

I was looking at some of my recent posts, and I noticed that they were trending a little more personal and a little less professional. In an attempt to keep a healthy balance, I’ve decided to post one of the essays I used in my application to Pepperdine. This essay was my “Personal Statement” and had to be under two pages in length. This past weekend, as I wrote about in my previous post, was spent with my sister. She was the topic for my application essay:

"He said some day I hope you get the chance, To live like you were dyin" -Tim McGraw..:

My picture perfect life came to a screeching halt when a single defining event took place that truly affected my family and my outlook as an individual. I grew up in an upper middle class area of Fresno, CA. My father is an executive in the Agricultural Chemical Division of DuPont and my mother is a teacher at a local junior high school. I have one younger sister named Suzanne. It was a pretty normal, loving family. We were all fairly content with life and we took a lot for granted. That all changed on February 25^th, 1995.

That was the day Suzanne was diagnosed with childhood Leukemia. It is difficult to describe exactly what a family goes through during this type of life-changing event. At the time, my sister was attending the first grade. She had to be pulled out of school and spent countless nights in the hospital. Her immune system had become so susceptible to infection that for several years, anytime we were around her we wore masks to help keep germs from spreading. If she even caught the common cold, it could have been deadly. My sister eventually won the battle with cancer. The fight was long and challenging, consuming over five years of her childhood. The entire process was incredibly draining on all of us. After that experience, my family viewed life differently. We learned just how little time we have to live and were determined to live life to its fullest.

After the illness, my family decided to give back to the organization that saved my sister's life, The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. We now had a common cause to rally behind and were determined to make a difference. This experience changed not only my family's viewpoint, but also my personal outlook on life. I realized that things in life are not free and not to take anything for granted.

I wanted to be able to create meaningful relationships with children affected by childhood Leukemia. I knew if I could share my experiences, it may help young kids manage the difficult situation they were in. I began by volunteering at a camp called Camp Sunshine Dreams. This was a week long camp for cancer patients and their siblings. I volunteered as a camp counselor and was placed in charge of a cabin with 15 young boys in it. I would sit and talk to them about their situations, listen to their stories, give them encouragement, answer their questions and give them a shoulder to cry on. At camp, we had an event called "Spirit Stick". Once every day, we gathered in a circle and each person carved shavings from a stick into a bandana while talking about their experiences with cancer. At the end of the week, all of the sticks and bandanas are thrown into the campfire along with saved ashes from each previous year. The last campfire is an emotional and touching event, with friends and family coming together for support during this difficult time. This event has shown me first hand the true power of compassion. We also enjoyed many fun activities such as archery, paddle boats, a camp dance, arts & crafts, kickball, volleyball and other typical camp activities. For five consecutive summers I spent time at the camp. Doing this allowed me to make meaningful contributions to many kid's lives and help them better cope with cancer. Speaking with the campers by telling stories and relating to their situation helped me develop my communication skills. I often spoke to large groups of people about emotional issues, which before this experience was difficult for me.

As I grew older, I searched for a hobby that would allow me to continue to contribute to The Leukemia Society. During the summer of 2003, I had just that opportunity. I was living in Germany for four months when I was introduced to the amazing sport of cycling. The family I lived with was filled with cycling enthusiasts and followed their cycling hero Jan Ulrich religiously. The family taught me how to ride and train competitively. When I returned to the states, I bought my first bike and was hooked.

I decided that in order for my support for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society to be effective, I needed to contribute in a more financial way. Being more mature, I understood that the demands of a nonprofit organization relied largely on monetary contributions. At a local bike shop, I found an organization called Team in Training, which fundraises for The Leukemia Society by running an endurance sports team. Members of the "Team" train for a marathon, a triathlon or a 100 mile bike race called a Century. While going through an eight month training program, each member is required to raise a certain amount of money for the organization. I decided to try the bike race. I trained, raised the money, completed the Century in Lake Tahoe and felt great about giving back to such a worthy cause. The following year I helped out the organization as a mentor, coaching people new to endurance sports.

Living through a traumatic event like my sister's battle with cancer profoundly altered my perspective on life. I know that I must live every day to its fullest, in an "all or nothing" type of life. I think of the song "Live Like You're Dying" by Tim McGraw. In the song, Tim McGraw sang about how his life became much more meaningful once he found out that he was dying of an unknown illness. He cherished everything in his life so much more because he knew that his life was finite. I have adopted a similar viewpoint for my own life. It was this new outlook that led me to enter my very first Ironman triathlon. On April 13^th, 2008 I will compete in Ironman Arizona. I am not sure if it will be during the 2.4 mile swim, the 112 mile bike ride or the 26.2 mile marathon…but I will realize that sometimes it is pain that makes life worth living.

*I competed in the Ironman triathlon and it was one of the most difficult and challenging days of my life...

Blog 24 - Zan and Meg Came for a Visit!!

2009-02-08T18:38:00.000-08:00

So this past weekend, my sister Suzanne and her roommate / best friend Megan came down to Malibu for a visit. Friday, we went out to a club in Hollywood called The Green Door for a school mixer the Public Policy program was having. Then on Saturday we went out to a local bar in Malibu called Moonshadows. While they were here, I gave them a tour of the campus and introduced them to all of my friends and roommates.

One of the nice things about going to Pepperdine is the amazing view and campus that we get to enjoy. Walking around and showing off the campus really makes you notice and appreciate the great environment we live in. Living and studying in such a great place helps balance out the inevitable stress that we all experience in our program.

Introducing my sister to my friends at Pepperdine was a great experience as well. My sister was able to meet students from all over the United States and many of our international students as well. I enjoyed letting my sister get to know all of my new friends down here.

A big part about having the free time to do social things is planning in advance for them. When I found out that Suzanne was planning to visit me, I made sure that I took care of all of my homework for the weekend before she got here. I also made sure to plan all of my weekend group meetings on Friday before they came. Its having good solid time management skills that allows us to get all of our work done, but also allows us to get out and have fun sometimes.

I really enjoyed my sister’s visit and I hope that she comes to visit me again soon. It must be a sign of maturity, that I am enjoying my sister’s company more and more throughout the years. It seems the older we get, the more meaningful our conversations become. Progressing from “What’s for dinner” and “What’s on TV” to long-term life plans, goals and dreams is a pretty big difference. I’m finding that I value my relationship with my sister more as time goes on.

Well the weekend vacation is now over... back to the grind!