Its been a busy few months since my last post during the International Seminar in Munich. That was a wonderful trip with many fun adventures and great times with both my BCEMBA classmates and new friends from the Columbia NY EMBA and Global programs. I’m finally getting around to uploading my Oktoberfest photos, here is one shot from inside the tent and one from the end of the evening when some of us went out to the midway area in search of apple strudel and other German sweets.
This trip was a great chance to get to know some of my classmates even better and a few of us took a day trip to Salzburg on Sunday after our class wrapped up on Saturday afternoon. It was fun to see Austria and I also gathered some good insight for my Customer Experience final paper that was due several weeks after the trip.
After our Munich seminar it was back to Berkeley for a mid-October block and then some of our class headed out to Shanghai for their international seminar before we all came back together for our final Columbia block with the 2013s Nov 9-12th. It was great to see the other BCEMBA class and hard to believe that a whole year has passed since we were toasting the class of 2011 in Manhattan.
In between all of this I was busy with my own job search. Over the past few months I have been leveraging all the great resources that both Haas and CBS have to offer to think about my own goals and ambitions and to explore options outside of the job I have been in throughout the program. I have been very impressed with the staff and programs at both schools and they each helped me in different ways. The career coaching from both schools as well as the executive coaching was fantastic and my peers in the program have been there along the way to offer support and serve as a sounding board whenever I needed someone to talk with.
I was following up on my top job lead throughout my international travels and class blocks and at the end of October I accepted a position as VP of Testing and Release Management (IT functions for those of you who don’t speak software) at the largest publicly traded personal lines insurer in the U.S. I started this past Tuesday and will be relocating to the Chicago area in the new year. The program was instrumental in preparing me for both the selection process and my entry into this new role and I am currently working to finish my last deliverable for Executive Leadership; a personal development plan, which is helping me reflect on what I need to focus on in my new job and with my new organization.
I am excited for my new adventure but not ready for the program to end, at least we have our February graduation ceremony at Haas to look forward to after we part ways at the end of this weekend. I hope to find many other ways to stay in touch with both my classmates, other alumni, and the fantastic program staff from both schools. But first I better finish my homework!
Berkeley-Columbia EMBA Students 