As graduation day draws closer, my mind often drifts to random events in the last two years. As the peak-end theory says, we judge our experiences almost entirely on how they were at their peak (pleasant or unpleasant) and how they ended. At this point, I haven’t experienced the end yet (Less than 25 days to Graduation!), and I don’t want to recall the peak unpleasant moments (Those sleepless nights in first semester or initial struggle in landing the right internship). So, I often focus my mind to recall some of the best, enjoyable moments of my Goizueta experience. There are so many of them, but, even within those, two events stand out: The two Technology treks to the Bay Area.
Tech Trek 2009: GTA at Google
I am a Technology-person: by undergraduate education, by pre-MBA work-experience, and most importantly, by passion. So when Goizueta Technology Association (GTA) planned their first ever Technology Trek to the Bay area in November 2009, I signed up without a second thought, and the trek turned out to be a lot more awesome than I had expected it to be. Some of us aspired for careers in Tech companies, some had entrepreneurial ambitions, and some were simply knowledge-hunters, and the trek had something for each one of us. We had a very good mix of companies in our visit list: Yahoo! and Google representing the web-sphere, Oracle for enterprise software and HP for traditional IT and Hardware. For the budding entrepreneurs, perhaps the best parts of the trip were visiting Plug-n-play, a startup incubation center, and meeting the founder of Skyfire, an emerging startup.
After taking the role of the GTA President in 2010, I worked hard from the start of the semester to make Tech-Trek 2010 successful. For the aspiring entrepreneurs, we kept Plug-n-play from the last year’s mix, but other than that, this time, the mix was mostly inclined towards the power of the Internet. Day 1 was for eBay, Electronic Arts and an alumni-meet, while, on Day 2, we visited Zynga, Netflix and Plug-n-Play. Each visit was a distinct experience, but my favorite part of the trip was meeting Neil Rothstein, VP of Online Marketing and Goizueta alum, at Netflix. Neil not only shared the company vision and experience, but also inspired us by sharing how his own career had evolved over the last 15 years since Goizueta.
Tech Trek 2010: GTA at ebay
One fascinating thing that wasn’t hard to notice was the role that young MBAs get to play in Silicon Valley. At both Zynga and EA, our hosts included an MBA’09 each, who discussed in detail their experience and work at the companies so far. Even at eBay, our host, a Director in product-management, underscored the impact that interns and first year MBAs have at eBay. This was also echoed in my conversations with the alumni that I met at an alumni-meet we had on the first day. This was sure to energize most of us, especially the second years like me, who were by then almost ready to get back to the business world!
These treks were also the beginning of my love affair with the Bay Area. Year-round awesome weather, scenic beauty in the city itself (and many more options within driving distance), all of the technology giants of the world: What is there not to love? Add to this, my personal factors of good Indian food at every street corner, some old friends and cousins from India and a terrific alumni base from my undergraduate institution. I knew that there was no better place I could ask for! I had decided that the Bay Area was where I wanted to go after my MBA! And guess what! On the second day of the trek this year, I received a second round interview invite from the San Francisco office of a top consulting firm. Two weeks later, I had secured a job at one of my dream companies in the city of my choice!
Yes! I will be in SFO a few weeks from now, and, hopefully, will host GTA Technology treks 2011 and beyond!
Read the full article: GTA Technology Treks to Bay Area