What is a case competition?

It's the end of Quarter 3 for second-years here at Darden, and hard to believe that we only have 6 weeks left of class in our business school lives.  We are in the exam period now and I am taking a few minutes to write before heading out of Charlottesville for my last Spring Break!

I wanted to write about a case competition I was in with a group of second-years at the University of Colorado a couple weeks ago.  However, when I tell my non-business school friends that I'm in a case competition, the usual response is "Huh?" or "What is that?"  So I think I actually need to define what one is before I go on.

A case competition starts with the presentation of a business "problem", usually presented as a short story (or "case") with accompanying data and exhibits to illustrate key aspects of the situation.  Teams of students are then asked to identify how they would solve the problem and present their solution to a panel of judges, who evaluate the analysis and the effectiveness of presentation.  Basically, it's designed as a simulation of a real-world business issue that one might face as an MBA, with an overload of data, ambiguous facts, and no clear solution.  As Darden is a case-method school, we're quite familiar with this approach, but someone who has never read a business case study may find this to be a foreign concept (perhaps I should write another blog post about the case method).

Some examples of case competitions will make this a lot clearer:

1. Deloitte Case Challenge, November 2010
I entered the Deloitte competition with a group of classmates hoping to learn what this case competition experience was like.  This was a preliminary round with 20 Darden teams competing for a chance to participate in the national Deloitte case challenge finals in Miami, and a chance to snag an internship offer from Deloitte.  I wasn't looking to work at Deloitte but I wanted to build my case competition muscles.

Team "Bottleneck Elevators". Time of photo = 3:36 AM

Without a doubt, this competition was the most grueling 24-hour period I have experienced at Darden.  The format could only delight a masochist.  We kicked off at a Thursday lunch hour with the presentation of the problem: evaluate the E-reader market and decide which segment (devices, intermediaries, or content providers) would make the best investment.  In other words, would you invest to build a product competing with the Amazon Kindle (device), would you develop an online store to compete with Barnes & Noble (intermediary), or would you invest in the publishers developing the content?

Our intimidating storyboard

Overwhelmed with data and with a 20-minute presentation due the following morning, my team staked out a learning team room and got to work.  We decided to pitch an investment in content providers and raced to research this market.  The time allotted was far too short, and at midnight every team was still at Darden!  It was as close to an all-nighter as I've come at this school, by far.  At 5:30 AM, strung out on 5-Hour Energy and trail mix, my team finally wrapped up our slide deck.  We each took a two-hour nap, reawakened, put on our suits, practiced our delivery a couple times, and somehow rocked it with the judges, taking 2nd place overall.  I definitely didn't want to work for Deloitte after that, and swore I would not try another case competition again...until...

2. Michigan Renewable Energy Case Competition, January 2011
I blogged about this last winter so no need to repeat everything here. The title sponsor was Duke Energy and the problem this time was: How should the company respond to potential emissions regulations from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) which could shut down several coal power plants over the next five years?  This time we were given a week to prepare, which I discovered doesn't necessarily make things easier.

Darden gets to know UCLA Anderson and HEC Montreal

The organizers sent us a bunch of data and expected us to develop a detailed financial model of the situation.  Unfortunately our model kept crashing in Excel and we spent countless hours debugging.  Furthermore, the timing of this competition couldn't have been worse for a first-year student: right in that nexus between on-Grounds internship interviews and first-year classes.  By the time we arrived at the University of Michigan, after a week of 4-5 hours of sleep per night, we were exhausted and our presentation wasn't our best.  But it was a great learning experience, a chance to network with the folks at Duke Energy, and Ann Arbor is always a fun (albeit cold) place to visit.

3. Sustainable Venture Capital Investment Competition, March 2011
Another case competition that I have posted on already, so quick summary here.  For this, we traveled to the University of North Carolina and were placed in the shoes of a venture capitalist evaluating three potential startup investments.  We were to decide which company to invest in and draw up a "term sheet" that dictates the parameters of the investment (company valuation, how much money to place in the company, investor protections, etc.).  We also needed to evaluate the degree to which each investment provided the best bang for the buck in providing social and environmental impact.

In hindsight my team, with a total lack of VC experience and competing against teams which did, never had much of a chance at this event, but we all took away valuable lessons about the world of entrepreneurs and how they start their companies.

4. Net Impact Case Competition, February 2012
I was pretty certain that I had hung up my case competition shoes in first year.  As a second-year MBA student now on cruise control, the desire to work my butt off for a week in a case competition had waned considerably.  But with the chance to reunite with two of my three teammates from the Deloitte case challenge, I couldn't turn down the chance to compete at this year's Net Impact Case Competition.

Darden's "Team Cavalier"

This national event started in November with a two-week "virtual round".  Roughly 50 teams were competing for 20 spots in the finals at the University of Colorado.  The sponsor was Encana Oil & Gas, the second largest natural gas producer in North America, and the subject was a hot topic ‒ hydraulic fracturing for shale gas. For the virtual round, we were presented with a potential opportunity to drill for gas in the Eastern U.S. and asked to focus on Encana's role in engaging the local community.  How should Encana bridge external stakeholders' sustainability expectations with the company's future financial growth estimates?  How should Encana communicate its sustainability policy to the local community and how will we know if this communication is working?  My team whipped together a PowerPoint presentation in the week after Thanksgiving, shipped the presentation to the judges, and waited.  A couple days later we discovered we had been selected as finalists for the February main event, along with a second Darden team.

The final round case had a different focus.  How does Encana gain public acceptance of the natural gas industry?  While the company is focused on convincing the public that hydraulic fracturing is a safe process for the environment (which, for me, the scientific jury is still out), it also needs to build demand for its product ‒ natural gas prices are at historic lows currently in the U.S.  We were to be evaluated on recommendation quality, presentation delivery, and understanding of the merger between business acumen and sustainability.

You might think that as wise Second Years we might have learned our lessons from case competitions past.  But no.  We procrastinated on getting all the work done, and even with two weeks to research the natural gas industry from home we still traveled to Colorado with a presentation to build.  This wasn't going to be another all-nighter, though; the hours of travel from Charlottesville to Boulder had exhausted us.  The organizers also played a cruel trick on us by throwing in a last-minute "twist" ‒ how does the company deal with the recent spill of hydraulic fracturing fluids by a competitor?  We put together a decent presentation of recommendations for the company I thought, but in the end were not victorious.  Despite this, we had fun as a team and learned a ton about the challenges of the natural gas industry.

For me, case competitions have provided a valuable supplement to the MBA curriculum, giving me a chance to apply the lessons from Darden into real-world contexts.  The competitions have also extended my understanding of the challenges and opportunities for applying sustainable business practices in the world of business.  By breaking away from the ivory tower of the classroom, these competitions have tested my new knowledge and have prepared me to be a more complete business leader when I graduate from Darden.

Darden Pranks: Section E Mischief Team

Somehow this prank from first-year came up in a lunch conversation I had with some prospective students today...

I know I've posted about Section E pride before, and watching this still makes me laugh.  Per long-standing tradition, our neighbors in Section D made this really loud banging noise that repeatedly disrupted our relatively peaceful Section E case discussions.  It got so bad, at one point, that our Operations professor Raul Chao went to go yell at them on our behalf!

We decided we needed to intervene a little further, so we started by installing a doorbell in the ceiling speaker of classroom 180, and assigned a student with a hidden button in our classroom to ring the chime whenever Section D did their banging thing.  This didn't work very well at deterring them, as you can tell from the video, probably because we set the chime to play soothing saxophone music.  Section D rather liked the chime, actually.

We then decided that we needed to fight with more "explosive" weapons.  We therefore installed a less pleasant sound device under the unlucky chair of one of the unsuspecting students, and I was assigned to pull the trigger.  Not only did we get Section D's attention, but we caught the whole shenanigans on tape!

In short, this video highlights the great sense of community that Darden students find when they enter Mr. Jefferson's university, which for me has been the greatest feature of spending two years studying here.

Darden Business in Society Conference

I'm happy to report that Darden's annual Business in Society Conference was a great success this year!  The purpose of the conference is to establish a dialogue about how business can be used to tackle social and environmental issues.  The conference consisted of panel discussions with business leaders focused on energy, social entrepreneurship, education reform, corporate sustainability, and governmental challenges.

The conference kicked off on Thursday afternoon with a keynote address by Martha Johnson, head of the U.S. General Services Administration and a member of President Obama's cabinet.  Her organization is responsible for guiding $95 billion in annual purchases for the government.  (just to put that in perspective, this is twice the $48 billion of sales that Amazon had last year)

I admire the energy that Ms. Johnson brought to her speech (which you can watch below) and her commitment to guiding the government on a sustainable path.  She also shared her advice for students in finding mentors: find people who will challenge, clarify, comfort, and celebrate.  Each mentor won't provide all of these needs, but assemble a portfolio of mentors that will.

My Friday morning was busy as I was organizing three separate energy panel discussions on energy efficiency, energy policy, and renewable energy financing.  Each panel had a group of strong speakers who shared their experiences.

Energy Efficiency

• Cynthia Adams, Executive Director of the Local Energy Alliance Program (LEAP)
• Matt Short (Darden '09), Regional Sales Manager, Energy Solutions at Johnson Controls
• Ben Bixby, CEO of MyEnergy
• Dale Stanton-Hoyle, VP of Engineering, CLEAResult 

We brought this panel together because energy efficiency measures are the cheapest way to lower the consumption of fossil fuels.  It's easier to save a megawatt than it is to put up an array of solar modules.

Several insights came from this panel.  First, the importance of data and using automation to help consumers save money.  Adams stated, "there are not enough energy nerds in the world" that will optimize their energy needs to make a noticeable dent in consumer energy usage patterns.  This creates an opportunity for energy management companies to make their products "ubiquitous, like breathing."

Stanton-Hoyle said that the focus needs to be on "efficiency rather than sacrifice."  The "manifest destiny" philosophy in the US towards consumption is a hurdle that needs to be acknowledged in promoting lower energy usage.  Also, the small fraction of a US household's budget devoted to energy impedes behavior change.

All the panelists talked about the importance of eliminating arcane and byzantine regulations that can block energy efficiency programs.  "All regulations are local," said Bixby, and this greatly complicates starting a business in this area.

Energy Policy

• Bryan Mignone, Senior Policy Advisor at the U.S. Department of Energy
• John Blaney, Senior Vice President at ICF International
• Whit Faulconer, Director of LEED Technical Development at the U.S. Green Building Council
• Emily Williams, Research Analyst at the American Wind Energy Association   

The lack of a nationally consistent energy policy in the US frustrates everyone on all sides of the political spectrum.  Policy can give incentives for developing more sustainable energy alternatives to burning fossil fuels with one hand while taking away with the other.

Williams talked about how inconsistent subsidies lead to boom/bust cycles in the wind energy industry.  For instance, the expiration of a production tax credit at the end of 2012 could lead to the loss of over 70% of the current activity (read: jobs) in wind energy.  Blaney spoke about how politicians have undermined the faith and trust in markets to identify the lowest cost clean energy alternatives.  The risk of climate change legislation is already being charged in pro-forma financials for carbon-heavy industries, he said.  "We are already paying for this legislation," Blaney asserted, without getting any of the technological benefits for actually placing a price on carbon.

Faulconer and Mignone talked about the policy-making process.  Industry associations such as the Edison Electric Institute have become the powerful and preferred voice of companies.  "The people with the most to lose are the first ones at the door," said Faulconer, who expressed his frustration with the American Chemistry Council in preventing the transparent labeling of building materials.

The Corporate Sustainability Panel: Kathryn Wilson (Microsoft), Coleman Bigelow (Johnson & Johnson) and Stephen Evanko (Capital One)

Renewable Energy Financing

• Matt Fedors (Darden '10), Vice President at Leaf Clean Energy
• Tony Clifford (Darden '75), CEO at Standard Solar
• James Mackey (Darden '98), Executive Director at NextEra Energy

Seems like all the Darden alums want to be involved in finance!  These panelists talked about the hurdles they have encountered in getting funding for renewable energy projects.  Clifford talked about tax equity and the difficulty with acquiring this in the current economic environment.  He believes that a distributed model of renewable energy generation (think: rooftop solar) is more feasible given the transmission upgrades that would need to be completed to support larger-scale projects.  He described the dramatic cost reductions in solar projects in recent years and predicts that 1/3 of the US will be cost competitive for solar in 2016.

Fedors described his joy in funding a hydroelectric project in Mexico, with its limited red tape and transmission costs.  Regulatory delays and "soft costs" such as interconnection to the electric grid are a big problem for other renewable projects, he said.  Similarly, Mackey described his frustration with siting delays for wind projects.  "It is probably just as hard to site a wind farm as a coal power plant right now," he said.  Clifford closed with a call to action for those in the room interested in the energy industry: "1% of the electrical power industry is a multi-billion dollar business.  You can make an impact."

Drummond Lawson (Method Products) hovers over the "Green Supply Chain" panel, speaking with Jacob Madsen (Deloitte) and Minal Mistry (GreenBlue)

The afternoon panels I attended were insightful as well.  The Corporate Sustainability panel talked about sustainability as a journey and the importance of holding up small wins as beacons for the possibilities in sustainability.  Panelists talked about the importance of joining a company whose value system aligns with your own.  Drill deep to understand how a company defines "sustainability" – it's a vague term defined differently everywhere.  Most corporate jobs that influence sustainability initiatives don't align with a formal sustainability-related position, so you need to find a company that will support your push for more sustainable business practices.  Pick a sustainability initiative that you will be passionate about "so you can get past the 'NO'," said one panelist.

My last panel is a long day focused on the Green Supply Chain.  The panelists spoke about the struggle in getting good data to determine the carbon footprint, energy usage, water consumption, raw materials used, and waste output needed to create a particular product.  "How do we get this 'radical' level of transparency?" asked one of the panelists.  Though seemingly a "boring, tenuous" problem, it actually looks to become much more relevant as consumer demand for goods that cause less environmental harm increases.  Companies will need to take a greater look at the ecology of their products as Extended Producer Responsibility takes hold in Europe, which may integrate environmental costs into product prices.

It was great to finally see the fruit of months of effort in putting together this conference.  As sustainability expands into a business mega-trend in the 21st century, I'm glad that we were able to showcase at Darden some of the work of professionals focused on better business practices.

MBA Careers for Change

For those interested in what Darden is up to in the sustainability world, here's a newly published video from Darden Media showing some of those who interned at companies promoting social and environmental change (little shout-out to my summer employer at the 2:00 mark).  Also shows some of the thought leaders on the Darden faculty in the business sustainability realm (Michael Lenox, Andrea Larson, Richard Brownlee, and Ed Freeman):

In addition, the annual Darden Business in Society Conference is this Friday, with an all-star group of panelists in Charlottesville to talk about the latest issues in social entrepreneurship, international development, corporate sustainability, renewable energy, and education innovation.  More to come in my next post!

Launching Anew at Samsung...and I'm moving to South Korea!!

All the way back at the beginning of my time at Darden, on our third day of orientation, we discussed a case with a special guest speaker: Dr. David Steel, Executive Vice President for Strategic Marketing at Samsung Electronics America.  Before returning to the US, Steel had spent ten years working for Samsung in Korea.  Steel began with two years in the Global Strategy Group, an incubator with a goal of producing international managers in Samsung with industry expertise, a strong appreciation for working across cultures, and a global business perspective.  Little did I know back then that I would be walking in his footsteps!

In my very first blog posting at Darden, I wrote about the travels I did between leaving my last job and matriculating at business school.  My trip was truly an eye-opening experience.  I wrote:

Between my job and Darden, I took a few months off to reset by travelling around-the-world. Literally. Over 63 days I visited 11 countries. I loved the cultural exposure one receives from seeing so many different places, and I now have a much greater appreciation for how big and diverse our world actually is.

The next step to becoming a global business citizen, naturally, would be to live and work abroad.  When I started at Darden, I wasn't even considering this possibility.  By living and working in the US my entire life, my mind was honed in on the straight-and-narrow path of staying domestically after my two years in school.  When at home on a break during first year, my father suggested the possibility of going abroad, maybe to Europe.  I told him this sounded interesting...then submerged the thought deep in the back of my mind.  I didn't have any idea how to enable an international career or what this might provide me.

A way to enable this rapidly became clear during fall recruiting: the Samsung Global Strategy Group was recruiting full-time employees at Darden.  I attended the company briefing and rapidly became fascinated with some of the company's new cleantech business ventures: $21 billion into rechargable batteries, solar cells, and new LED technologies, $5 billion into reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 50% and producing more environmentally friendly products, and $6 billion into solar and wind energy projects in Ontario, Canada and California.  I learned that the Samsung conglomerate does far more than produce cell phones, TVs, and PCs; it also constructs skyscrapers, builds ships, and writes insurance.  I saw a company with a vast global footprint and the courage to commit to huge initiatives.

My winter holiday travels included a visit to the Samsung Experience store along New York's Columbus Circle

I talked with a couple Darden alums in the program and decided to take a flyer by dropping a resume.  The objectives of the interview process were clear: demonstrate problem solving skills, a clear communication style, and the ability to acclimate into the Korean culture.  The interviews were tough and I was shocked to receive the offer!

At that point, a really tough decision needed to be made.  Would I be willing to put aside everything from my life in America — my family, friends, and memories — and start anew in a foreign land?  The reality is though I've been to many places around the world, I've never visited Korea.  I once enjoyed the Korean BBQ restaurants along the DC Beltway, had a night of karaoke with a group of Korean students in Hawaii, and worked with a Korean guy at my old company, but clearly my life's experiences fall far short of giving me an idea for whether I can hack it as a foreigner in Seoul.

I did everything I could to try to wrap my head around this decision.  I interrogated the Darden alums at length about what makes someone happy to work at Samsung.  I talked to everyone that I knew who had visited Korea.  I consulted my family, my friends, and my close advisers in my network.

I also watched Steve Jobs' 2005 Stanford commencement speech several times.  A few passages stood out for me:

You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life...

...You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle...

...Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

From this speech, I saw a few key lessons.  First, I saw in Jobs' speech the importance of passion to doing great work and how this must be motivated from within.  In addition, I saw that although I might not know exactly where this adventure called "life" might be taking me, if my direction feels right then I'm probably doing well.  After all, you can't plan your life like a chess game and know every possible future outcome.  Had I not chosen to apply to business school, I would have never received an interview to work for Samsung.  Had I not traveled around the world prior to my MBA, I probably would not have been considered seriously for the position. 

Desiring to be thorough in developing a framework for evaluating my choices, I wrote out a long list of pros and cons for taking the offer.  Reasons to consider other opportunities included: "far away from home / potential for extreme loneliness"; "potential misalignment with culture of a big company"; "cultural/language barriers"; and "potential delay in starting a family" (I'm currently 29 years old).  All valid concerns.  Basically, this might not work, and I would be a long way from reentering my comfort zone if it did not.

However, the reasons to accept seemed stronger: "global experience"; "large investments in green energy"; "the opportunity excites me"; "like a 3rd year of an MBA program"; and "I don't feel that I'm settling".

But the biggest reason to accept, by far, was the potential regret factor.  Would I be second-guessing myself in the future if I didn't accept?  Certainly such an opportunity would never come again.  I was excited about moving abroad, and the inner voice inside me woke up for several weeks telling me that moving to Korea was the right thing to do.  I wouldn't be able to fully connect the dots forward to figure out where I would end up after joining Samsung, but I knew that looking back I might be wondering why on earth I didn't stick my neck out and take a chance when I was 30.

Author Mark Twain once said:

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

And the decision to accept the offer was, all of a sudden, simple.

I have felt an incredible rush since accepting the Samsung offer.  I'm pinching myself as I can't fully believe that this is true.  Have you ever had that funny feeling after you make a big decision that everything you read confirms your decision to be the correct one?  For instance, I read a Poets & Quants article profiling Darden's Bob Bruner (congrats on Dean of the Year!!).  The article states that Bruner "sees globalization as the new inflection point for management education."  It then goes on to talk about Darden's strategy shift from making students "globally aware" to being "globally ready."  The topic of globalization featured prominently in Darden's application essay this year.  I'm also reading a book right now titled "Passion & Purpose", written by a group of recent Harvard MBAs to talk about the shifts in how new business leaders view the world.  Globalization is one of the key themes shaping emerging leaders in the book.  In a survey of 510 MBA students from top schools, the authors find that the average student has worked in 3.8 countries prior to business school.  I have worked in only one — so I am behind!

I have a great appreciation for the international students at Darden who were willing to take two years away from their homelands to receive a top business education in the US.  I now plan to mirror their experience abroad.  A classmate of mine, an American that worked in China prior to Darden, tells me that I will need six months abroad before I can tell whether I am able to hack it overseas.  In August 2012, I start this voyage of self-discovery when I move to Seoul, South Korea.

When applying to business schools, I cast a cynical eye towards claims that the MBA could truly be "transformational."  I believe this now.  Without a Darden MBA, the upcoming chapter of my life simply wouldn't be possible.

Time for Your Questions!

Winter break has begun here at the Darden School and Charlottesville has become very empty.  After finishing up final papers and exams for Quarter 2, I headed up to New York for a long weekend, celebrating my brother's birthday and catching up with several of my friends.

The winter holidays are upon us, meaning that many of you that are applying are frantically trying to put together applications in preparation for the January 12 deadline for second rounders.  I also hear that some of the first rounders will receive a great Christmas present come Wednesday!  For those of you still applying, I thought it would be helpful for me to compile some of the questions I have received recently from applicants.  Feel free to send more questions my way.

Happy holidays!

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1) What are the key areas in the Darden School curriculum that are important for career switchers to management consulting?

Mike Lenox

The Darden school prides itself on a general management curriculum covering a breadth of business areas.  Darden students are known as hard workers with a mastery of business basics.  The strategy faculty, such as Mike Lenox, Jeanne Liedtka, and "Venkat", are particularly strong and the courses they teach will refine your thinking to help you enter management consulting.  Tim Laseter, a former partner at Booz, teaches a valuable first-year elective called "The Consulting Process" that prepares students to engage in the specific problem-solving style unique to the consulting industry.  You can learn more about coursework and faculty at this link.

2) After completing graduation, do students generally opt for consulting in specialized industry segments or do they get assignments that spread across a broad industry spectrum?

Every major consulting firm recruits at Darden.  The "Big 3" (McKinsey, BCG, and Bain) strategy consulting firms recruit heavily here.  Also, you'll find firms hiring for operational consulting, IT consulting, and industry-specific consulting such as health care or financial services.  Consulting is the #1 career chosen by graduating Darden students, so you'll have ample opportunity here to find the best consulting fit.

 

3) How is Darden's focus on international business?

Strong and getting stronger.  In addition to having a diverse student body (30% from outside US) and faculty, I think two new developments at Darden will make this a stronger international business school in the upcoming years.  One is the launch of the Global Executive MBA, which will expand the Darden brand internationally and bring additional international business ideas into the curriculum at Darden.  Another is the recent launch of the Emerging Markets Development Club, which will aid students interested in international business careers post-MBA.  Existing student groups such as the International Business Society also promote international business careers, and the curriculum is filled with business cases from around the globe.  The emphasis on a global business perspective has strengthened at Darden in recent years.

4) How do you feel about the Darden life in general? Do students get sufficient time out of academic activities to engage themselves in community activities?

You certainly have time to step away from academic activities, but the rumors you may have heard about the Darden first year are somewhat true.  The core curriculum is rigorous, and you also will find yourself heavily engaged in recruiting activities.  However, like any business school, you get out of it what you want to put in.  If you place a priority upon community involvement, club activities, social events with friends, or getting out into nature, you will find time to make it happen, for sure.  Also, the faculty here have been highly receptive towards restructuring the first year experience in recent years to improve the academic/life balance, leading to Darden vaulting itself to #1 in student satisfaction in Business Week's latest survey.  The second year at Darden consists entirely of electives, so the academics are as rigorous as you want them to be.  Each student is able to find his or her proper school/life balance, and the time flies by far too quickly!

That's a summary, but you can find more of my feelings about Darden life by paging through my blog.

 

5) Do the students get opportunity to get involved in entrepreneurial activities around the community?

Absolutely.  The Darden incubator at the Batten Institute provides financial and instructional support to students who want to launch businesses, and many entrepreneurial conferences happen at Darden and the broader University of Virginia throughout the school year.  Concept and business plan competitions give students the chance to present new business ideas and win prizes, and the E*Society connects students at the University of Virginia to the Charlottesville-area entrepreneurial ecosystem.  Entrepreneurship at Darden link

6) I found the club of Community Consultants of Darden very exciting with students helping small businesses and getting consulting experience.  If you are involved in it, could you please share a bit of your experience?

CCoD is definitely a good opportunity for students to get involved with real-life consulting engagements that help local businesses.  I applied last year but was not accepted into the program (it's a competitive process). 

7) Could you please let me know the activities a learning team is typically involved in?  Is the scope of a learning team limited to only case study discussions?

My learning team!

Learning teams at Darden function as a study group to aid you in preparing for class.  In first-year, you are all taking the same core classes simultaneously, and the learning team helps to solidify your understanding of key case concepts and gives you a chance to explain your ideas to a small group of classmates in a safe environment.  The formal discussions are mostly case-based but the teams also tend to hang out with each other socially as well -- you spend a lot of time with these folks and you tend to bond with them.  I've even met alumni who still keep in contact with their learning team members, even several years after graduation!

 

8) I have read your bio on the website and am looking for more information on clean-tech at Darden.  What specific resources does Darden provide that can help me realize my dream to work in this industry (professors, courses, clubs, events and so on)?  Can you elaborate with some of your personal experience during the MBA program?

There are several resources at Darden that can help you find a career in clean-tech.  The school is known for its strong student body and attracts recruiters from several companies with global clean-tech initiatives, including Corning, 3M, Samsung, and General Electric.  The primary clubs that attract students interested in clean-tech include Net Impact and the Darden Energy Club, which connect students interested in environmental sustainability and renewable energy to clean-tech jobs.  There are several events at the university throughout the year focused on clean-tech topics, including a day-long forum about the future of electric vehicles last fall.  Finally, professors Mike Lenox, Richard Brownlee, and Andrea Larson do a lot of research on clean-tech topics and make excellent resources for learning about the latest trends.