Z - JDMBAgirl

First African-American Woman CEO!

I thought I would rest from blogging over the summer, but this news is too juicy not to share.  Besides, after a week of celebrity deaths (Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, Ed McMahon... I will so miss MJ!), we all need something to be excited about.  Furthermore, for those of us who are passionate about diversity in the work place, this represents a triumphant leap forward in two ways.

Not only is Ursala Burns the first African-American woman CEO of a fortune 500 company, she is also the first ever successor of a woman CEO.  Yes, that's right... back-to-back women CEOs!  Where?  At Xerox Corporation.  (Xerox's Anne Mulcahy named Ursala Burns as her successor.)

Watch Ursala speak at the Rochester Institute of Technology commencement: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xROcJd223Qo

Read about Ursala's first day and the challenges that are ahead in this Business Week article:

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_23/b4134018712853.htm

(You've got to love business week.  Their MBA forum is quite nice.)

As an MBA student at Suffolk University, you will take MBA 400.  It is a three day course held off campus where you will practice running a corporation through a simulation and learn about networking.  I am mentioning this course here in this blog because historically, very few female students volunteer for the one C-level position that is available during the simulation.  (In the simulation it's the COO or "chief operating officer" role.)  When I took the course in Fall of 2008 (AE), there was only one woman COO!  I remember thinking to myself..." Why?!"  Where else can you hold a C-level position, make all kinds of mistakes, and still hold on to the majority of your dignity?  B-school and MBA 400 is the time to do it!  I hope that as more woman like Ursala Burns rise to C-level positions, their success will inspire other women in lower ranking positions to dream big, work smarter, and rise too.  I would also like to see those women who have achieved to that level help prepare, build the confidence of, and pave the way for their would-be women successors much like how Anne Mulcahy did for Ursala Burns.

Pink Magazine, a business magazine for women, reports that "The number of women CEOs among the Top 500 remains constant at 15 but is up from only eight since 2005, when PINK launched." 

(Note: I love Pink Magazine's free email newsletter called "Little Pink Book".  That's where I first learned about Ursala Burns.  Subscribe here: http://www.pinkmagazine.com/NewsletterSignup/SinglePageUserInfo.aspx?step=1)

 

This gives me hope.  Borrowing a quote from the last Little Pink Book newsletter, I'll leave you with:

"Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition" -- Timothy Leary

Do you not just love that?

JD/MBA joint degree program - Part 2, How It Works

    This is the continuation of the series on JD/MBA joint degree programs that I started over a month ago.  Here I will talk a bit about what happens once you are in such a program.

    As previously mentioned, the JD/MBA program at Suffolk University is a four year program (five years if part-time).  You spend your first year entirely at either the business school or the law school.  It is your choice. 

    Most Suffolk University JD/MBA students elect to spend their first year in the program at the law school.  I am not sure if there are advantages to starting with school over the other.  I know there is a class around legal issues in business that the business school will waive if you have completed the first year of law school.  My guess is that you could just put off taking that business school course until after you completed the first year of law school though.  Therefore, I think where to start is more of a personal choice than anything.

    I elected to start at the business school.  I figured it would be easier to adjust to going back to school (since I had been out for some years) if I took business classes, which I believe are taught and structured more like the courses I took in undergraduate school. Also, I studied engineering in college, so math really doesn't bother me. Law school to me is a totally different style of learning. For example, in the first year of law school there are typically no homework assignments and students are responsible for preparing for the final examination at the end of the term.  Your entire course grade is determined by the final exam.  In business school, homework may be assigned, especially for computation intensive courses, to allow you to practice and to correct errors in reasoning before the exams.

    No matter the choice to start at the business school or at the law school, spending an entire year at one school is beneficial because it  allows you to attend orientation and begin with your class at the school. You make friends, find study partners, and learn the ropes, etc.

    During year two of the JD/MBA program, you switch schools and take courses entirely at the other school.  Thus, I will begin my first year at Suffolk Law School this fall.

During year three and beyond, you can take courses at either school as your schedule allows so long as you fulfill your credit requirements at each school.

Power of an Alumni Network

I'm not sure what scares some MBA students most the thought of networking (we are afraid of rejection) or not actively networking (we won't get as much out of our MBA program as our peers).  So, just how important is networking anyway?

According to a New York Times survey performed independently by Beta Research Corporation "Hiring managers consider networking important for job candidates seeking positions in the professions (87%), executive management (82%), senior management (69%), sales (68%) and in technology-related (50%), administrative (45%) and entry-level (37%) fields." (Business Wire.  July 2, 2002.  Accessed: November 3, 2008. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_2002_July_2/ai_88192756.) Since most MBAs (with two years or more of work experience) are beyond entry-level fields, this article indicates that networking for MBAs is extremely important. 

If statistical facts aren't enough, one only needs to look to Suffolk MBA classes, like MBA 600 Effective Career Planning, to see the importance of networking. Recently, we spent an entire day out of this mandatory three day course to focus on networking alone. We learned that networking is best leveraged by drawing from many sources such as classmates, professors, co-workers, mentors, alumni, etc. We prepared a chart of personal board of directors to help us identify opportunities for increased networking among the people currently in our network.

One important relationship that MBA and JD candidates alike have that I think is often overlooked is that of alumni. 

When I was applying to school, I had the opportunity to attend a preview weekend at an east coast business school.  Since I was interested in a joint degree in business and law, I looked on the school’s web site to see if I could arrange a visit to the law school while in town for the b-school’s preview event.  I discovered that the law school was having alumni weekend during the weekend I would be in town and out of curiosity made my way to the registration page.  There was a selection to register as alumni, current, student and other.  The latter sounded like a good category to me, so I registered for the alumni weekend as “other”.  Yes, I am just that bold!  Imagine me, a lowly prospective student (and I’m not even sure I had taken the LSAT yet), sitting at a luncheon table with the school’s distinguished class of 1969.  It was quite wild, in fact.  After getting over the embarrassment of answering the question, “What year are you?” to which I replied, “Well, I haven’t actually applied yet… perhaps you can tell me why I should? What did you enjoy most about the school?” I really began to enjoy myself.  I went to all sorts of talks on industry related hot topics and the challenges alumni faced.  Moreover, I learned a tremendous amount about the school, profession, and life such as: the culture of the school, what kind of career options would be available to me one – fifteen years post graduation, how to survive law school and keep a marriage intact, what to and not do at school and after graduation, and where the best places in the country would be to get a job given my interests.  By the end of the weekend I was even invited to do a summer internship at an alumni-friendly firm!

Here is one more tidbit about alumni-friendly firms and why it pays to network with alumni.  Suffolk Law School was wise enough (kudos to Suffolk!) to put together a panel of alumni as well as current students to answer the questions of the perspective students at a preview event that I attended this past summer.  I ran into a friend of a friend at the event who happened to be an alumnus of Suffolk Law School (who knew?), and he recognized me from our undergraduate days.  After he learned of my interest in patent law, we exchanged business cards and agreed to keep in touch.  Just recently while working on a project for work, I noticed the name of the IP law firm involved in the project and thought it sounded vaguely familiar.  Sure enough, it was the firm on my friend’s business card and the lawyer involved in the project is my friend’s boss!  (Small world, huh?)  I have since been invited to visit the firm to learn about their operations.

While alumni are not the only avenue for networking, they certainly should not be overlooked.  Take a lesson from me, a semi-avid blogger yet prolific networker, swallow your fear and get to networking.

Happy Midterms!

Someone said this to me recently:  "Happy Midterms!" I think it was either someone on the faculty or from the admissions office.  Initially, it seemed like a nice (even cute) thing  to say to someone, but after further consideration I'm not sure anymore. I really don't think mid-terms can be happy. They are just one of the many things in life that we have do as students, so we suffer through them.  I am not all being cynical when I say this, just truthful.

As you can imagine, I'm kind of feeling stressed right now. I have three papers due, an accounting mid term exam, and I start a new class, operations management (1/2 term, 1.5 credits), in the next two weeks. To top it off, I started a new full-time job last week with a pretty steep learning curve.

Overall, the hardest thing for me has been getting back into the rhythm of school. For example, writing a paper is something I haven't done in quite some time.  Granted, I've written proposals, report summaries, speeches, and all types of copy for marketing collateral, but academic papers are different.  Last night I starred at blank screen for about ten minutes trying to write a thesis statement (I did remember that all papers must have one) before I remembered that I could just start writing and write thesis statement last.

The other thing that has become increasingly important is time management.  There are only so many hours left in a day after work.  By the time I get home, cook dinner for the family, and eat it's 9:30 PM.  I'm tired.  I have been up since 6 AM.  The last thing I want to do is write a paper about where I want to be in my career five and ten years from now.  I just know what I would like to be doing at the moment which is sleeping.

On a relatively good note, midterms during the fall term occur at the most beautiful time of year.  Autumn in Boston and all of New England is simply wonderful. There is a crispness to the air.  The colors of the leaves on the trees are unimaginable, and of the sort only nature can create.  Autumn really is my favorite season.  Right now, the weather channel (weather.com) is telling me that it is a temperate 68 degrees (F).  It's beautiful outside!  Too bad I have to study.

So is there any lesson to be learned from all this?  We recently learned about motivation in my organizational behavior class.  Applying the concepts to midterms, I imagine that receivers of a "Happy Midterm" greeting would be much "happier" if the greeting was accompanied with a gift, and preferably one that relieves stress.  Chocolate would be nice.