Posted by: joshua | 23 August, 2010

What I observed from MBA fair

I attended a MBA fair few week ago just because I was bored that day and wanted to know more about various MBA programs and their sales pitches. I’m already in middle of my pursuit for Master’s degree in Engineering, so MBA is something I don’t see myself doing for next 2-3 years. In my mind, MBA became exponentially popular in last 3 years as US job market tanked and unemployed people all went back to school to get their higher business degree to be more marketable in this hostile job environment. I was too, blinded by the starting salary after MBA program but eventually cooled down.

So with that in mind, I attended this MBA fair. They had some 30 school representatives handing out brochures and telling people how amazing their program is compare to other schools. I didn’t expect much from this MBA fair because I didn’t actually have any expectation, but it ended up really good experience and I just want to highlight few observations from this event.

1. Asians love MBA
Oh dear God. The place was filled with Asians! I’m not just talking about Asians from China/Korea/Japan, India, Southeast Asia, and even central-Asia students. I don’t know what it is with Asians and their obsession on MBA. Maybe it’s the money they’re after. I really don’t know why they believe MBA is such a must education for them. All I saw were bunch of engineering-background engineers (aka nerdy, thick-glasses, 5’7 and non-athletic looking) with 3.8GPA (some even had their resumes!) and trying to really dig out tips on how to get to schools they desire (mostly top 15 US schools). It was almost like they were there for interviews rather than meeting and trying to find out about the school (wasn’t this the purpose of fair?). They already knew everything about schools and just wanted to gain some insider tips.

2. International schools are cool!
Sometime after graduated, I read an article about international MBA becoming increasingly valuable and more credentials in US job market. They were cheaper, offer more international flavors and network opportunities, and shorter length. I found this very interesting and researched some of top schools from Europe. They are all taught in English and offer some unique educational opportunities. I missed out on study abroad during my undergraduate days and maybe this can be my ticket to overseas school.

Because of that, I was mainly attractive to overseas schools. Talked to all international schools that were presented and found out a lot of information about their recruiting process, program curriculum, and other unique projects. It was so interesting to me that I didn’t really care about US schools and just wanted to focus on international! US schools were more brutal – steep competition, limited networking opportunity (90% are US people), longer program = more cost.

I still think a lot of people disregard international school because they are afraid that those schools won’t offer great job opportunities after graduation (again, comes down to money!). For me, MBA is more about learning business ethics, networking with peers, entrepreneurship, and socio-economy.  International schools all offer that but because of lower starting salary, people don’t even look at them. At one point, I saw 25 people lined up to talk to Kellogg, but zero at this school from Netherlands.  It’s a shame.

3. Girls
There were a lot of girls. I think there were more girls than guys at the fair. It just looked weird to me. Maybe it looked weird because I have never been in a setting where there were more girls than guys (being Engineer, it never happens!). And they were all HOT! I wanted to apply for MBA just so that I can be classmates with these girls! (just kidding) It was interesting to see girls preparing for higher education especially MBA which is pretty difficult process and hard degree to earn. Most girls I know are even happy that they are out of undergraduate and vowed that they would never go back to school again (which I find bit shameful). It was great to see some of sharp ladies trying to bolster their knowledge and be leaders of business tomorrow.

Overall, I had a great time talking to many representatives. I was not nervous mainly because I didn’t have pressure to impress them like I had to do at career fairs. There were a lot of people, the entire room was filled with people, which was bit surprise for me considering this event wasn’t promoted heavily. I thought I was one of few insider knew about this event, but apparently so did 250+ people in DC.

I think MBA is here to stay. It helps you make a lot more for 2 years of education. It may be worth it if you’re in consulting, management, or banking, but I’m in Government. Not that it won’t help me do my job better, but it just won’t be as effective as getting a job with those three industries which I don’t plan to. We’ll see how it goes. I did obtain good information, so if I ever feel the need, maybe I’ll go oversea for a year to get my degree and return, until then I shall focus on my Systems Engineering.

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Posted by: joshua | 22 August, 2010

3 things we all need to invest in…

Shortly after I graduated college in December 2007, I started my very first job out of college. I was excited for the work and also very excited about opening up my 401(k) account now that I was a full-time employee (I wasn’t able to do so during my internships). I put money in there and just watch it grow! I also did some research and opened up a Roth IRA account (which I think every young professional should open up) so I can invest more for my future and perhaps early retirement! But then, economy crashed, I was heavily under the water and a year later, I lost my job…

I’m glad I have everything back. My 401K is now pretty healthy, Roth has rebounded nicely and up big, and have a job again. If you know, I’m not a big spender. I still have my 11-year-old car that barely runs at 65mph. I have a flip-phone that I got in 2005. I have a bulky GPS that my dad won it over gold-tournament in 2006. I don’t own a video game system, nor play computer games. I just don’t have many cool gadgets other 25-year-old dudes would die for. Because of my conscious spending habits, I was able to save up a lot of money and they were just sitting in my savings account. ING returned about 3% when I opened in 2007, but now returns a hair over 1% which I think is pathetic after inflation and taxes. I decided to take majority out and put them into stock market. At this time of writing, my portfolio is still under the water, but I’m not too worried because I won’t take them out for long time. I love reading investment news and following my companies because I have stakes with them now.

There are at least dozen different vehicles of investment options. Stocks, funds, bonds, treasury, real estate, etc. If you have money, you have many different ways to go about investing your money and grow your future. However, I’m not here to talk about how and where you should invest your money. I’ve been thinking. The life isn’t about how much money you end up with. After all, how do you determine you’re successful? There’s no numerical values for being successful. Everyone has their own measurement for success. I think if you have money, maybe you can invest in following three things instead of putting them into other investment vehicles revolving money. These three investments definitely will make you success I think.

1. Invest in your health
I don’t really get this point because I’m pretty healthy male. I have never had a serious illness nor surgery in my entire life. I have somewhat healthy eating habits, I don’t consume alcohol like crazy, I don’t smoke, and I exercise regularly to keep in shape. However, I believe it’s necessary to invest and keep an eye on your health level. People don’t know how important it is to keep their body in shape as they get older. The better shape they are in, the more focused they are, and less depressed. Eventually it all adds up to live a quality life.

I used to skip going to doctors for checkups. I know I’m fine and I use to think it is a waste of my time. But, with my health care coverage, those are free annually, so I go to those now and check my status – check my body fat, cholesterol levels and other measurements I now should keep up with since I’m not getting any younger. 1 out of 5 people in America is now obese, it’ll be great to stay in shape and be physically active as you get older since it’ll reduce your medical bills and you’ll feel much more pleasant about how you look. I believe paying more attention to my health now will eventually pay dividends later. Regular visits to doctors can avoid bigger treatments (thus big expense) later, healthy eating habits can shape you into looking good. Looking good can get you girls. Girls make you happy. Thus staying in shape means happy life for you. Formula works perfect. Invest in your health!

2. Invest in your education
I hate this topic. A lot of people I know go back and get master’s degree because they currently hate their jobs and/or they believe master’s will get them a lot more money later. The latter might be true for many cases, but I don’t think it’s the right reason to go back.

I’m a firm believer and support of life continuous education – meaning you never stop learning until you die. I tune to many CEO speakings, high-profile business leaders and they ALL believe that key to success and rich is keep learning new things and be open to new challenges and unknowns. Learning simply gives more wisdom. I read lots of self-developmental books for this reason – although I don’t believe they will serve direct impact on my day-to-day job with Government, but hopefully someday I’ll have opportunity to use those knowledge and earn dividends when I’m not expected. Opportunities come at unexpected times.

Going back to Master’s story – I’m currently pursuing my master’s degree in Systems Engineering. It’s a hard topic, a fairly broad field, but definitely something I find it interesting and relevant enough see myself using on my day-time job. I pursue this because I believe they will be beneficial for my future assignments, career development, and open more doors while I work for Government (doors that nobody can open because of competencies or knowledge). I would have been fine without the degree, thus I didn’t have to pursue it with my full passion, but I pursued it anyway hoping it’ll help me grow as an engineer with Government and as a wiser human.

I don’t believe it is wise decision to return to school because you don’t know what you’re doing now and grad school may help you find your true path. It’s a big investment for both time and money, so I think it’s important for young people to think really hard about the decision.

Read more books. Read more harvard business review. Tune to more podcast of business leaders. These can alone help you become more knowledgeable.

3. Invest in your friends
I have terrible skill of keeping people in touch. I say I will but never really follow-up with. Maybe that explains why I have so few friends. So I’ve decided to go out of my comfort zone and try to re-connect with my friends. I have close to 500 friends on my facebook accounts, but probably really friends with 50 or so. That’s pathetic. I notice I can’t keep in touch with everyone from my FB account, but I think it’s important for me to spend more time with my friends and invest in the friendship. Networking is a big buzz word these days. I hate how many organizations force people to network by leaving bulk of time for people to social. It’s awkward. I’d much rather socialize and meet people at events I’m interested. Maybe at soccer games, book clubs, restaurant weeks, whatever it is. Big corporate seminar networking groups, can’t deal with those fakers.

Anyway, every time I travel to different cities, I’m going to try to call people I know in the area for meetup. Maybe this way, I can actually re-connect with people I don’t normally talk. This way, when they come visit me in DC, they’ll open up and let me know that they’re in town for meet up. It’ll be all good.

Look. Life isn’t always about the money. I love investing and love watching my money grow in 401K, Roth, and Portfolio. They’ll be great help when I try to purchase big item such as car or house in near future. But I think I’m getting too focused on money investment when I should really focus on value investment like taking care of my body, my brain, and my friends. I won’t stop investing my money into those accounts simply because they’ll serve big purpose in my future. But now that I got my life in control, I will start focus and invest more on these 3 items. I think in the end, these 3 will pay even greater dividends for me.

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Posted by: joshua | 8 August, 2010

[trip report] Canada 2010

If you follow my blogs, you’d know that I have written a trip report on my Canada trip last year to Montreal and Ottawa. One of my best friends, Mao, initiated we go road-trip to Canada for 4th of July weekend 2009. I was bit pessimistic about driving up to Canada since it was going to take somewhat of 8 hours from New York to Montreal – and he suggest we do it OVERNIGHT! I’m not a night owl anymore like in college. I initially backed out, but he convinced me to go on the trip so we did. The main purpose of the trip was to do bungee jump in Ottawa. However, we failed miserably by not RSVP to the place and only had to watch people jump.

Fast forward to July 2010. We went up again. We were so disappointed that we didn’t get to do it so decided to give it one more try. We made sure we were on the RSVP list for the date and time so we don’t risk anything! Last year, I met two new friends, Kevin and Vivian. So four of us rented a zipcar in New York City. This year, Mao’s girlfriend joined and instead of Vivian, my college roommate Peter joined. I did more research on rental car this time and found out that if I were to rent a car from DC and drive up, it’d come up to be cheaper than renting it from New York City – plus I get to save my DC-NYC bus fare. I got a 4dr sedan from my neighborhood and picked up 4 other people from Jersey City (so we don’t have to drive into city and be lost!) and headed to Canada around 7:00pm EST on Friday, July 2nd.

The ride to Canada wasn’t all that bad. There were some minor traffic right outside of city since many other people were heading to upstate New York for long weekend. But after about an hour drive, we got to freeways and it was smooth ride from there. At that rate, we were going to be in Montreal by 4AM! And guys didn’t want to get a motel for some rest on the way. What did we do? We ended up parking the car by rest area and slept in a car. Remember, we have 5 people in the car and it’s fairly packed. Few guys couldn’t sleep inside, so they went to rest area building and spent the night there. It was cool outside, so we could have slept on benches, but way too many bugs so we would’ve literally saying “eat me” to bugs.

After few hours of rest, we kept on driving toward Montreal. We crossed the Canada border and things just look much more beautiful and clean. I know it’s probably not much different from US side, but there’s something about Canada and nature beauty.

Kevin, Mao, and I have already been to city of Montreal. We saw pretty good parts of the city last year and focused on things we didn’t see last year so it’d be a worthwhile trip for us too. We stopped by Habitat 67 like last year. We toured Olympic Park, McGill, St. Laurent and crazy fans of Germany (Germany had just beat Argentina 4-0), and clock tower. There are total of 192 steps for clock tower and you could up all the way to the top which is about 140ft. Our bungee is at 200ft! 140ft looked pretty scary… The guys were tired of walking around the city, so they rested nearby cafe while I took Peter to Mont Royal and the view of skyscraper of Montreal. The weather was absolutely amazing for the day. As we walked, it got hotter but we were mostly happy with the weather and attractions we visited. The foods could have been better but I picked the restaurants – so I guess I have to take blame for them.

After dinner, we left the city and headed toward to Ottawa. It’s only about 2.5 hour drive from Montreal but we decided to drive about an hour and rest the night at mid-point of two cities. Now, I was bit skeptical about this move. Canada is a big country but I bet you can’t even name 6 cities of Canada (you can if you’re a die-hard hockey fan). I swore there was nothing between Montreal and Ottawa. We drove two lane freeway for about 40 miles then came this small village. A village you’d see from a horror movie where there’s a psycho child and kills the entire population of village without anyone knowing. Then some strange travelers accidentally came into this town and discovered that whole town is burned down and chased by this grown-up psycho now. IT WAS THAT TOWN! The time is around 9:30pm and we’re now looking for the motel we booked for the night. I don’t see many lights nor restaurants opened. There are few houses here and there but not much. Luckily we did find that the motel we booked exist and greeted us with smile (a huge positive sign when you’re freaked out!). The rooms were clean and I eventually calmed down. Nothing went wrong that night except maybe Kevin freaking out because I was being somewhat homosexual to him (out of my goofy-ness, I’m not gay).

The next morning, we continued our drive to Ottawa. We decided to have a breakfast in this little village for the memory (other than me thinking Canada version of Texas Chainsaw). The foods were exceptional good! Fresh cooked everything! The potatoes were amazing and very cheap. Everyone’s meal was under $5 CAD! You can’t get breakfast for under $10 in USA…

Another beautiful day. Another scheduled arrive. We got to Ottawa without much trouble. I drove around the city and pointed out few things for Peter and Xiulan (Mao’s GF). The parliament, the hostel we stayed last year, etc. Then we drove toward our fear challenge – the bungee! It’s about 30 minute drive north of Ottawa. Mao was an excellent navigator – got to the site place on time for check in and watch people jump before us.

I gotta tell you. The bungee jump looks so fun and easy from the camp ground site. Just watching people fall and bounce up and down looks so much fun! (when you’re not tied to the rope of course…). It was our turn to head up. After 5 minutes of hike, we got to the bungee stand and couple of staff members greeted us. They told us how to jump, some preparation, and our weight. Apparently they do it by weight?! I don’t know, my heart was beating so hard I couldn’t hear what the other dude was saying. But he grabbed my arm and told me I’m up first. WTF!?! I haven’t had chance to calm my soul and be prepared for the jump, yet next thing I know, this guy is putting strap on my knee and checking the gears so I can jump. Some 18 seconds later, I found myself standing on the diving area, only attached to the rope and dude is counting down 5! 4! 3! 2! 1! ….. then there goes I….

I see myself getting closer to the water, then I closed my eyes for the splash. I opened my eyes later after 3-4 seconds, I’m up in the air again! Falling again! From there, I have no idea what’s going on…. All I see is water and some rocks around me, thinking when this will be over… Oh and my shoe felt off. No idea how… After bouncing 4-5 times, I finally was rescued by the staff on the boat and quickly directed me to the camp ground site. My shirt is somewhat wet and I don’t remember what just happened 30 seconds ago. But I gotta tell ya, it feels like a man to jump successfully and watch other people jump after me. I laughed so hard at people because I can relate myself to their positions! Mao, being the heaviest dude, went last and he splashed hard to the water! His entire upper body went into water and we heard some collision sound when he made contact with the water. Thankfully, he wasn’t hurt and made it safely.

After we all jumped, we quickly exited the bungee site since we couldn’t stand on watching anymore. All we talked about was bungee experience on our drive back to Ottawa. It was definitely worth $110USD we spent for a minute. Best way to spend your $100 bucks!

We did some sight tour of  Ottawa. Not much to see in this small city. Very clean though. It’s like small DC with fewer people and less noise. We grabbed dinner by Byward Market – the famous bar/restaurant scene in Ottawa and start driving toward US border. Last year, we spent a night in Ottawa and drove to New York City in the morning. Bad idea – we ran into a major traffic toward the city because everyone else heading toward city after long weekend up in upstate New York. We didn’t get back until 11:00pm and I took a midnight bus to DC. Got to DC at 4:30AM and went to work two hours later. Terrible idea!

So we drove the night before this time. We realized Ottawa isn’t worth spending much time. We got to US border around 10PM, drive an hour or so and got a motel for the night near Syracuse. We were able to get back to city quite early the next day and even had time to grab dinner with Peter and Kevin in Flushing area.

Overall, a better preparation, more research, and experience from Mao and I helped the trip be more smooth and enjoyable. I thoroughly enjoyed the tour although I’ve been here before. A new experience by bungee-jump, definitely something to talk to my children later on. I hope to visit both cities in Winter to see the contrast from Summer days.

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Posted by: joshua | 1 August, 2010

Family

I’m not a big fan of Thanksgiving nor Christmas holiday season. Not because I don’t like the tradition or eating massive amount of foods without any guilt, but because I don’t have big family like everyone else. Normally, I don’t really care about how big my family is, but when it comes to big holiday season, it comes with great emptiness in my heart that most of my family members are across the Pacific ocean. Oh, when I mean by family members, I mean uncles, aunts, and my cousins.

My family is pretty big one to begin with. My dad is 3rd child out of 4 and my mom is youngest out of 5. I have 3 uncles and 4 aunts total, but only 1 aunt lives in NY and even I rarely visit her. I hate the fact that all my family members are a distance from each other and can’t meet up during one of most celebrated season of the year. Thanks to technology, my parents would call my uncles and aunts in Korea and check up on them but after the long conversation, we usually end with great emptiness in our hearts because we can’t see them face to face and enjoy each other’s company. It’s really sad if you can picture the scene. When everyone else usually celebrate with all their family members gather, have a great time, reflect the year, and be joyful, my family don’t have that simply because we’re not together.

It has been almost 11 years since my family immigrated to United States. Since then, we didn’t look back and only moved forward and be somewhat financially stable and happy to live in this great nation. I have great job, my brother is finishing up his education, my parents are successful with their businesses in MA. We can definitely ask for more but we must not take this for granted since we came to this country with less than 3K in cash. To have what we have today, we have hit the lottery.

I try to keep in touch with my cousins and friends in Korea as much as I can. Too bad they don’t really use Facebook/twitter, otherwise we could have contacted more often since I’m on there daily.

Last weekend, one of my cousins visited my family in Boston and aunt in New York. Our grandmother (dad’s side) is really sick and in senior care housing. Because of her, my uncles and aunts visited at least once she has been battling her illness. She was the one of last ones to visit because of her job. I was especially excited to see her because we had great relationship back in Korea. I briefly saw her at Niagara Falls back in 2007 for like a day but that was too short to really catch up on our lives and different stuff. Part of me was really excited to see her and part of me was bit nervous to see her since it has been so long since we spent time together. Nevertheless, I met up with her in New York and spent some time in the city showing her around the Midtown and Time Square area – explaining some culture, foods, and ethics of America, especially the New York City metro area.

We later then headed to our aunts place in Long Island and spent the night there with her. We spent time just chatting different stuff from life in Korea, jobs, people, foods, how much the city has changed since I’ve been there, my uncle and aunts, and other things. It was really great talking with her and finding our new things. I guess the country I lived in 90s is no longer the same country I picture in my head.

This is exactly what I wanted in family gathering. My uncles and aunts come from different states (if they were living in USA), catch up on different stuff, lives, jobs, loves, and etc – having great time and laughing. I miss those days of Korea. Although I was very young, I remember the days we would go on vacation together, spent New Years and Thanksgiving Days together and enjoying each other’s company. It’s not the same anymore. We all grew up but most importantly we’re no longer together. I hate seeing Facebook status saying “All my uncles/aunts are here! Party Time!” or seeing Family pictures with Christmas tree in the background. I want to be uncle and see my nephew and niece (I am an uncle, but my nephew and niece are in Korea who probably don’t know they have a goofy uncle in America). I want to hold them and take them to zoo and museum and buy them endless amount of chocolates and ice-creams. But I can’t – not because I don’t have money, but I can’t physically be there for them. It hurts me greatly that I am so far away from them.

After seeing my cousin in New York and talking to her, I have decided to visit Korea sometime in near future. I always thought I could use that money to visit some other countries I haven’t visited, but I think it’s important that I see my family and update them on my family lives, how we’re doing here. I’m sure they’re curious about us as I am curious about them.

It was a great reminder of how precious and important family members are to me. I have forgotten about that because I couldn’t physically feel their presence all these years. I genuinely wish all my uncles and aunts were here with us in America. It would be cool to visit my uncle in TX, my aunt in Colorado, and another one in Wisconsin. That’s not going to happen. So the next best thing is for me to visit them. I really do miss them.

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Posted by: joshua | 17 July, 2010

Who I am in four english letters!

I recently took a training class required for my program. It’s a training on how to be a leader and develop your inner sklllset such as behavior, motivation, and character. The instructor required all of attendees to complete a short survey/quiz prior to taking the course; the course is called Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). I remember taking this course back in high school, maybe around 2002. I don’t exactly remember what it was back then since I spoke little english, but I do remember getting four letter character suppose to describe who I am. This time, I took a bit more time answering questions and the instructor revealed the results last week. I’m writing this because I think it’s exactly on the dot describing who I am. I’m hoping you can tell me whether this really describes who I am or not. It’s pretty scary how people developed a system telling your personality and character based on handful questions. Without much talk, here is the result (italic on the sentences that I believe is especially true on my personality).

Your Type Description: ESTJ

  • Practical, realistic, matter-of-fact
  • Decisive, quickly move to implement decisions
  • Organize projects and people to get things done, focus on getting results in the most efficient way possible
  • Take care of routine details
  • Have a clear set of logical standards, systematically follow them and want others to also
  • Forceful in implementing their plans

People with ESTJ preferences like to organize projects, operations, procedures, and people, and then act to get things done. They live by a set of clear standards and beliefs, make a systematic effort to follow these, and expect the same of others. They value competence, efficiency, and results.

ESTJs take an objective approach to problem solving and are tough when the situation requires toughness. They use their thinking primarily externally to organize their lives and work, and have little patience with confusion, inefficiency, and halfway measures. ESTJs are likely to be logical, analytical, objectively critical, decisive, clear, and assertive. They focus on the present – what is real and actual. They apply and adapt relevant past experience to deal with problems, and they prefer jobs in which results are immediate, visible, and tangible. ESTJs are likely to be practical, realistic, matter-of-fact, systematic, and pragmatic.

ESTJS are excellent administrators because they understand systems and logistics. They can project the steps needed to accomplish a task, foresee potential problems, assign responsibilities, and marshal resources. They cover all the bases, leave no loose ends, and get things done on time. When they see things are not working, they will plan and act to correct the situation. Otherwise, they prefer proven procedure and systems. Their orientation is to tasks, action, and the bottom line.

Because they naturally devise systems, procedures, and schedules, others rely on ESTJs to take charge and get things done. Others may also find them overpowering – ESTJs are so certain about how thing should be! Because they are clear and straightforward in their communication, people seldom have to wonder where they stand. ESTJs can be quite gregarious and generally enjoy interacting with people, especially around tasks, games, traditions, and family activities. They take relationship role seriously and fulfill them responsibly. Others usually see ESTJs as conscientious, dependable, decisive, outspoken, and self-confident.

Sometimes life circumstances have not supported ESTJs in the development and expression of their sensing and thinking preference. If they have not developed their sensing, ESTJs may decide too quickly before taking in enough information. Then their decisions will reflect their previously formed judgments or biases. If they have not developed their thinking, they may not have a reliable way of evaluating information and thus may end up making inconsistent or overly harsh decisions.

So, here they are. What do you think? I think this is scary right.

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