FULL TIME MBA

Brad Parsons, Class of 2009
Posted Apr. 25, 2008

This Module has been my easiest one yet, especially since I have securely locked down my internship with Goldman Sachs.  Since we only take 3 classes, (plus a GLP class which demands less than half the work other classes do) I have been less busy and less stressed. I cannot reiterate enough how important I think it is to start your internship search off early.

Start off by sending out emails to alumni and friends of friends and see where it takes you. I know for a fact that it helped me and was an enormous reason for even getting a call for an interview. Once the interview is in place, it is up to you to prepare as best you can. You don’t want to lose a job opportunity because you weren’t prepared, it may come back to haunt you for a long time. 

As I started my search in early November, I believe I was in the minority. Soon after, however, my classmates started to ramp up the search as well. I knew I had to get the ball rolling because of my background which includes very little to no business experience. As I stated in my last blog, I was a professional hockey player for the 5 years previous to Cox. I gained a lot of intangibles in my time as a professional athlete; however, I’m not too sure companies were thrilled with my lack of “real world” business experience. Don’t get me wrong, every time I interviewed they were impressed with the fact that I had achieved a long-term goal of mine, but I needed to prove to them that I could succeed in the business world. I have since accomplished this and have been able to focus solely on academics.

This year I have thoroughly enjoyed most of my classes and found one or two to be fair. I give much of the credit to the faculty. My enthusiasm for these classes has been highly correlated to how the professors have taught.  We have such a strong group of faculty that have such impressive resumes as far as where they received their BA’s, MBA’s, and Ph.D’s, and the research they have and are continuing to pursue. Not only is it their credentials, but how they make a 3 hour class interesting. Now, believe me, there are plenty of classes where I look at the clock 3 or 4 times, but that is bound to happen in any 3 hour class. What keeps me interested are the interaction and the practicality.

Some classes such as Marketing, Strategy, Organizational Behavior, and Operations have heavy student interaction, keeping us all involved. It is an incentive to prepare for class and share your thoughts during the class. Other classes such as Finance and Accounting are less interactive, but the professors are able to apply the material to real world situations, keeping our attention. It is great when a professor is using a company such as Lockheed or Texas Instruments as an example and a classmate jumps in with first hand knowledge because that is where they worked previously. Sometimes there are disagreements which, for me, make it even that much more interesting.

Our core classes this year have been Accounting (both Financial and Managerial), Economics, Finance, Marketing, Information Technology and Operations, Statistics, Strategy, and Organizational Behavior. These have all been excellent bases for whatever it is you want to pursue after you get your MBA. All of these classes somehow end up discussing the same topics whether it be a similar company (Southwest and GE are used as examples a lot) or similar information. For example, in Economics, Finance, Strategy, and Organizational Behavior we have discussed agency costs and the conflicts between management and shareholders  We have discussed this topic from a numbers point of view including how much this relationship problem actually affects profit, to a culture point of view including how much it affects working relationships and the value of team structure.

I make this point because the way the school is set up allows for us to learn and relearn these topics so they become part of what we know. They do this because it is what is important in the world of business and business management. Overall, I have been impressed by the faculty and the curriculum at Cox. I am now able to read the Wall Street Journal intelligently as opposed to just trying to look smart and reading the same paragraph three times over.

As I wrap this up, I am preparing for my GLP trip to Greater China where I will be, along with 20 other students, visiting Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Shanghai. It is a 2 week trip where we visit with both Chinese and American companies (Coke and Mary Kay to China Vest and CBI Consulting) and get a sense of how global our economy really is. I am also very interested in seeing how rapid the economic growth in China really is. So, I hope this gives a little sense of life at the Cox School of business. As I write this I currently have this week left of classes, one week of final exams, my GLP trip and my first year is complete. It has been exciting, stressful, useful, comfortable, time-consuming, fun, and other words I can’t think of right now. Good luck to all those who have been admitted, in the process, or just considering, I hope this helps.