Georgetown MBA Blog: George

Summer Internship Time - Final Entry

Georgetown MBA classes finished at the end of April & our first year was officially over.

I am off to San Francisco for the summer where I got an internship with a boutique investment bank called FT Partners.

My job search was quite successful which is a product of me working diligently and strategcically to market myself to many different companies.  I came into the Georgetown program with no finance experience and managed to get three different offers.  1 in corporate finance, 1 in private equity and 1 in investment banking. 

This is my last post here on the blog.  Iwish everybody the best of luck with business school and in their careers and hope everybody enjoyed my blog.  I am posting one last picture here, which shows how I celebrated the end of finals.

Long time no post - Georgetown MBA

Well, it has been over a month now since my last post and all I can say is, so goes the life of a business school student.  Events since my last post:

1. A week spent with top venture capitalists presenting our Georgetown business plan.  Alas, we did not win but we put in a good effort and got some great practice as well as feedback from the judging panel.

2. Spent a week in California interviewing with investment banks, seeing my family and a bit of golf.

3. Started my last module of classes (MOD 4) for the year.  This module I am taking the following courses:  Business Ethics, International Business, Management Accounting, Business & Government and my International Business Diplomacy Gateway Course.

4. Planned our spring formal.  Every year we have a formal party to celebrate the end of the school year, say farewell to the 2nd year class & socialize with faculty & staff.

5. Done many student interviews with prospective students, including some people who actually read this blog.

This may not seem like too much but combined with my course load and "networking" with business school students, I have definitely been quite busy.

Job update:  After turning down my corporate finance offer, I am still looking for investment banking jobs.  I have a lot of good leads and opportunities and am happy to still be in the job market and not have settled for something I wasn't 100% satisifed with.  Going back to Georgetown MBA was a way for me to start a career, not just find a job and make money.

End of MOD Madness

It is almost the end of the MOD around here and things are getting busy again.  As you can tell from most of my posts, I do well when I have a lot of things on my plate and busy weeks are the best times for me to make more entries in my Georgetown MBA blog.

Weather is nuts - Global warming?  I was playing golf this past weekend and currently in the process of working with a friend to start the "Hackers club" for all Georgetown MBA golfers.  However, just as we were looking forward to starting the golf again, it was 20 degrees yesterday, and we had a nice ice storm today.  It is definitely a good day to stay inside and study.

Interviews:  Still waiting to hear back from a few companies regarding interviews I did last week.  The key to interviews is focus.  There are a ton of opportunities, but you need to focus on what you really want.  Once you have the focus and determination, it comes much easier and is easy to demonstrate to employers as well.

Finals:  Finals are next week, so the blog should be on hiatus until I finish.  But I feel like I should start adding some more personal stories, and blogging for Georgetown MBA is a great way to procrastinate when faced with a difficult macroeconomics final.

Social Events:  As the VP of Social for student government, I will give you the update on the social front as well.  Georgetown is hosting the U4 MBA basketball tournament this weekend, and we have teams from all over coming out to play.  We have a pretty strong group of 1st-year MBA basketball players, so I am thinking we should be quite competitive.  So, if you are a prospective student and can play some hoops be sure to highlight that ... too bad the MBA program doesn't offer any athletic scholarships.

What a Week - Moving On!

Well, unfortunately I did not gain anything this week as I did not win the election but congratulations to Mat & Devin who will do a great job.  This now means that I will have more time to put toward developing my club and am also considering taking a part time job at a private equity firm. 

The sentiment from most students this week was that it was one of our most difficult/busy weeks we have had to date and here is why:

• 5 days of classes as opposed to the normal 4 (we have Fridays off)
• Cases due in finance, operations and macroeconomics
• Interviews for top investment banks

On top of all this work I also ran my campaign for vice-president of MSB & am struggling to keep up in my Chinese class that I am auditing.  But, as I mentioned last time, I am busy because I chose to get involved in many things outside of the classroom in an effort to make the most out of the business school experience.  And, as the old American proverb goes: "Nothing ventured, nothing gained".

I am going to keep this short because I am preparing for an interview with Goldman Sachs tomorrow and have a ton of work to do in order to prepare for it.  Just waiting for the weekend so that I can try to get my head above water and back on top of all my school work.  It is also a good thing there is a Japan Karaoke night on Friday so I can sing my worries away. 

Election time (no not that one)

In the midst of the National campaign involving Obama and Clinton we here at Georgetown MSB have recently started to campaign ourselves.  The campaign for Georgetown MSB Student Government Association (SGA)   President & Vice President positions.  I am running along with fellow MSB blogger Jamey Borell.  Campaigning starts today, speeches will be given on Monday 1/14 with elections being held on Wednesday 1/16.  Three other pairs of candidates are running as well, so competition for this position is definitely stiff.  While it will be a tough election it is nice to know that so many students care about making Georgetown MSB a better place and making solid improvements that will impact current and future students.   

In order to prepare for the election Jamey and I have been meeting with deans and administrators to better understand their goals for the future and what SGA can do to better serve them.  We are also working on a website so that students can better understand why we are running and why we believe we are the best team for the job.  It is definitely a lot of work but interesting to learn more about MSB and become more involved with the administration.

On the chance that we don't win the election there are still other positions within SGA we can run for where we can make our voices heard and still have and impact on the face of Georgetown MSB. 

The Holiday is Over - Back in the classroom

After a nice four week break it is back to classes and continuing on with the job hunt.  The good news is that my grades are looking pretty good but the bad news is that we are starting a new mod and grades are reset, so its time to start cracking open the books again.

As you may know we spend a lot of work trying to land summer internships here at Georgetown MSB and break was no different.  Over the "break" I worked daily to take steps toward landing that summer internship.  Here is a quick recap of things I did over the break to get a job:

A. Interviews

• 8 Informational Interviews in New York
• 5 Informational Interview on the phone (including one at midnight after dinner & drinks)
• 1 Informational Interview in San Francisco
• 1 Actual Interview which resulted in an offer for a Corporate Finance position

B. Applications

• Sent resumes & cover letters out for 12+ jobs through our career center
• Applied online to 10+ jobs

Other than that it was pure relaxation.  By the way I am strongly considering my corporate finance offer but still considering other options and interviewing on campus next week for more financial positions and rotational programs.

CLASSES....also very important and not to be forgotten

Now we are back in classes and I am taking  some great courses this semester at Georgetown MSB.  I also found out that I was accepted to pursue the International Business Diplomacy Degree and am taking a "gateway" course that I need to get better than an A- in to continue on in the program.  My courses this semester are:

1. Operations Management (Professor seems fantastic)

2. Macroeconomics (I was an econ. major but still a good course)

3. Finance II (With the always entertaining Prof. Pinkowitz who wears some "great" ties)

4. Business Planning Integrative (Working to write a real business plan)

5. International Business & Governments (IBD Gateway course)

6. Chinese (Need to keep my language skills up and improve my reading)

As you can see, this is quite a variety of classes and I am looking forward to writing that million dollar business plan.  Most students are taking 5 classes but I am auditing Chinese and doing my best of taking advantage of all the classes and resources that Georgetown has to offer.  Another class I want to audit is a constitutional law class through the law school but hopefully I will get around to that next fall.

So we have some readers...

Apparently I know have at least 3 readers, thank you all for the feedback.  I was speaking with fellow blogger Doug Goff the other day and it is nice to know that we are not just writing this for our own amusement and perhaps people are getting some type of insight into the life of a Georgetown MBA student.  Speaking of life at Georgetown....

MOD2 just ended and it is now time to go back to New York and interview with more investment banks.  I am interviewing with almost all the bulge bracket (10 largest) banks in New York.  As you may know the markets are in turmoil at this point and most of the banks are taking smaller associate classes.  Additionally, as the markets become riskier the banks become more risk averse and hire "safer" candidates, candidates with some type of finance background.  As I was previously in consulting/business development I do not have a finance background but am literate in reading and analyzing financial statements so am using that as my angle when speaking with firms.

The process to get a banking job in New York is definitely a long process but a great way to improve your interviewing skills and get you ahead of the curve in your finance course.

This entry is being cut short as I am now getting ready to leave DC and head up to New York.

Happy Holidays! George Vogelei

REQUEST TO READER(S)

Dear Reader(s),

If there are readers of this blog out there I would love to hear from you because I have a few questions:

1. Does anybody actually read this?

2. Is it useful or at least entertaining?

3. Anything more I can add to it?

My goal is to give you a perspective of the life or average day of a Georgetown MBA student.  Am I successful?  My friend Doug said that his mom (Mrs. Goff) read my blog at least once but are there others? ( By the way the only reason that Mrs. Goff read my blog is because Doug writes a blog as well.)

I feel that I need to give a shameless plug out for the Georgetown MBA program now.  It is a great program now and our resources and opportunities will be increasing exponentially once we move into that new $90 million dollar building, can't wait. 

Now, if you have read this far please remember that  I would love some feedback.

Thanks reader(s) & thank you Mrs. Goff

Yours truly,

George Vogelei

Parties & Exams: What a combo

It's already December and it has been a while since my last post, I have lots of excuses about how busy I am but all MBA students are busy.  The reason we are busy is because we all involve ourselves in lots of activities in school and outside of school.  We have enough schoolwork alone to keep up occupied and out of trouble but I am also starting a club (more on that next time), social chair for the cohort, taking a foreign language course (Mandarin), and blogging (which sometimes gets delayed).  Another thing that keeps us all busy are the social events and opportunities to meet an hang out with classmates, which leads me into what I did this weekend.....

Saturday: We had a huge Georgetown Business School party in DC, which was tons of fun but hard to work into a tight study schedule.  Why do we have such a big party right before finals?  Because a lot of people leave town right after finals are over and hey, the party was only from 8:30-11:30pm.  I have attached a picture of myself with my friends before the party when we were looking our best (which really isn't saying a whole lot).

Sunday:  With an accounting test looming I unfortunately woke up a bit later than usual due to the late night and went over to campus to find and empty classroom to study in.  I purchased a nice sandwich on the way and studied until dinner time when I met up with a friend at the Tombs to compare notes and make sure that my Assets=Equities+Liabilities (a very important formula).

Exams start this week, so I will report when they are over. George Vogelei

Social life at Bschool

I mentioned last that I was going to give an update on the social life of a Georgetown MBA.  To tell you the truth my social life right now is not that great.  In fact, I am under mountains of work but procrastinating by writing my blog.  I will however do my best to update you on last weeks social events that I attended (Please keep in mind that I was elected as social chair of my 65 person Cohort): 

Last weeks social events:

1. Thursday Happy Hour at The Tombs (about 10 steps from the business school)
2. Whiskey and golf event immediately after the Tombs happy hour
3. Friday wine tasting at a fellow Georgetown MBA students house
4. Saturday golf match out in Maryland with other MBA students
5. Saturday night fondue, cheese, wine party

As you can see the majority of events happen after classes end on Thursday.  Looking back, this seems like a lot of social events but I did schoolwork all Friday before the wine event and all Sunday.  So, I really only took one full day off from doing any work.

This week I am ditching out on my Thursday classes to do interviews at investment banks in NYC.  I will be in NYC Thursday and Friday, after that I will go to Philadelphia for an Asia Business Conference at Wharton.  I will be traveling almost every weekend for the next month, which is typical of most students trying to break into investment banking.  I will bring along my trusty camera and try to capture the fun for the sake of the blog. 

p.s.  If anybody actually reads this I would love to hear about it. George Vogelei