Field Report: Wharton West Coast Trek Sample

Thought I'd pass along my account of a day that I took to participate in the Wharton West Coast Trek, which concludes tomorrow. A few of our classmates will be missing the start of Term 3 tomorrow to participate.

The purpose of the trek is:"Student-managed visits to companies in various industries on the West Coast for the purpose of education and networking.". There's a big auction and students can bid points on the companies that they want. It's all managed and administered on the Webcafe website.

Here's some additional info from the fact sheet on the Trek:

• Audience: MBA 1st & 2nd years; WEMBA 2nd years (WEMBA 1st years if space permits)
• Trek Dates:Bay Area / So. Cal: Tuesday Jan. 2nd – Friday Jan. 5th
• Industries: Bay Area: Healthcare/Biotech, Technology, PE/VC, Real Estate, CPG/Retail, IB,
• IM, Consulting*; So. Cal: Real Estate, Healthcare/Biotech. Media & Entertainment, Consulting*

Some initial thoughts:

• The West Coast Trek is really good for getting a broad introduction into what it like to work in different industries and companies that are hiring traditional FT MBA grads. As an engineer, I had no idea what it was like to work in the traditional MBA-ish areas that I wanted to explore.
• I took a balanced approach to it, and selected one company in Venture Capital, Private Equity, and Investment Banking. The companies I chose were: Texas Pacific Group (PE), Morgan Stanley (IB/RE), and New Leaf Ventures (VC Healthcare). There were a lot of other types of companies and industries that I did not visit, but there are some WEMBA students who went to those. For example, talk to Loren if you want to know how the Bare Escentuals tour was! Alice went to Clorox.
• It was time well spent and totally worth it. I am glad that I did it as a first year student. It's on my must do list for next year.
• If you wait until next year to think about what you want to do after Wharton, it will be too late. Gotta start now. I'm really glad that I decided to participate prior to starting a new job next week. In talking to Zia, who's also in the same boat with a new gig, he also felt the same.

Here's my account of the day:
10:00am-11:45am Texas Pacific Group. We met in the lobby at 9:45am and then proceeded to head up to TPG's conference room, which sat about twenty people, all dressed in formal business attire. I ran into Zia in the lobby, so there were two of us from WEMBA Class32 there. Another comment: those FT MBAs sure look young. Heck, they *are* young! One of them asked me if I was Enoch Lee, who appears to be quite famous amongst Chinese women from HK in the FT program. Of course I said I wasn't, but that I knew him well. :)

12:00-12:45pm Lunch. Met up for some lunch with Zia, Enoch and Loren in the building where the next trek event was at: 555 California. All the investment banks are in that building.

1:00-3:00pm Morgan Stanley. We got 15 minute slots from a bunch of different groups: Corporate Finance, Financial Sponsors, Private Wealth Management, Fixed Income, Prime Brokerage, and Real Estate. It was a whirlwind tour of the different groups within MS. WEMBA students there: Alice, Ken, Peter, Richard and Jenn were all at the event.

3:00-4:00pm Rush out of Morgan to go get my car. Paid $27 for parking (ouch, but hey, its SF), and then sped down 280 to Sand Hill Road. Yeah, yeah, I went just a littttle fast. But I just made it down the Penninsula in time for New Leaf Ventures.

4:00-5:30pm New Leaf Ventures. Saw Masha and Haitao at the meeting, which was a Healthcare VC. Man, I thought they did some technology, but I was wrong. It was interesting to see their office in the same complex as Accell/KKR and Matrix Partners.

Takeaways:

• Sign up early. If you are a WEMBA first year, we get a total of ZERO bid points. Which means that whatever is leftover from the FT program and WEMBA second years is open to us. Not really that great.
• Get your best suit ready ahead of time. In my field, we NEVER wear a suit. I had to get mine altered. I must say that everyone was styling today, so much so that I almost didn't recognize some people. I am sure they didn't recognize me.
• This trek is very good and worth the time. I recommend it to all first years who are exploring what they are going to do post-Wharton.
• It would be even better to have a WEMBA only version targeted for more experienced job seekers. We should work with the Career Management office or Class 31s to do something for next year. At least we'd get auction bid points. If we try to do this, it would require us to start now.
• Most firms are only hiring a few interns and full-timers, and I'm sure it's really competitive. For example, TPG had 1-2 summer intern positions open.
• There are quite a few different types of investment banking jobs. It is not sufficient to say "I want to be in IB", you gotta know where in IB.
• Most people at the companies had heard of Wharton West. Some had not, so we still have some marketing and awareness to work on.
• Quote on working in IB: "Investment banks are coin-operated. Pay us more and you get better service."
• A shot on consulting careers from a former BCG consultant: "Consulting is for all those MBAs who don't know what else to do."
• Some quotes about working in VC, since I know many of us are considering it:

"If you want to work in VC, don't do it for the money. Go work for a hedge fund."
"Most of the conversations you have outside the firm are uncomfortable conversations. You say no 90% of the time."
"A VC job is about getting to no quickly."
"We don't build companies. We manage money."

• We also got some great advice on searching for a job via networking.
• WEMBA suffers from not having career services locally on the West Coast. Those in Philly are at a distinct advantage. The school tells us that they are going to fix this; we'll see if it will help our cohort or not.

There were also a few social events during the week with Columbia and MIT. A group of Stanford FT MBAs was sighted walking around today as well. In addition, there was an Alumni Event tonight at Oola which I didn't make it to.

It's late and Term 3 starts tomorrow, so I'm out for now. But it is nice to think about the light at the end of the long journey we are on...

-Chairman P