MBA Life Brief update

开学两周,已感觉节奏比上学期要更紧张了.

第一周收到的都是拒信, 于是去Parker CMC哭诉去了。 Regina很给力,几乎安排了每一天和我见面,帮我改cover letter.后来又拉进Qilin, Phil 以及Sally进来帮忙. 之前并没有特别的感受到Parker CMC的给力, 可是这一次真的有些感激, 仅仅是为了让我最后一封给Amazon的cover letter显的质量高一些,尽了很大的力人力来帮忙. 改后的cover letter确实比我自己瞎折腾的好的太多了.

第二周开始收到面试通知, 麦肯锡, LinkedIn, Symantec. 不过最终还是决定不去McK面试了,左思右想, 从天灵盖想到脚底板, 似乎我也不是consulting的人。Consulting也坚决不会是我热爱的工作啊。眼下还是瞄准了Tech公司的职位, 可惜PM亦或者 PMM都很难,我们这种纯sales背景的人在美国找工作还真不容易。最擅长的嘴皮子都被卸去了一半, 其他勉强能撑起台面的估计面试后也就是挂的命了.

下周面LinkedIn, 下下周Symantec. LinkedIn 收到的职位是Business Operations, 有事Consulting扎堆的地方, 不知道这一关过不过得去. 这两天开始看LinkedIN的产品和资料和理解等,希望能够对它多了解一些,能够准备一些问题。 可是或许许久没有认真准备面试了, 上一次还是一年多年的MBA申请,如果把Behavior question的都忘记的差不多了。又要开始新一轮的准备!

说实话,并不太看好Intern 申请的前景。

希望自己能够再次挺过这一关!

Continue Reading

It begins again

It begins again just as several times ago.

It happened when I applied for summer intern when I was in college….

It happened when I applied for the full-time position when I was in college….

It happened when I applied for b-school one year ago…

It happened now…..

But eventually I, and also the other MBA students, will get our own offer……

One year later…..

Some are lucky, they get the return offer from the companies…they don’t need to worry about full-time jobs….

Some are not so lucky, they still need to apply again, and go through all this application process again…..

But eventfully, I hope all of us will get our dream offer for intern and full-time.

By the way, today I received the Not-Invite-letter from Workday and Apple…well….that’s what I wanted to say in my blog…haha……

Continue Reading

Why You Should Hire Michael Shou

 

Why You should hire Monster Shou

You may wonder why I should hire Michael Shou when you go through my resume, cover letter or LinkedIn profile. If you still couldn’t make the decision and want to offer me a chance to know more about my candidacy for the position, you may find it worth your time. Everyone has some memorable moments in his or her life, and those moments define the person. You may find some interesting things about them when you look into those moments, which may be mixed with tear and hope, or fear and depression, but eventually we all go through those moments and become the person today. We are not born to be a great person, we choose to be a better person. The choice we have made makes the better person today. I firmly believe that if we don’t choose the life for ourselves today, we will be chosen tomorrow. Not only my professional competency, but also the aspects from my personal life makes me the excellent candidate that you are looking for with a great combination of professional and personal aspects. If you want to know more about me, you could watch the presentation or visit my personal website www.monstershou.com.

You can watch the presentation through the linked blow:

http://prezi.com/ku4r9bgo5ukv/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy&rc=ex0share

Continue Reading

2013.12 Summary

一个月没有用英文记流水账了,在2013年的最后一天,改用中文记流水账,看看过去一个月发生了神码. 2013 的年终总结和2014年以及之后的展望估计另起篇幅。

— MBA 第一学期结束

     十二月中,第一次其中考试,然后终于告别了MBA生活的第一学期. 过去的一学期有好坏参半,值得好好反思。不过单从学业上来讲,老实说自己确实有些偷懒,并没有认真的学习,还是以应付为主,因为成绩低于自己的期望,也是无可厚非. 来年要端正态度.

— CV Career Trek

   本月去了北加Career Trek, 学校组织了不同的Team拜访了不同的公司. 我并没有Bid些大的热门的公司,而选择去了一些小的公司参观,自己在联络了几个校友,面谈了解了下自己感兴趣公司的信息. Career Trek 去了NetApp, Flixter, EventBrite, Square, Jawbone.自己约了eBay, Yahoo, Salesforce, LinkedIn, VMware的校友聊了聊. 感觉自己眼下确实对互联网公司更感兴趣,对传统的企业软件公司并没有太多的兴趣,除非是与Big Data, Mobile, Cloud 等相关的公司.

— Travel Around CA

   Trek Trek的机会,所以在北加游玩了一圈,去了硅谷(其实我还是没搞清楚到底哪里算,是一片区域,并不是一个具体的地点嘛)….斯坦福校园,金门大桥,神秘屋, 乔帮主的旧居, 渔人码头, Twin Peak看夜景。每天驱车上百英里的节奏,竟然也没有太累的感觉….回程沿着一号公路开回来,非常赞!非常推荐来加州玩的朋友能够沿着一号公路开一趟,虽然挺折腾的几乎要12个小时,如果中间吃个简餐,走走停停. 去了圣地亚哥一天,比想象的城市更大,更干净,更好玩. 可惜了这些图片都在手机里面,我也懒得整理后贴上来. 东西一多就会变懒….最近总有人说我懒….真是名符其实…

–Ticket at CA

   终于在加州拿了Ticket了, 开始非常郁闷. 考完当天从洛杉矶到北加的5号公路山被高速警察给Pullover 了( 妹,我后来才学会这个词)….被定性为超速加无证驾驶(我用的是国内的驾照)..等法庭的传票下个月或者要求延期需要出席。或许给请个律师去解决此问题吧,如果地点真的那么遥远不方便,希望就不要亲自参加本次法律实践课堂了. 估计要罚很多钱.

   前两天在比佛利附近street parking,貌似六点后不能parking,会到家才发现车挡风玻璃前塞着一个信封,打开一看。Ticket USD 60+.最近为毛总是破财…哥钱真的狠紧张呀,紧巴巴的估计才能过完这两年,不要这么再折腾我吧。以后要看清标示,不报侥幸心理,寻找最佳停车方式. 其实停在附近的挺多shopping mall应该是不错的选择.

— MBA Intern

   这个月把很多Intern是申请给交了,也不知道是死是活。Cover Letter 感觉写的挺不给力的,复制黏贴占了绝大多数. Intern申请,面试等将会是未来几个月的重心,希望2014年能够一切顺利,莫要折腾我太多,让我顺利的拿到理想的offer.

— California Driver’s License

   2013 还是没有把加州驾照考出来,我被这个事情折腾的有点沮丧。考了这么多次还是无功而返,非常的郁闷沮丧,非常讨厌DMV. 希望2014能够找个时间再去考下,拿到加州驾照.

Continue Reading

Los Angeles Hiking||Temescal Canyon Trail

IMG_1053[1]

Could you find me in my picture?!! haha!

Finally I walked on the trail again! I should have know that I would be happier as long as I was on the road than locked myself in the room.

There are so many things to prepare.  We have pre-assignment even before school, pre-reading before class, preview before quiz in class, preparation before middle term and now before final exam. Preparation will never disappear as long as we still have something that we really care, you know what I mean…..internship and full-time for the short-term now…….but we can not always live in the  “preparation  mode”.

Sunday, Sunny Day! Let’s walk on the road and enjoy the sunshine, shine into our hearts and warm our hearts.

 

Type: Round trip

Time: 2:40 Hours

Distance: 7 Miles

Level: Beginner

Star: 6/10

Starting point: cross road of Temescal Canyon road and W Sunset Blvd

Park: Temescal Gateway park

Main View: Skull Rock, Huge Cholla

IMG_1043[1]

IMG_1056[1]

IMG_1044[1]

IMG_1046[1]

IMG_1054[1]

IMG_1057[1]

IMG_1059[1]

IMG_1042[1]

Continue Reading

Build your brand in the digital world

 

Build your brand in the digital world!

Build your Brand in the digital world

This week on the communication class, I chose a topic for my “take a stand” presentation.  It was one of my personal hobby and I wanted to convince my audience the benefit of this hobby and eventually persuaded them to  keep it as their personal habit as I did.

My topic was  Build your brand in the digital world: personal website method. 

Blog number

I personally wrote almost 600 articles/ over 1million words on my personal blog/website during the past 8 years, which means every week, I would write 1.5 articles. I  almost wrote everything, including people I met, place I travelled, the interviews I was conducted, the companies I worked, the project I did, the dream I made, the MBA schools I applied and of course the MBA life here at Anderson.  Yep, I kept recording my personal life. Or you can say, I sometime keep talking to myself in the deep night, when it was quite and only the inner conversation in mind. I love my little hobby.

I felt the huge benefit of keeping recording the daily life or some important moment of life, and want to share the benefit of the personal website, hoping my peers could also realize the benefit of personal website and benefit their life now and in the future.

Some main point of the presentation:

-Easy to own a personal website, three simple step: domain name, space and WordPress

-Under control: easily monitor, publish privately or publicly. choose publish time

-Keep memory and stories in a safe and lasting digital home ( Actually, this is my reason, and there were lots of benefit you can image if you have a digital copy of your memory. Not only for yourself, but for your son, daughter or even grandson, granddaughter if they want to know your stories or the family’s stories and where they are from….)

-Easy to connect with the social network

-Potential investment: professional brand, Google Adsense

Frankly speaking, I always was afraid to give public speech in front of people, even just only 9 people. I prefer causal conversation, and it would be perfect for me if it was just an 1-to-1 face to face conversation.  However, in business school, I gained chance,or was forced, to practice my public speaking skills, and I hope I would improve it through my two years’MBA life.  To tell myself the truth, I already felt a little improvement compared to two or three month ago. I attribute the improvement to my classmate and the professors, who made a class environment that I would never have the chance to know if I didn’t come to Anderson. Everyone seems so confidence in class, and the more important thing is that even I sometimes knew what I talked about was nonsense, but nobody would judge you and made you feel silly. People in the class were encouraged to speak out their ideas, whether it is right or wrong, as there is no right or wrong answer, there was just your answers. Then I become brave to speak out even sometimes I was not so comfortable or confidence in what I would say. ( Sorry….I always made the topic far way from what I wanted to talked about…..)


Back to the  presentation I made this Monday, I received some feedback from my peers. Shame to admit, I didn’t provide too much feedback to them as I am still not good at giving feedback to presentation, and I hope next quarter, I would provide my own opinion for my peers’ presentation.

Feedback:

Good/Strength:

-Great Visuals / Display of presentation/Prezi (7)

-Personal Story “Good Dating” (4)

-Very passionate and engaged

-Good persuasive argument w/appropriate main points

-Great logical persuasive

-Good Hook

-Good posture

-Data use

-Conclusion

-Benefits ( Excellent )

-Outline everything well

-good jobs keeping it relevant/ link some concept to business school (2)

 

Weakness/Improvement:

-It was fast and a lot of different points. Fewer points and more support may be better

-Didn’t understand why you choose 8 years w/ your original slide

– Maybe want to balance reasons in term of types varieties

-The ending might be stronger if it was more concise

-Slow down on speaking/Maybe speak more slowly so we can be sure to understand you perfectly (2)

-Make contact around the room

-Change of pace if changed from slow to fast

-watch pauses and pronunciations

– what are your trying to convince?

– Need clearer position +preview

-some slides are hard to read ( dark background + dark letter)

-you use mostly one type of evidence, need variety

Obviously, there were a bunch of good and strength for my presentation, but also had lots of place that I need to improve.  Two things maybe I did quite well. First, I use Prezi to make my presentation, which made my presentation a great visual. ( There were 7 out of 8 people pointed this), Two, I made the topic related to my personal stories, and made it a humor way. Two things I still need to improve. First, speak slowly. Second, speak clearly. ( Pronunciations)

UCLA run the L.A. We Bruins beat Trojans

A wonderful end of 2013. We finally beat USC Trojans. I watched the football game in a sports watching bar near campus. The bar was filled by Bruins, so I almost stood there for more than three hours to celebrate the last moment. It was an wonderful game!! I would remember the game and the feelings to be Bruins! It was my great honor to be part of this tight community!

IMG_1037[1]IMG_1038[1]IMG_1039[1]IMG_1041[1]

 

PEERspective Feedback

Peerspective is a program that let 1st Anderson student met a new 1st MBA student in other section and talked with each other for half hour every week.  Then they gave feedback to each other. After several round, they will combine the feedback together, so you will receive a combined feedback, but don’t know which specific feedback from whom. I found there were lots of such kind of design to protect people that provided their opinion or choice.

Would they Intro You?

Some yes, some no

What reservations would they have?

Some communication was hard and they had a hard time understanding you sometimes.

What do they think you most valued

Recognition and Affiliation

First visual impression

Professional and well dressed. They’d intro you to their boss!

If you engaged their friend they’d feel…

Acceptance and Anticipation

Perception of your career interests and abilities

They think you are knowledgeable and have a good sense of direction

Would they go for drinks?

You betcha

Impressions from Emails?

Not much of an impression (no news is usually good news in this category)

If they could change 1 thing

Talk more clearly, work on your small talk, and try to be a little more personable!

Continue Reading

Weekly Update about Anderson MBA life 11/24/2013

 

Loneliness

My friend told me that she felt so lonely those days that she cried every night when she backed home. Actually, I felt she is the kind of girl that would feel happy everyday and not easy to feel sad and lonely as she seems so happy whenever I see her.

Maybe people perceive me like what I perceive her. I  feel lonely even I am so happy with people when I see and talk with them, but at the end of day, when I back home and stay alone, I will feel lonely time to time. I wouldn’t cry but I would shout or knock the desk, just to release the negative feeling.  

And when you become missing someone, it will even increase your loneliness.

IMG_1012[1]

We Run The City 5K. UCLA Vs. USC.

It was my first time to run a race in U.S.,and first time more than 1.5K in running race. ( Although I always run farer than 5K, but have never attended a race more than 1.5K).

Got up early and quick eat the half apple that I haven’t finished eating last night and drove to the park. There are 1386 people registered to attend today’s UCLA Vs. USC race. Felt excited to participate this event.

Continue Reading

Weekly Update about MBA life

@ LA Tech Summit

It seemed a little crazy last week. How crazy? Sorry…Too busy to remember everything, only left me a feeling about crazy, busy and tired. That’s it.  BTW, I even didn’t spend time reading book, finishing ungraded tasks.

1. Proactively reach out to people and finally you will receive response.

Last weekend, I almost send 15 “cold-email” to alumni in my targeted companies. Then I wait. Guess what,  8 people responded my email; I already talked to 5, and visited one in the local office,and others agreed to meet with me when I travelled to San Francisco. Some proactivity offered to help connect with HR. Although I am not quite sure where will I end up at the end, but the warmness and willingness from the alumni made me at least more confidence to apply for MBA intern positions.

Lesson: Hold On! Continue to keep in touch with alumni if you still haven’t hear from them. Ask for help if you do need a help.

Continue Reading

Quick Notes for Life @2013.11.10

 

Mulholland Drive @2013.11.9

IMG_0945[1]

Mulholland Drive @2013.11.9

 

 

UCLA Basketball Game

First time to watch U.S. National Basketball Champion Game on site, although it was not a N.B.A. game. Really enjoy the onsite feeling and just want to get the taste of be so close to the players! Hope maybe will soon have the chance and time to watch a real N.B.A. game at L.A. That would be awesome. ( yeap…people here love to use awesome so often, I should also learn to use awesome, yea!)

IMG_0939[1]IMG_0941[1]

IMG_0938[1]IMG_0937[1]

Newport Seafood House

Sunny Day and Delicious  food! So happy I don’t need to stay at home and could come to meet friends.  Well, maybe I should try to make this a regular event and invite different friend to enjoy food together.

Continue Reading

Learn to Code

 

Tonight, I attended a event named Build a Web Apps in 90 Mins organized by General Assembly. It was interesting, and I was surprised to see there were so many people want to learn how to code and how to build a apps here. 80% of the attendance had no development experience including me almost with zero knowledge about coding.

Of course, you couldn’t learn to build a apps in 90 mins, but the learning environment and experience was attractive.

There are several online education website for people who want to learn coding.

Codecademy

http://www.codecademy.com/learn

Udemy:

https://www.udemy.com/courses

Codeschool

https://www.codeschool.com/

Never too old to learn!

IMG_0929[1]

Continue Reading