MBA program. Post 1/6 (Singapore, May 2015)

Readers note:

I finally graduated on August 27th after a 15 month program, which included going to Singapore 2x, LA 2x, Shanghai, Bangalore, and Delhi. I received official MBA degrees from both NUS (National University of Singapore), ranked as the top overall university as well as top business school in all of Asia. I also received my MBA from UCLA Anderson School of Management, based in Westwood Los Angeles, which is usually ranked in the top 10 of USA MBA programs and has many famous alumni. I don't like bragging, but it feels good to write the above, as it was a lot of hard work and glad to be able to reap the rewards of being a graduate of both programs. I of course wouldn't have accomplished graduating from the program without the support from my wonderful wife Christie. Actually, I wasn't even planning to apply to the UCLA-NUS GEMBA (Global Executive MBA) because I didn't think I was good enough, but thankfully Christie built up my confidence enough to apply.

When I arrived in Singapore in May 2015 for this first session, I was in a much different place personally and career wise then I ended up 15 months later when I graduated. More on this to come, throughout the blog series. In May '15, I was working in San Francisco for a series b stage tech startup called Sosh. I enjoyed the responsibility and had a supportive boss, but wasn't totally bought in to what I was doing, and the size of the company meant there was a lot of vision, without action, since everything I wanted to do was put off until we raised our next round of funding. My responsibilities included HR Operations, Recruiting, facilities, internal communications, and IT support. Basically the random stuff that didn't directly fit in someone else's bucket. I was technically on the exec team, which met every Tuesday, but I was the least important person on the leadership team. In fairness, we had some very impressive people with great backgrounds, including Stanford, Google, Bain Consulting, McKinsey, Microsoft, etc... I had graduated from a school no one had heard of, Southern Illinois University, and HR by nature is usually undervalued as well, especially in startups, where it's about 2 things: can you hire impressive talent, and can you bribe them with perks so they work long hours! Sosh was no different in this regard, and full of entitled brats in their 20s complaining that we were constantly running out of hummus, despite knowing the company was hurting for funding.

My claim to fame with Sosh was that although my IQ wasn't blowing anyone away, I had done some interesting things, like the LendingClub IPO and had my own business before. Needless to say, my confidence wasn't super high though, because I didn't feel like I was adding a ton of value as a company leader, partially due to our holding pattern waiting for money, I was relatively new to the company (less than 9 months in), and didn't feel like a natural culture fit as a 30 something amongst entitled kids. My confidence also was lower than normal due to my on again-off again speech impediment.

I've dealt with stuttering and stammering most of my life, since I was around 13 or 14, in middle school, which is an awful time to have difficulty speaking. In undergrad, I turned it on its head and became a talented speaker, often giving speeches in front of groups for my student orgs. In my 20s and 30s it was off and on, depending on the type of role I had in my company and the confidence level. Unfortunately for me, from early '13 through the time at Sosh, I was stuttering and stammering quite a bit, and had a difficult time speaking first in a conversation. Perhaps I was thinking too much, but the words just wouldn't naturally come out. For someone who has never had an issue speaking, it's difficult to describe, but I could know what to say and be excited to say it, but if my mind and tongue weren't in sync, it was a nightmare.

Now, back to Singapore. It's hot! It's humid! It's sticky! About 85 degrees and 90% humidity. I had known a small group via skype for our Services Marketing class, but otherwise, it was my first time meeting the 35 others in class.

Right away I was nervous and anxious, and completely sweating through my dark blue dress shirt, which was a terrible choice for the first day! Singapore is famously sweaty outdoors and frigid indoors due to the high capacity air conditioning units. The short walk over to the business school combined with general first day jitters, plus being surrounded by loud, confident, and accomplished professionals caused a lot of sweating!

As we settled in to class, we all spoke and introduced ourselves around the room. I quickly realized I was at a natural disadvantage due to being "the HR guy" of the class, and not a good communicator. The rest of the class was full of confident expats, the cream of the crop. Everyone was successful in their own right, being from ages 35 to 50+ and in leadership roles for great companies. Many had been in expat roles, meaning, living in a different country than home, and leading a team. This program would take them from director level to chief level (hopefully). Their backgrounds were in the more technical parts of business, such as, finance, accounting, marketing, IT, and general management. Even in 2015, HR was still a fluffy field of touchy-feely and most people in the program had bad experiences of HR from their own companies, so they projected on me. In summary, my confidence had an uphill battle to climb just to feel like I belonged.

Here is the first official class photo from day 1

I decided to stay in the dorms. In the picture below, this is Eusoff Hall. Most of the others stayed in really nice furnished apartments in a complex across from the university, called Kent Vale, which was a grouping of modern high rises. They had high speed internet, a lap pool, fitness center, and it's own in-suite washer and dryer. Eusoff had none of those things! It was dorm living for me! In fairness, I chose those without knowing who the others in the program were and where they would stay. Also on the map, Eusoff was a short 8-10 min walk to the business school, where I would spend most of my days. Below is my dorm room, where I stayed for about 2.5 weeks.

Above is my clothes drying on the clothes line. I had envisioned the benefits of being a short walk to class, but I didn't realize how much I would sweat through everything just for walking 8-10 minutes! There was a lot of laundry, which meant clothes drying on clothes lines.

This picture above is with the original team I was matched with for Services Marketing class. Over the program, I built some nice bonds with (from L to R) Maresuke (Japan), Dagnis (Latvia), and Rob (USA), Sarthak (India), and Ben (Singapore). I especially built strong friendships with Maresuke and Rob.

In the above picture was our first party night. This was after being in school with everyone for a full week and completing a final exam. It was stressful for many of us, being back in school from 8am to 8pm, doing group work, studying, and also working on our day jobs. For many of us, it had been at least 10 years since our undergrad days, so studying was not like riding a bike! We all really let loose. I ended up staying out until 5am, but it was well worth it. I realized that the friendships were generally built over beers rather than over books.

During the first few days of the first few sessions, the Americans quickly established themselves as the loudest, often dominating class discussion, and even planning of the outings, despite the fact we were in Singapore! My personality by nature, and my speech impediment, kept me more on the reserved side. I tended to feel more comfortable in smaller groups rather than raising my hand in front of the entire class. It generally takes me a few days to warm up to people naturally, and I wasn't sure if this was going to be a program where I built great friends, or we ended up just meeting up every so often as classmates. It turned out to be friends, but it took me a few segments for this to sync in, so I was a little more reserved in Singapore segment.

Here was a picture from a class field trip to World Famous Changi Airport, rated consistently as a pride of Singapore and the most well run and highest rated airport in the world. It was interesting to learn more about it.

From an academic side, during this session we had:

Macroeconomics

Microeconomics

Services Marketing

Below is the Teaching Assistant explaining exchange rate formula, part of Macroeconomics

All the professors were top notch. I especially liked the Services Marketing prof, and have stayed in touch with him post session as he had connections to Singapore startup scene. The macro teacher was interesting. Korean born, and eventually the Chief Global Economist for Goldman Sachs in Asia! Wow, what a resume. He turned out to be a horrible teacher, but an amazing story-teller. He was one of the key players behind the Asian financial crisis and sinking on Korean won and Thai bhat! Incredible. The microteacher was my least favorite as he was a career academic, which I tended not to have much patience for. I got As or Bs in the classes and moved on to LA. The cramming of the sessions was tough, as we consolidated a whole semester into 2 weeks, but in the end, I had a good time.

During the segments, we would send across memes to each other on whatsapp, the free global chat app to share our frustrations with being back in school and really confused!

Below picture is after we completed the 3rd final exam (and last exam) of the first segment! Celebrating at the bar on campus at NUS.

This picture is from top of Marina Bay Sands, taken on the end of the 2nd week of our program in Singapore. This is one of the crown jewels of Singapore and an incredible view. It was fun celebrating with everyone this final night.