Darden - Wahoowah!

weilong111

以下是引用yorkzhong在2006-11-16 18:09:00的发言：

嗯。 我来先说两句，其他Darden同学可以补充：

比如DARDEN对于CANDIDATE的学习、工作经历的倾向:

应该是倾向经验较长一点的，而且要记住darden是一个general management 的学校，你的why MBA应该需要在某一个点和general management 挂钩(个人见解）——请教一下YORK，general management我们可以理解为就是通用管理人才么？比如企业中的HR管理、企划或者战略管理之类的？还是有自己特殊的定义？抱歉问这个可能比较肤浅的问题，主要是跟我自己的工作经历有关，我2000年毕业，做了4年的HR管理、截止目前又做了2年多供应链绩效及战略管理，而我对自己的未来发展也是成为一个所谓“通用管理人才”。但在目前的公司里，我越来越发现自己所面临的一些危机（虽然目前的salary以及看上去的至于前景还可以）：就是越来越不知道自己到底强在什么地方、劣势在什么地方，如果自己再换一个公司，我甚至想不清楚该做哪个类型的岗位。对应到MBA上，这样的通用管理会不会导致“样样通、样样不精”？抱歉YORK，我不是怀疑DARDEN的教育质量和专业设置，只是觉得目前至少国内对于所谓“通用人才”好像还是没有特别深入的认识。

今年几个从大陆去的多是sales marketing 背景的，男女比例相当；去年多是fianncial背景的。

DARDEN校友中中国学生的比例: 今年中国人6（大陆）+4（香港台湾)+~2-3（北美）vs. 330 total. 近况怎么说呢？还都活着吧 基本上大家的生活都是围绕着: 学习、找工作、社交这三大主线。每个人focus不同，有人学习上花的时间多一点，有人社交多一些，有人找工作花时间多一些。现在可能是最忙的时候因为学习和找工作重到了一起，但我想其他学校也是这样吧。可能有的学校学习压力小一点会轻松一些。 

——请问一下YORK，可能这个问题对您来说稍微有点早：在结束MBA后的择业问题上，DARDEN的caree coach center以及校友都提供哪些支持呢？比如说：DARDEN的一些校友、尤其是那些企业的高层（看介绍说DARDEN是培养CEO的学校，而且在美国有好多是在TOP COMPANY任高层的），愿意招收、或者说更青睐于DARDEN的学生么？在此过程中，咱们中国的学生有哪些的优势和劣势？

DARDEN领先的专业: 我觉得darden 的hard skill 都教的不错， 虽然没有去别的学校做过比较，但是我们已经学的课程里accounting, finance,operation, 数据分析, 都不错，真得学到了很多东西。marketing教的还行，可能因为我自己原来就做marketing, 觉得相对学到地少一点。 软技巧的教学我觉得有待提高。 但总体来说darden 的教学是非常靠前的，很多教授作的Research不多但是教学水平非常高，Darden 喜欢叫自己"teaching school"。 最近两年为了提高排名， 校长招聘了一批年轻的会做research 的教授，希望这些新教授能够带来新的活力。

——抱歉YORK，您提到的“软技巧”是什么意思？没有太清楚。

Darden 教学是教你从general manager的角度看问题，所以如果你的career goal和general management一点关系也没有可能会有点不适应。 比如说accounting, darden 不会太注重特别细节的东西，但是会把教学的角度拔高， 让你从CEO 和CFO或者投资者的角度看问题。 这样也就要求新来的同学对accounting做一些预习，否则可能跟不上。还有decision analysis （数据分析），看似很boring 的一门课，但是其实非常有用。它教你怎么样用一些基本的模型分析数据，做出最有效的决定, 在很多领域都可以应用。

多谢YORK同学！

另外关于上面的问题，有些地方再向您请教一下，我就直接在您的答复中用蓝色的字标注了。

weilong111

以下是引用yorkzhong在2006-11-16 18:36:00的发言：

mainly because the pressure on study. Actually US students in Darden are also very diligent. The thing is, Darden requires a lot of work, so everyone need to work hard to meet the basic requirement. And if you want to do more, you need to spend more time.

The difference between Asian student (excluding Indian students) and US students is, we read much slower. So when you are facing a 10 page case (2-3 cases/day), you need to spend a lot of time to at least digest it first. Then you need to spend time to crack the case. reading+cracking case will take you somewhere around 3-6 hours/day. Then you need to go to your learning team everyday, spending 2-3 hour discussing, debating the best solution to the cases. After learning team, some classmate choose (especially Japanese ones) to work more on the cases, to make sure digest it fully. The next day, you will go to your class (the ones in your learning team are not in your class ), and discuss again with your classmates, and professor will lead the whole discussion.

The advantage of Chinese students is: most of us  are pretty good at math and conceptual thinking, both of which are required HEAVILY in Darden. So, probably you can crack the case faster

The greatness of this "case" methord is: you learn things 3 times by different angle: yourself, a small team, and a large team+professor, ensuraing you almost never forget what you learnd.  Also you are in a team enviornment everyday which force you to be familar with this kind of orgnization - which is very popular in current industry. The learning team also force you and american student to mingle together everyday, helps you to be adapt to us culture sooner. The downside is that it's very time consuming. That's the major reason many people spend so much time on studying.

On the other hand, in Darden you need to be able to "Prioritize" things， otherwise you just cannot do everything. But you need to be very clear on what you want before you can prioritizing things, that's why BOSCO emphasizing that. If you don't know clearly what you want the most, and want to do everything, you are going to suffer. But if you do have a list with different prioritization, you can choose go give up something and make your life easier. "Prioritization" is very important skill for any senior position, you are going to be busy in the future anyway , so , learn the skill in your early stage will only enhance you. Also, some people said, if you can survive Darden, you can survive anywhere. You do have the confidence to deal with any difficult sitiuation!

All that being said, Darden's workload is much much easier than 2-5 years ago. I believe in some old days Darden people need to work 6 days/week, 3 cases/day. Now it's 5 days/week, 2-3 cases/day, there're "reading day" duing which you basically do nothing almost everyweek in first quarter and some reading days in second Q. I think that caused the difference between some elder Alumni's opinion and us current sutdents.

thanks a lot York,the information above is more than I expectated.I appreciate that.

yorkzhong

To Weilong,

--general management我们可以理解为就是通用管理人才么？(说大了就是CEO， 说小了就是管一个P/L (Profit and loss)  比如企业中的HR管理、企划或者战略管理之类的(这些都是更专门的划分，general management 会包括这些。比如你去管一个business的时候你需要了解所以以上的东西。

在职业发展里一直有generalist和professionest之分，要看自己的喜好和专长，选褚惶跏屎系穆贰Ｒ话憷此担?谥耙档慕滋堇镌酵?献撸?叫枰??鄃eneralist的skill。generalist的最高阶段就是CEO， 真的是需要了解很多东东。MBA 本身是一个generalist 的教育，与法律、医学不同。）

关于找工作：你可以浏览一下你想去的目标公司，看他们在不在darden 的recuriting list里，还有就是他们来不来darden on ground. consulting/I-banking还有industry里的一些顶尖公司都会来darden recuriting，而且最近一两年公司数增加得很快。但因为darden 是一个小学校，来的公司总数可能会比一些大的学校少一些，但另一方面每个人的机会就更多一些。darden 的校友非常乐于提供帮助，这是darden 比较独特的一点。career center的作用我还不知道真得会怎样。

至于darden在雇主里的名声，你可以看一下business week 里最新的B-scholl ranking.虽然darden 总排名降到了15， 雇主的排名里关于 communication, teamwork, analytical skill 分别排到了 A+, A+ 和A, 这个排名比总排名靠前的很多学校都要好。

——抱歉YORK，您提到的“软技巧”是什么意思？没有太清楚。

指communication 之类的课程

[此贴子已经被作者于2006-11-18 7:24:38编辑过]

maggie1202

请教兄台，如果个性比较温和，不是很aggressive（但愿意与人交流）的那种类型，而且没有accounting/finance背景（不过business sense 较强，可能是工作经历比较丰富的原因）的在下，是不是不适合案例教学；真切的希望听到中肯的，现实的意见和建议。谢谢！

yorkzhong

以下是引用maggie1202在2006-11-18 11:50:00的发言：

请教兄台，如果个性比较温和，不是很aggressive（但愿意与人交流）的那种类型，而且没有accounting/finance背景（不过business sense 较强，可能是工作经历比较丰富的原因）的在下，是不是不适合案例教学；真切的希望听到中肯的，现实的意见和建议。谢谢！

No problem at all. You might need to spend some time to review the fundation of accounting and finance before you go, the "MBA Survival kits" has something great about Fiannce. On the other hand Darden provide pre-course to review accounting, excel and math(I don't think any Chinese need Math). The pre-Accounting course is very good.

I think case study requires 3 things: 1). your ability to self-study. The first round of the case need to be done by yourself after reading technical note or sometime without reading anything. So you must be able to resolve problem by yourself 2). your ability to teamwork - you will discuss the case in your learning team every night, different people have different opinion, you will need to adapt to this small group the soonest, build your credibility, and contribute your part. 3). be engaged in your class - the second day you will discuss with your classmates about the case. This is a bigger class (~60 people) with professor's leadership. For some course, you might know 60% from your learning team, you need to ask good questions to understand more and be engaged in the class discussion. For some courses, you might already know 90% from your learning team, you also need to engaged to answer questions from your classmates.

[此贴子已经被作者于2006-11-18 18:51:06编辑过]

promising

Just one question about Darden application. In the activities section, there is one question

What are you passionate about and why? (100 words or less)

So this question asks my professional passion or non-professional passion?

maggie1202

Thanks warm-hearted Yorkzhong, your opinions are very insightful. I can feel that it is both challenging and exciting when you are in Darden. Jealousy you!

迅捷

Either is ok. But if you have talked a lot about your professional life, this might be a place to talk about your personal experience to balance your app.

小马泡泡

请问LYNN面试了后是不是就等通知决定了?

yorkzhong

以下是引用小马泡泡在2006-11-19 3:33:00的发言：
请问LYNN面试了后是不是就等通知决定了?

I guess so. There's no much you can do about it.