MBA

Mental Math: Years to Double an Investment

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Sharing a very simple, but handy mental math rule that was mentioned in quite a few of our MBA classes, such as Investment Styles and Strategies, Designing Financial Models that Work and others:

If you want to quickly ballpark the # of years it will approximately take for an investment to double, then just divide 72 by the annual growth rate. For example, if your investment grows 7% a year, it will take slightly more than 10 years for it to double (72/7). But if it grows 36% a year, it will only take about two years to double (72/36). 

You can read more about this “Rule of 72” on Wikipedia. Now, you now you can come across as a math genius without much effort 😉

My interview about MBA experience

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I might risk sounding like an egotistical douche posting my own interview on this blog. But I think some parts of my conversation with Accepted.com might be helpful to other MBA applicants and those who are simply curious about MBA. Otherwise, just skip it.

A small caveat: I am not affiliated with any of MBA admissions consulting companies in any way, including Accepted which just found me a couple of months ago trough this blog. Even though some people might benefit from such help, I believe that it is absolutely possible to plan admissions and prepare independently. So, I am not endorsing the company in any way as I simply do not have any experience and cannot evaluate their services.  Anyway, for those who are interested in MBA journey, here is our conversation:

Accepted: First, can you tell us a little about yourself? Where are you from? Where and what did you study as an undergrad? What year are you at UC Berkeley Haas? 

Max: My name is Max. I am currently getting my MBA at University of California Berkeley, Haas School of Business, in the class graduating in 2015.

I am originally from Russia, Tyumen City. I graduated in International Economics and Business from one of the best regional universities and then moved to Moscow in 2008 for the next five years and then to the US in 2013 to start my MBA.

Accepted: What is your favorite thing about Haas so far? And if you could change one thing about the program, what would it be? 

Max: What I like most about Haas are the people. It is inspirational and fun to be around people who have so much in common with you but at the same time offer such diversity, coming from different backgrounds, career paths and countries. It really makes you reflect on your strengths and weaknesses and widen your perspective. Actually, I recently blogged about things I liked most about Haas, among them are the school’s focus on technology and entrepreneurship, its location close to the Silicon Valley and being a part of large top university.

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Why Berkeley-Haas

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People sometimes ask for my reasons behind choosing Berkeley-Haas among other schools.

Berkeley. Is MBA worth it

Shortly, these are the reasons:

  • It is a part of a larger top university.
    • For instance, I do not think I would enjoy going to LBS or INSEAD as much. These are great business schools, but these business schools are not part of larger universities.
    • There is something special about being on campus with ~30 thousand smartest students from all over the world who also major in fields other than business.
    • For example, UC Berkeley is currently top 1-2 in Computer Science, top 1-5 in Physics and top 1-3 in Mechanical Engineering.
  • Location, location, location. Not only because it is sunny California, but because being close to Silicon Valley opens many career opportunities that are highly germane to my vision.
  • Focus on technology and entrepreneurship.
  • Believe it or not, but the I find the defining principles personally appealing.
  • Great brand and good rankings do not hurt as well.
    • But in particular, I liked the fact that Haas ranks well on the “Student evaluation” axis, it is #2 in “Students’ evaluation of career services” and quite high overall “Student rating of the program (out of 5)”, 4.56, according to The Economist 2013 rankings.
  • I really want to add “people” to this list of Berkley-Haas strengths, but this would be probably unfair as I cannot compare to other schools as I could not know it for sure before starting the program.

The list could go on and on and on, but these are probably the main ones top-of-mind. Of course, there are drawbacks as well, but no one schools is perfect.

Let me know what you think!

Self-reflective speech MBA exercise

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MBA is not only about studying finance and accounting and solving cases, we also have multiple courses on leadership. One of them was focused on communication aspect. And as part of this course we had to deliver various two-minute speeches in front of the group of 10 people. Then, we received a feedback. Speeches were also recorded for later personal review.

Topic of each speech was different, but I found the first one the most interesting as it provoked certain self-reflection during preparation. So, I thought that you might want to try exercise by yourself. If you do not have a group of people to present in front of, just imagine an audience and record a video with a smartphone and watch it. The first topic was very simple: “Who am I?”

Also, we were given several hints or questions we might consider answering while preparing or delivering a speech:

  • What forces have shaped you, what real challenges have you faced? 
  • What do you care about in life?  
  • What’s an unexpected characteristic, or interest, or talent?  
  • Who is most important to you?  
  • Where are you vulnerable?  
  • What is a long-term aspiration you hold? 

And here is a couple of questions to ponder when watching your video:

  •  Articulate what stands out for you watching your “Who Am I?” video. What are you pleased with? What do you specifically want to improve?

So, this is it. Hope, you find it helpful.

For me personally the most interesting part was to see how differently other nine people approached the same exercise.

How I (did not?) beat the GMAT

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Disclaimer

In this post I want to share my experience of preparation to GMAT test and advice on some “DOs and DON’Ts”. It will only be interesting for those who want to pass it and already know what GMAT is, what it is for, and how it is generally structured. Others will probably derive no benefit from reading this article.

So, as we assumed that you have a basic understanding of how test works (if you do not, I would recommend that you read the Wiki article about it), let us skip all the introductory information about the test and dive right into the preparation, my experience, and advice.

gmat test

 

Full disclosure

I think, it would be fair to start with my own result to manage everybody’s expectations. Who knows, maybe some of you will leave after this part…

I took the test twice and scored exactly the same, 710. Q49 and V38 — first time and Q48 and V39 — second time. It is the 92th percentile. In other words, 92% of those who took the test did worse while 8% of them did better . Ironically, I received 6.0 out of maximum 6.0 for Analytical Writing Assessment, GMAT section I almost did not prepare for.

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Math brainteasers from GMAT, 1

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So, I also started preparing for this awesome GMAT exam. And now Saturday and Sunday mornings are devoted to studying which I haven’t been doing for years.So far, I try to learn concepts from Divisibility, Primes, Odds & Evens, Consecutive Integers and other amusing topics.

This is the first and test post in which I’d like to share few exercises that make me break some sweat. Let’s see if anybody is going to be interested. If yes, I might continue the series.

So, how about solving these 5 exercises?

 

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