Imaginary Engineer - Yale SOM '08

Industrial Engineer dreaming of an MBA

Sunday, December 03, 2006

Alliances

Last week in our Competitors class, we learned about coopetition and alliances. Coincidently, Carlos Ghosn spoke at SOM on Tuesday, describing the Nissan-Renault alliance. It was an amazing experience to learn about the automobile industry from the CEO's perspective and to see a real example of the material we're learning in class. He spent most of the time answering well prepared questions and overall, I was very impressed by how smoothly everything ran.

The difference between the second part of the new curriculum and the first part is the amount of group work assigned. This week alone, I have the following group assignments: Industry Analysis for the Int'l trip to China, Competitor company analysis, Competitor group assignment, Customer project, State & Society project, and a mentorship meeting. The hardest part isn't completing the assignments, but scheduling a time where everyone can meet. I don't want to sound like a complaining 1st year (ahem JB), but I definitely can't wait till winter break!!

On the recruiting front, I finished my first cover letter and have started bidding for interview spots. Time definitely flies when you're in school, but I hope to land some interviews in January. Fortunately I have a little time because I'm not pursuing ibanking, but I definitely don't want to miss any of the consulting deadlines. One thing I realize is that I'm severely behind on practicing case interviews. Even though I should've been practicing all semester, I hope to do some major catch-up over the next few weeks.

Lastly, I'm SUPER excited about going to Hong Kong and China. I got all my vaccinations from YHS last week and my passport/visa is all good to go. There has been some complaining among the China travelers that our pre-trip work (15-20 slides + 10 pg paper) is excessive compared to groups going to other countries, but at the end of the day I guess it's a good way to learn more about the fastest growing economy in the world. This will be my first new years experience outside the USA, and I expect nothing but ridiculous, crazy fun.

23 Days left till Hong Kong


PS - I have mixed feelings about UCLA upsetting USC, but at least the Rose Bowl will be a classic Big 10/Pac 10 showdown

3 Comments:

  • At 11:20 PM, Blogger Forrest Gump said…

    HK and China should be definitely a worthwhile trip. I will await to hear more about it - hopefully you will get to write some detailed reports/observations. Make sure you brush up your Catonese and Mandarin though, will surely help in those two places ;)

    if i may ask, what kind of paper are you supposed to submit before actually travelling ?

     
  • At 7:41 AM, Blogger brownoski said…

    My portion of the paper/presentation is doing research on the manufacturing industry. So I get to write a 5 pages on the manufacturing industry and 5 pages on Lenovo (we're visiting a Lenovo plant)

     
  • At 2:37 PM, Blogger BigAppleNosh said…

    Hey! Sounds like you're having a good time at Yale so far. Just wanted to let you know I'm back at blogging (albeit not about b-school anymore) ;o)

     

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