As Bryan Young says “Being a parent in business school is tough, but so worth it!  Throughout my time at Foster, I have had to prioritize my family over social events, but it has never felt like I am missing out. We have developed a parent and kids’ room during our monthly TG (big party) where parents can hang out together and have a drink while their kids watch a movie or work on a craft. It will all be more than worth it to have my kids cheer for me when I get to go across the stage during graduation. “

Bryan Young and his family

Priya Gupta says” Living the life of a fulltime B-school student and parent is always challenging. However, in this journey, I have been able to identify a few key strategies that have helped me get the most out of my MBA and fulfill my duties as a parent. One of the most important things I did at the start of the year was to set my priorities and decide not to have any regrets. At B-school, there are always more things to do than humanly possible, and therefore, it is important to prioritize things and manage time effectively. Finally, I was pleasantly surprised by the cooperation I received from my peers. I have received help and support, sometimes even before I asked for it, and I am really grateful to my peers for that.”

Priya Gupta and her daughter Tanya

The kids’ room at the TG is definitely a hit with kids and parents alike, and it’s common for fellow Foster students to volunteer to spend time with their classmates’ kids by conducting activities.One of the new entrants to the parent circle is first-time parent Graham Bullis who became a father at the end of the first year of his MBA.

Graham Bullis says” Since school has started back up, the balance lies between being home and social life. During the first year of the MBA I was able to say yes to all kinds of events that the program offered, but now I trade those experiences for time at home. Sometimes the FOMO hits hard, so I delete Instagram from my phone, so I can’t see the fun being had. Other times I remember there are way too many opportunities for us and you’ll always miss out on something.

Being the newest parent of our class, I am extremely impressed with the other parents that are able to manage and balance all the priorities. It is a steep learning curve for me right now, but I’m loving the process. The truth is, none of my MBA experiences are possible without my wife supporting me and putting forth tremendous effort to raise our son while I attempt to learn finance and big data.”

Graham Bullis’s son Charlie

Yasar Ammar says ”Managing first year of B-School with our five-year-old daughter was not easy. Life was tough. But thanks to my wife’s support and my classmates’ understanding, I was able to manage both my responsibilities as a student and as a parent. My team-mates were always happy to accommodate my request for joining meetings remotely, whenever possible. That enabled me to devote more time to my family while also contributing to team deliverables.  Values like empathy, understanding, support, and compassion are at the core of Foster’s culture – values which distinguish us as a great school and as a community of friends.”

With meticulous calendar planning, supportive classmates and timely hugs and kisses from their little ones; parents at Foster can maximize their MBA experience. They get to prepare for their post MBA career with confidence and honestly believe that they will be able to succeed in a new role while prioritizing their most precious responsibilities.

The post Work-life Balance Strategies from Foster MBA Moms and Dads appeared first on Foster Blog.

Preparations for summer internships start as early as Autumn quarter with Foster students engaging in networking and case preparations for consulting internship opportunities, which are the first to arrive on campus. Networking, a term synonymous with every MBA, is a great way to learn about various roles and organizations. With plenty of supportive Foster alumni present in the Seattle area, a friendly coffee chat is just an email away. Consulting internships offer students a great chance to experience the breadth of an industry and pick up critical technical and interpersonal skills.

As Gina Johnson (MBA 2019) says “I was an operations improvement consultant intern at ECG, a management consulting firm specializing in provider side healthcare. I got to work on eight different client projects this summer, giving me opportunities to apply lots of new MBA skills I learned in the first year, learn more about different aspects of the healthcare industry I hadn’t previously been exposed to, and see firsthand what a career in consulting could be like!”

However, some Foster MBAs don’t get to experience the beautiful Seattle summer because they find themselves solving challenging business problems in different parts of the country. From Samsung in New York to Facebook and Dell in Austin and LinkedIn in the Bay area; Foster MBAs affect change, coast to coast. Andrew Caponi (MBA 2019) was a product manager at Facebook’s Austin office this summer, and he was able to soak up some sun and drive tangible impact for the social networking giant. As Andrew says “This summer, I worked on Facebook’s Risk and Payments team providing analytical support to product managers.  After gaining an understanding of the business, I created a product health monitoring framework and build a real-time tool that provided managers with quantitative guidance on where to invest in product quality and integrity as they scale. I thoroughly enjoyed my time at Facebook and was very appreciative of the resources they provided me which allowed me to make an impact in a relatively short period of time. “

Another power team that made way out of Seattle for the summer was David Cone and Catherine La Plant who made sure Intel’s finance team had access to some sharp business minds for the summer. Talking about his experience at Intel in Portland, David (MBA 2019) says” This summer I spent my time learning what it means to be a finance professional at Intel. Over the course of my internship, I had the opportunity to use the skills I learned in my classes and test out my career switch from information technology to finance. Although I was nervous about such a big switch, I was able to lean heavily on a fellow classmate, Catherine LaPlant, that also interned at Intel. Overall I had a great experience and would highly recommend Intel for future MBA students at Foster.”

Summer internships during your MBA are a great way to learn new skills, put your knowledge to the test and explore roles and industries that may be of potential interest to you. The staff and faculty at Foster, current students, and the alumni across the globe will help ensure that you have a summer experience that is not only fulfilling but also filled with fond memories that you can bring back to your second year of B-School.

The post Conquering the Summer:Foster MBA Interns appeared first on Foster Blog.

My team worked with Google on a project relating to the marketing landscape in the technology space. Since all the students on my team signed NDAs prior to working on this topic, I can’t share too many project specifics. Over the course of 10 weeks my team researched the technology advertising landscape, identified industry best practices and examples, and ultimately provided Google with a set of strategic recommendations.

What surprised me the most, in a good way, was how the experience was so much more than a marketing project. Through the project I got to wear many hats; from consulting, when we were researching, digging for data and providing recommendations; to operations when we went about planning the project timeline and deliverables. One of the more challenging aspects of this experience was scoping the project and deliverables. It would have been very easy for us to fall down a rabbit hole and lose sight of the bigger picture. The experience proved to be a tremendous learning opportunity and I learned to prioritize and execute on the fly, a skill that I have used both at school and in my summer internship at Amazon.

From gentle nudges that instigated thought-provoking discussions amongst the team, to the timely feedback that ensured our team was on track, the Google project sponsors were very involved and made it an extremely enriching and educational experience. I truly gained insight into how a company like Google approaches problems.

Applied Strategy can prove hugely impactful to a student’s MBA journey; from finding great mentors to using it as a platform to network and grow as a student and a leader. My classmate, Tim Luk, says ”My Applied Strategy project was the most valuable experience I’ve had at Foster thus far. As someone trying to transition into the tech industry with no prior tech experience, it was a great way to gain relevant experience. My team hit the ground running and was able to impress our sponsor with the depth of our recommendations.”

Another classmate, Jamie Young, had this to say about her experience “During my summer internship, I’ve drawn on many learnings from my Applied Strategy project. It’s been immensely helpful to draw on the experience of taking an open-ended problem, researching, applying frameworks and developing a recommendation. The project was a great application for balancing the revenue goals of the client, the price sensitivity of the customer, and the value perceived by the end customer. “

The post Applied Strategy Projects at Foster appeared first on Foster Blog.

Class of 2019 student Marshelle Slayton and husband Trevor Bouten on Mount Washington

Summers in Seattle are not to be missed, and Foster MBA students take full advantage of the gorgeous weather and the proximity we enjoy to many mountains and lakes. Many incoming students choose to spend their time in the weeks and possibly months leading up to business school taking advantage of everything this gorgeous state has to offer.

Class of 2019 Blue Dot Katherine Lane at Heather Lake

The best part about living in Seattle is that you don’t need to travel far to get away from the hustle and bustle of the city. Looking for a relatively easy hike? Tiger Mountain is a 30-minute drive away. Feeling a bit more adventurous and want to challenge yourself? Mount Washington will greet you with a 4,000 feet elevation gain that has to be scaled in less than 4 miles! And it’s only an hour away from the city which means you get back that much sooner to rest those sore muscles. If hiking is not your thing, you can always take a ferry to the San Juan Islands to indulge in some paddle boarding, camping or just lay in a hammock and take in some gorgeous sunsets.

Class of 2019 student Loris Zarzar on the Mount Washington trail

Let’s not forget the group of Foster MBA students who attempt to summit Mount Rainier, the tallest peak in Washington, every year! This year the summit was successfully attempted by 10 students from the class of 2018 and 2019, and the climb was the culmination of a year of intense training and preparation. I was assured that the pictures below don’t do justice to the actual views from the top. Not many men and women can boast of walking on land higher than the clouds, and these students earned it!

Class of 2019 student Levi Zurbrugg on Mount Rainier

As you can see, Seattle and Washington have a lot to offer the outdoor junkie. Pack those bags! The PNW is waiting for you!

MBAs from the class of 2018 and 2019 on the summit of Mount Rainier

The post Foster MBAs and the Pacific Northwest appeared first on Foster Blog.

In April, in the midst of our spring welcome weekend, Foster hosted its first Alumni Diversity Dinner. The event — which was held in an intimate setting at the home of Melissa Uyesugi, Foster’s Associate Director of Diversity and Inclusion — welcomed 12 admitted students, 6 of their Blue Dots (Foster’s term for significant others), 6 Foster alumni, 4 current students, and 2 staff members.

Compared to other MBA programs, Foster’s full-time class is on the smaller side, with around 100 students. But this gives the program a unique asset — a compelling sense of community. Providing a small space gave admitted students the opportunity to forge authentic connections with both current students and alumni, and allowed them to get a sense of how Foster views diversity.

In an effort to promote meaningful dialogue and connections, guests were given cups that featured fun conversation starters. There were also Jenga games that featured deeper get-to-know you questions on each piece. The alumni and students that attended found the event incredibly valuable.

“It was really a pleasure to have the opportunity to connect with prospective students at the Diversity Dinner,” Jamie Young, President of Women in Business at Foster and full-time class of 2019, said. “Needless to say, I am impressed by their accomplishments and inspired by their stories.”

“I loved the inaugural Diversity Dinner Event!” said Elisa Yuen, Senior Strategist at T-Mobile and Foster Class of 2017. “There are many Foster alumni and current students passionate about diversity. We come from different backgrounds and many of us enter different fields after graduation, but we’re united in continually striving to improve access and opportunities for underserved communities. It is always a great time catching up with those we know and building new connections with prospective students.”

In July, Foster will officially join the Consortium for Graduate Study in Management, an organization dedicated to promoting diversity and inclusion in business education, and more events related to these initiatives are planned over the coming months.

Last November, Foster hosted a Fostering MBA Access event that featured prospective student visits, mentorship opportunities, and treks to several companies in the Seattle area. Foster plans to host a similar event this fall. Interested prospective students should complete this form to receive updates on upcoming events and opportunities to connect with Foster.

The post FOSTERing Community & Connections appeared first on Foster Blog.

About the author: Mukund Rajasekhar is a first-year full-time MBA student at Foster.

Every April, MBA students from 8 business schools on the West Coast make their way to Stanford to indulge in a weekend filled with sports, music, dance-offs and even a battle of the bands. But dig a little deeper and you see that each of these students has done their part in spreading goodwill in their communities. This weekend marks the culmination of an entire year of volunteering and fundraising across the coast and the students meet up to celebrate a year of giving back. Challenge for Charity, or C4C as it is fondly called, is a competition which has no losers. Students from the 8 schools volunteer thousands of hours and raise hundreds of thousands of dollars every year; with the winning school getting bragging rights and custody of the elusive Golden Briefcase for a year.

The 2018 Foster band

This year, students from Foster pushed the limits and broke multiple records. We raised more money and volunteered more hours than ever before, and finished third overall in sports, our highest ranking yet. Unfortunately, this was not enough for us to retain the Golden Briefcase.

The Foster women’s table tennis team.

C4C is taken very seriously at Foster and no one knows this better than the people leading the charge; our C4C presidents. As outgoing C4C presidents, Jenny Nowierski and Abby Schilbach have had the honor of winning the Golden briefcase in 2017. This is what Jenny has to say about C4C:

C4C Sports Weekend is the best weekend of the school year.  It gives you the unique opportunity to celebrate all the hard work we put into volunteering and fundraising for our amazing core charities while enjoying the beautiful weather and meeting new friends.  I feel a true sense of pride cheering on our incredibly talented classmates as they compete in sports, and I’ve never felt more excited to be a Husky. We all work so hard throughout the year and this is the best way to celebrate our accomplishments.

Finishing second this year was a hard pill to swallow but it has only fueled our quest to bring the Golden Briefcase back. This year, our campaign is being led by John Turk, Mallory Green and Monica Haggarty; and with the entire school behind them, it’s just a matter of time until the Golden Briefcase adorns the hallways of Paccar Hall once again.

The Foster men’s basketball team.

As John says, “C4C is a wonderful opportunity to compete in your favorite sports, cheer on your classmates, and have fun in Palo Alto! We are looking forward to another great weekend next year and to re-claiming the briefcase!”

The post Foster Students Compete and Celebrate for Charity in Palo Alto appeared first on Foster Blog.

Foster is located in the heart of Seattle, a short bus ride from many of the world’s most innovative companies. If you’re a Foster MBA student looking to grab coffee with an Amazon financial analyst or a Zillow project manager, you won’t have to travel very far.

But it also opens many opportunities for greater learning inside the classroom. Management 550: CEO & Board Governance is an elective that benefits from Foster’s location. The class, as it name implies, centers around executive leadership and the nuances of board governance. Should a board have a dual CEO/Chairman, or should the role be split? How should a board deal with activist investors? How do the operations of nonprofit boards differ from those of public companies? These are some of the questions the class considers.

About half the time we spend in the classroom consists of guest speakers, most of whom are legends within their respective fields. The course itself is co-taught by Neal Dempsey — the general managing partner of Bay Partners, a venture capital firm that’s returned over $2.5 billion to investors — and Neil McReynolds, a former executive that’s served on over 60 boards in a wide variety of industries. Speakers this quarter have included Phyllis Campbell (Chairman, Pacific Northwest JP Morgan Chase), Chet Kapoor (Vice President, Google Cloud), and Chris Peterson (head coach of the University of Washington Huskies football team).

Tableau’s management fields questions from Foster students.

Most of these speakers have made the trek to PACCAR Hall, coming into the classroom to field questions directly from students. But during one special session, the class was held off campus. In April, we traveled to Tableau Software’s headquarters in Fremont, a Seattle neighborhood only about 10 minutes away from Foster’s campus.

Once there, we heard from Damon Fletcher, Tableau’s interim CFO; Keenan Conder, Tableau’s General Counsel; and Matt Nelson, Tableau VP and Corporate Controller. Over the course of nearly two hours, they discussed the makeup and regular operations of the data visualization company’s board.

Tableau’s board is notable in that three of its 10 seats are held by the company’s co-founders, who collectively control the majority of shareholder votes. During their presentation, the Tableau executives discussed the unique challenges the board faces and answered questions from students.

Foster students Jenny Nowierski (left) and Harsha Vardhan (right) stand outside PACCAR Hall with Neal Dempsey (left) and Neil McReynolds (right).

As a graduating second year, it was one of the most interesting experiences I’ve had as a Foster student. Certainly, it was a unique opportunity I could’ve only had in Seattle.

The post Foster Students Hold Class at Tableau Software appeared first on Foster Blog.

Hometown: 

San Antonio, TX

Pre MBA Profession: 

Contracts Manager at Alamo Aircraft

Why Foster?

I started looking at Foster because of location and reputation, but I choose Foster because of what I saw and experienced during my visit. The welcoming atmosphere and positive learning vibe you get from walking into a classroom at Foster was nothing like I had ever experienced before. On a class visit, I saw a classroom full of eager students who genuinely loved being there and were involved in the process.

Student Experience

What has been your favorite part of the Foster MBA experience so far?

My team. At Foster, you are assigned a team to work on cases with throughout the classes, but through that process, they become more than that. They become the people whom you go through this with, whom you study with, the people whom you can complain to when things get hard and then help you through it all.  Almost like a second family! My team has been an invaluable part in my experience here at Foster.

Are you where you thought you would be when you started the Evening MBA?

I am not where I thought I’d be, I’m further! When I started at Foster I was very nervous about not having the traditional business background and thought I would be struggling just to keep up with no time for anything else. Although it’s been hard, I have kept up and have had a blast along the way. Not only have I gotten through my course work, but I have been meeting more people than I ever thought and making great contacts I know I will be useful in the future.

What advice do you have for those considering a work-compatible MBA program?

I know its scary. The BIG question looming in everyone’s head is: will there be enough time? And the answer is yes, mostly. It’s all about prioritizing and getting creative. Everyone in the program is in that same boat, and both your fellow students as well as the professors understand and are very supportive of that. Whether it is Skype-ing in from across the world, or listening to class recordings after the fact, no matter what needs to be done, Foster is willing to work with you.

The post Supportive Community: Q & A with Lacey Wulfe, MBA 2020 appeared first on Foster Blog.

Going into Foster, Google was high on the list of companies I wanted to work for after graduation.

I had lived in San Francisco before I came to Seattle, and I had a few friends that worked at Google. They all spoke highly of the company’s culture, and the challenging projects they were able to work on. Then I visited Google’s San Francisco office as part of the Foster Tech Club’s annual Bay Area Tech Trek, and I had a chance to experience it first-hand.

There, I saw a group of employees that all looked happy and engaged, even on a Friday afternoon. Everything I learned during that visit validated what my friends had told me, and I knew this was where I wanted to be.

Before I submitted my internship application, I met with the second-year students that had interned with Google the previous summer. I also set up bi-weekly meetings with Foster’s Career Management team. Together, they helped me understand what Google was looking for in applicants, what qualities were highly valued, and which of my experiences would best illustrate how I fit in with Google’s culture.

Last spring, I interviewed with teams in Ann Arbor and Mountain View. Then a week later, I received an offer.

I spent my summer working on the Managed Agency team, a part of the Google Marketing Solutions organization. My team worked with advertising agencies, helping them use Google’s powerful digital advertising solutions for their clients. I had three projects to work on over the course of my 12-week internship.

My main project was managing a new sales initiative for the approximately 80-person Managed Agency team, including designing and tracking success metrics, and presenting weekly updates to the team’s director. I managed the process with two other project managers in Mountain View and New York. I was also tasked with creating a Google Sheets-based budget projection tool to help the advertising agencies allocate advertising spend for their clients.

For my third project, I worked with a start-up company at Google’s internal incubator that is in the process of building digital marketplace for construction labor in Bangladesh. I conducted market research, competitive analysis, and prioritized product recommendations in two presentations to the company’s founder and leadership team.

During the summer, I leveraged several of the skills I had built and refined during my first year at Foster.

As a Foster MBA student, I was tasked with working closely with a diverse team. The same was true at Google, where I had to work cross-functionally with diverse teammates. Many of the people I collaborated with for my projects were from different organizations at the company, and even some of Google’s international offices.

At the end of my internship, I had to give a final presentation to my group’s entire leadership team – over 20 managers from across my organization. As I prepared for that presentation, I felt thankful for all the presentation practice and public speaking experiences I had during my first year at Foster.

Although the work was challenging, Google did an amazing job of making sure I was enjoying the internship. I became close friends with many of the other interns from schools including Stanford GSB and UCLA Anderson. I had a great time during the all-intern events — a Giants game at AT&T Park, a wine tasting day on Treasure Island, and boat cruise on the San Francisco Bay.

I’m thrilled to say I’ll be going back. After I graduate, I’ll return to Google to work on the same team. During my internship, I was exposed to a lot of interesting problems and opportunities, and I’m looking forward to helping my team tackle them.

The post My Summer as an MBA Intern at Google appeared first on Foster Blog.

Jonathan Ng, Full-Time Class of 2018

Jonathan Ng spent last summer working for Amazon.

“I had the opportunity to meet so many amazing and driven people. They were all working on revolutionary ideas,” he said. “I honestly believe that Amazon is poised to disrupt major industries.”

The full-time, Foster MBA student worked as a Senior Product Management MBA intern for the Seattle tech giant. During an internship that spanned 12 action-packed weeks, Jonathan designed and developed a new product for his team.

“I had the privilege of working with the worldwide deals and events team. They coordinated both the deals page (Lightning deals, Today’s deals) and major events — including Prime Day and Black Friday — globally. I was given a task to aid the team in improving an event performance, which ultimately meant figuring out an innovative solution to drive more online traffic, and acquiring and retaining more customers.”

“It was an amazing and practical experience. I had to dive deep into data to determine and to solve the various Amazon customer segments’ pain points. I was having multiple meetings to figure out how to drive traffic to the events in the morning. In the afternoon, I was collaborating with cross functional teams, including the legal, finance and various product teams to test my concepts. Then in the evenings, I was working on spreadsheets and white papers.”

“While it was intense, I enjoyed the experience because of the freedom I was given. Amazon gave me the leeway to determine and chart my own path throughout the internship. I also enjoyed the fact that interns worked on real business problems and had the opportunity to come up with real solutions. My product is still under development by my team and should be launched sometime this year.”

Despite their heavy workloads, Jonathan’s team members always made time for him.

“That was an eye opener for me. I started in July, during the implementation phase for Prime Day, Amazon’s biggest event! You can imagine the amount of work that goes into it and the pressure of maintaining its success. But despite this, they all set aside time to give me guidance, introduced me to others, and give me frank feedback on my progress. Honestly, they all truly adhered to the Amazon leadership principles. That was something that I saw everywhere in the company. It’s why I believe Amazon will continue to do great things in the future.”

Foster is only about five miles from Amazon’s South Lake Union campus, and Foster interns and alums can be found working all throughout the company.

“I was working directly with other Foster interns as well as other MBA interns. We were bouncing ideas about our projects back and forth. As an example, my classmate, Emily Chen, has a really strong marketing background. She was also an intern at Amazon last summer, and I leveraged her marketing experience to help me with the product I was working on. I also had a chance to meet some Foster alums when I was there. They all gave me some really helpful advice, and were willing to take time out to get coffee in order to share tips on how to succeed at Amazon. The Foster connection is an invaluable asset to have!”

After his internship concluded, Jonathan was given an offer to return. He happily accepted.

“My summer was so great that making the decision to go back was easy. I really enjoyed how everyone at Amazon was always looking for the next idea, that they all wanted to Think Big, a key leadership principal. I’m also really excited about the direction of Amazon.”

Jonathan credits much of what he learned during his first year at Foster with his success at Amazon.

“Looking back, my first year courses set me up for success. I had to generate my own free cash flow and calculate NPV (net present value). I used the 5Ps (product, price, promotion, place, people) of marketing. In particular, I really relied on the data analysis skills I worked on throughout my first year.”

“During my Amazon internship, I had the opportunity to work with a truly diverse, and an extremely bright group of people. In my opinion, that is also one of the main strengths of the Foster program. I would encourage future Foster students to leverage that aspect of the program. It will definitely help you achieve your goals!”

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