Life as a Carlson MBA

Thursday, May 14, 2015 — by Venkatesh Hegde is a full-time MBA candidate (Class of 2016) with a focus on strategy.

What’s a week in the life of a Carlson MBA you ask?  Apart from a couple of core classes, all the MBAs are now busy taking electives tailored to their career choices. Plus there’s something new and interesting happening every week at Carlson. So I say, there’s no such thing as a typical week here! Within just two weeks, here were the highlights of what yours truly has been up to.

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Tech Cities Conference: I had great fun volunteering at the inaugural Tech Cities conference hosted by Carlson in March. The conference was a tech enthusiast’s dream come true: industry leaders from big corporations such as LinkedIn, Pandora, and Target, and start-up success stories talked about the latest trends disrupting the technology industry. My only regret is that there were too many awesome sessions happening at the same time, and I had to make tradeoffs on which to attend. Next year’s conference should be an even bigger and better, and I’m already looking forward to it!

Enterprise Project Kickoffs: The moment that all the first years had been waiting forever, since we chose our enterprises, was finally here! The announcement of who would be in which project! The Carlson Consulting Enterprise was one of the biggest reasons why I joined the Carlson MBA. One often encounters ambiguous, “grey” problems in the business world, and I wanted to develop a structured, disciplined approach to tackle any problem confidently. I’m just in my second week with the CCE, and I’ve already been exposed to the tools and the training that management consultants at the top firms receive. Exciting times ahead as I take on my first CCE project!

Energy Symposium: This was another big event that was hosted by Carlson with companies such as McKinsey, Deloitte, Cargill, Emerson and many more talked about the trends surrounding the energy industry. From not knowing anything beyond ”energy plays a critical role in business” to learning about impact investing in the hot “solar” energy sector, I sure learnt a lot at the conference!

Carlson Consulting Club: We have kicked off the CCC planning process for the upcoming school year. As the VP of the club, I’m excited about the events that we’ve planned for the 2017 batch!