MBA Student Life

Dear Sarah,
Thank you very much for VERY informative answers.

My desired concentration is General management and career in supply chain or transportation industry. I like Duke's balanced and highly-reputed GM program, but I have problems gauging Duke's possibilities and reputation with supply-chain industry. Do you know something on that matter? In earlier messages you mentioned FMCG companies that hire at Duke, do you know whether positions in supply-chain management were offered?
Thanks!

Duke has a good reputation in supply chain and logistics. I typically shy away from referring to rankings, especially reputation based rankings such as US News. However, the ranking does provide a reasonable indicator of the strength of a school. Fuqua is in the top 15 when it comes to specialty ranking in the supply chain/logistics area. Bolded are the elite level business program, and Fuqua is again in the top of the pack (#8). As you mentioned, you want a balanced program. I believe Fuqua will offer that balance of strong specialty program along with strong overall business education.

2008 America's Best Graduate School: Business
Specialty Rankings: Supply Chain / Logistics

1 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Sloan)
2 Michigan State Univ (Broad)
3 Arizona State Univ (Carey)
3 Carnegie Mellon Univ (Tepper)
5 Pennsylvania State Uni--University Park (Smeal)
6 Uni of Pennsylvania (Wharton)
7 Ohio State Uni (Fisher)
8 Purdue Uni--West Lafayette (Krannert)
8 Stanford U
10 U of Tennessee--Knoxville
11 U of Michigan--Ann Arbor (Ross)
12 U of Maryland--College Park (Smith)
13 Northwestern U (Kellogg)
14 Columbia U
15 Duke U (Fuqua)
16 Georgia Institute of Technology
16 Indiana U--Bloomington (Kelley)
18 U of Wisconsin--Madison
19 U of California--Los Angeles (Anderson)
20 U of Arkansas--Fayetteville (Walton)
21 Harvard U
21 U of Texas--Austin (McCombs)
21 U of North Carolina--Chapel Hill (Kenan-Flagler)

When it comes to recruiting, companies like Apple, Amazon, etc. come on campus to recruit the best and the brightest students from Fuqua in their supply chain and operations department. CPG companies typically recruit for brand management positions at Fuqua, since we are one of the best marketing schools by far. That said, I believe thre are people who are doing supply chain internships at CPG companies such as Johnson and Johnson.

"Thanks" are appreciated.
Another good resource I found useful is www.gmatclub.com/forum, which has a more active forum.

Fugua2012 - thanks, your response time and quality is amazing.

From your POV, which club(s)/activities will be must to participate, given by goals (supply-chain career)?
I find General Management club attracting. These guys coordinate participation in MIT's Operation competition, which is a lot of fun/learning to do.

Vorskl, you are right on the money. It is definitely appreciated that you've done your research when it comes to schools.

The General Management Club is definitely a good resource for your career option. It is one of the largest club on campus. The MIT's Operations Competition is a very fun competition. We get a taste of the simulation in our Operations class. Another club that I would recommend is the Marketing Club, just because you are looking at the CPG companies. The Marketing Club has ties with many of the CPG companies, and you can leverage those connections to network into a supply chain role.

Hi,
I was deciding on my recommenders for 2012 application to Fuqua and I have an option of getting my recommendations from either:

- My two seniors at my workplace- My director and manager
-One of my seniors at work and the secretary of the non profit organisation that I work for as a volunteer

My long term goal is to take up social entrepreneurship and I have substantial volunteer experience in this field. Could you please let me know which choice would be preferred by Fuqua.

Also, my recommender was enquiring about the preferred length or word limit for each recommendation. Would anyone have an idea about this.

Thanks a lot for your input.

Hello - apologies for the delay, as the school year has begun again and things are very busy. I am only equipped to answer questions around the student experience at Fuqua because of my own experience; I'm not involved with admissions so cannot comment on what might be stronger/better in terms of recommendations and any details around their submission like length, etc. My gut would say choose the folks that know you better vs picking a higher title. But to be sure, I'd reach out to [email protected] and ask... sorry could not be of more help.
--sv

Hi Sarah,

You are doing a wonderful job here. Thanks for answering the questions.

I am applying to Fuqua this year. I am interested in product management and marketing role post MBA in technology industry. Since you are also the President of Hi-Tech club, you are the best person to tell me about the internship opportunities at companies in Silicon valley especially in product management area.

What all companies come to offer internship for product management role. And what is the current situation at Fuqua, given the US economy has not recovered. Is it difficult?

Is there a strong alumni network of Fuqua graduates in silicon valley and does Hi-Tech club helps in getting in touch with them?

Thanks.

Hi - So sorry for any delay in response...school has started back up again and with a ton of leadership commitments it's been extremely busy!

Correction: I am a CO-president of the club =)

To note, the role of a product manager in title varies greatly between tech companies. In some, it's more strategic, others, it's more go to market/brand management focus (under the Marketing group), and others it more on the development side with the engineers and designers (within a development group). Some other relevant titles with overlapping responsibility (depending on company) are business development, product planners, project managers, and program managers. Some care more about engineering tech backgrounds, while others don't.

Also, tech isn't just in the Bay area, and recruiting reflects that. For example, we had someone go work in Google's Sales org in New York, and others went to Texas for Dell, AT&T, and Samsung. And don't forget Seattle!

While hopefully probably saw the list on our club website of tech companies that have recruited from Fuqua, specifically the ones with PM that come to mind are Microsoft, HP, and Amazon. While others don't come recruiting for that role, can definitely find your way to PM eventually (e.g. go in for general management, operations, strategy, etc). It hasn't seemed more difficult than any other roles to get into. The main strain on a student that in terms of on campus recruiting, the timeline is a bit longer/later than others (e.g. Finance folks know what they have for summer after interviews in early January) and have to also decide how much effort one wants to put into off campus roles, especially for companies that come for a different role that what you desire (e.g. Intel came for Finance).

We're trying to be a bit better about our alumni network. The alumni database is very useful and almost anyone will give a student 15 minutes of their time for an informational if asked. At some companies we're a bit better (Microsoft) than others in terms of keeping in touch. We definitely start with alumni when we reach out for Tech Treks (company visits during fall & winter breaks) and include alumni for any happy hours we have while in those cities. We contact them to come speak at our events (e.g. Symposium) and we're also starting a new Skype series so if they can't fly out, we can still invite them to speak.

Hope that helps,
--sv

yes. I like it. And I know that Sarah personally. So, can I know that how to help by me through Sarah?

Hi Sarah,

I have around 7 yrs of work exp in telecom domain and I am looking out for a General Management+ strategy program.

I attended Duke info session in India and I am really impressed by its collaborative learning concept and its curriculum.

Can I know something specific about telecom sector?What all companies come to offer internship for telecom strategy/ telecom consulting role?

Are some telecom companies recruiting at Fuqua ?

Hi Sarah,
Thanks for taking time off to answer so many queries. Info has been really helpful.
I want to pursue career in Telecom Domain as Business Development Manager. I wanted to know if any current student is also having similar interest.

Hi all apologies for any delay -- school has been quite busy, SY's are in the middle of recruiting season, and my club just had our biggest annual event this week, the High Tech Symposium, so am a bit behind on prospective student emails and questions.

Unfortunately I am not in the best position to answer very detailed questions about career tracks -- admissions and the career center may have better data on that. Also, with over 400 students in my class as well as the class behind, me, of the folks I personally know I'm not sure of anyone specifically looking into BD management within telecom. AT&T and Verizon have been on campus, but I'm sure I've missed others since that is not my focus.

If you have any questions about student life, let me know!

Thanks Sarah..

what non academic activities you like at Duke and why?

Thanks Sarah.
Can you share in which all areas course has met your expectation and where it has disappointed you?
Also, which are things that surprised you in Duke Culture and pedagogy.

Non academic activities that I like... Disclaimer: I'm SUPER involved, which is not for everyone. I'll try to keep this short, but there's a lot of activities I like...such as...
High Tech Club -- I'm co-president, I kinda have to like it =)
FuquaVision -- have been on cabinet both years...love editing videos and making people laugh
COLE -- center of leadership and ethics. am Cole Fellow, and appreciate the emphasis Fuqua places on leadership and personal development (some required pre-term activities give you credit for doing just that!)
Admissions -- last year I volunteered in the lounge, was a class visit host, and gave tours. This year I have less time, but I've still been a class host.
Culinary club -- do fun things like goat cheese tasting at prodigal farms, chocolate progressive, and the annual iron chef competition
Around the world dinners (organized by MBAA; students host randomly assigned students for small meals)
MBA Games -- do a ton of stuff during the year to raise money for NC special olympics, main event has other b schools fly in an compete, and all teams have special athletes
Distinguished speaker series -- get to hear top minds comment on various topics
Fuqua Speaks -- kind of like toast masters, a safe place to practice speaking
Fuqua Improv -- work on skills we tried during pre term activities (as well as the winter workshop/class that about 100 students a year do)

(I could go on and on...we must have about 50 clubs. you can make one if you see a need not filled... e.g. the Business in Africa club just started last year!)

Met expectations: team environment
Disappointed: I don't think i'm disappointed per se, but being student run can have its downsides, like people being stretched too thin or things not getting transitioned well and feeling like you're reinventing the wheel sometimes

Surprised about culture: how strong "team fuqua" is -- regardless of the curve, you can ask anyone to help you in a class and they'll stay up late for you. or they'll come out of an interview and if you're next and there's time, give you any quick tips they can to help you prepare. we're not about cut throat competition. we're about giving back and paying it forward.

surprised about pedagogy: I actually didn't think about this till I did classroom visit hosting, but prospectives are sometimes wow'd by the amount of participation that takes place / that is expected. it's not just lectures!