By: Lingling Chen After 48-hours of continuous working, four Simon students – Lingling Chen, MS ’12, Irina Ivanova, MBA ’13, Mahendra Goyal, MBA ’13 and Rajesh Chaudhary, MBA ’13 won the 1st International Graduate Competition held by HEC Montreal, under the guidance of Professor David Tilson. The Simon team was highly acknowledged by their international horizon, [...]
May 10, 2012 | 0 comments | View Post
By: Dana It’s May and the Lilac Festival is almost here! An annual Rochester tradition, the Lilac Festival is a 10 day free festival with art exhibits, a parade, food vendors, live entertainment, and of course a gorgeous display of colorful lilacs throughout Highland Park. This year the festival is set to take place May [...]
May 02, 2012 | 0 comments | View Post
By: Anjali Sud It’s hard to believe that I will soon be graduating from the MBA program here at the Simon Graduate School of Business; it feels like only yesterday I was filling out my application! Having studied business in undergrad, I knew early on that obtaining my MBA would be essential in achieving my [...]
Apr 13, 2012 | 0 comments | View Post
By: Adrian Finch
The first day of orientation seems like it was only a few months ago. I vividly remember the walk from my car, sweltering in a black suit in the middle of summer, and taking a deep breath before pushing open the doors of the Simon School. I became increasingly nervous as my photo was taken for the roster, and I tried desperately to balance a plate of fruit in one hand while shaking hands with what seemed like hundreds of people. One of those hands would soon be the person I’d call my best friend at Simon, and the others were those that I was equally thankful to have in my program for the next year. As I sat down in the overwhelmingly giant classroom (that I would later trip down the steps of during a final exam), I knew there was no turning back.
Fast forward three quarters and 9 months, and here I sit writing a reflection on my time at Simon. After the first day of Statistics in the summer, I truthfully did not think I would get to this point. But, as I finish filling in the form for regalia, I realize that my time at Simon has almost come full circle, and on June 10, Simon and I will part ways.
I’m sad to say goodbye to Simon. Being a part of such a small school was something that I looked forward to. After graduating from the University at Buffalo with a student body of roughly 27,000, I was eager to study at a university where the professors actually knew my name, and I had the opportunity to join more clubs and get involved. I’m so happy I became a part of the Simon Marketing Association, Simon Ambassadors, and the Simon newspaper, WATS (World According to Simon), and that I was able to work as a Research Assistant and Graduate Assistant. I certainly learned a great deal in my classes, but where I learned the most was when I participated outside of the classroom.
The people I’ve met at Simon made my experience so positive, and I think they are what I’m saddest to leave. I was lucky to have some amazing classmates in the MS Marketing program who acted as a strong support system, and truly great friends. It would have been difficult to make it through without their help and humor. I’ll also miss the staff in the Admissions Office. I loved working with them, not just because of the free food that was always in the kitchen, but because of how they welcomed me into their office as their GA, and were always there to lend a friendly smile. I’ll miss the professors, as we really do have some amazing faculty at Simon. They were so willing to help, and eager to educate. I won’t, however, miss their assignments or exams – I can confidently say I’ll enjoy having my weekends back.
There’s much more I’d like to say, but I’m unfortunately running out of space. So I’ll end with this – Thank you to Simon, and all the people who make it so amazing. I’ve truly enjoyed my time here.
By: Lingling Chen
After 48-hours of continuous working, four Simon students – Lingling Chen, MS ’12, Irina Ivanova, MBA ’13, Mahendra Goyal, MBA ’13 and Rajesh Chaudhary, MBA ’13 won the 1st International Graduate Competition held by HEC Montreal, under the guidance of Professor David Tilson. The Simon team was highly acknowledged by their international horizon, in-depth analysis, data-driven insights, creative solutions and convincing presentations. Besides the top prize, they also won the only Best Report Award.
The 1st International Graduate Competition drew together talented graduate students from the world’s top-rated business schools in Finland, Canada, Denmark, Australia and USA. Participants acted as consultants to help a company find the optimal solution to its multifaceted problems of international strategy, marketing, human resource management and finance. “It was a very tough competition since we only had 48 hours to work through 4 interrelated cases, come up with a complete consulting report and two final presentations”, says Lingling Chen, the Marketing Specialist, “I still remember how we struggled until the last minute”.
“It was a very unique and enlightening experience for all of us, because it is a ‘cooperative competition’”, says Rajesh Chaudhary, the Strategy Specialist who is still excited about the wonderful experience. On the first day, functional experts from competing teams worked together to analyze individual cases and find solutions to problems raised in the cases. On the second day, all experts worked with their own team members to find the optimal solution for all cases and prepare their consulting report, the sales pitch and the final presentation as well. On the third day, each team gave a 15-minute sale pitch intended to convince the judges that they completely understand the key issues and are able to find the best solutions. Teams from Simon School and Copenhagen Business School (Denmark) were chosen as the two best teams and gave a 30-minute final presentation followed by a 20-minute Q&A session.
“We really benefited from Simon’s quantitative education and its diverse student and faculty body”, says Lingling Chen, “the Marketing and Finance Specialists need to be very proficient in multivariate regression and time-series analysis, which we have already fully prepared during our classes and in our daily assignments. The quantitative training positioned me to analyze the trends behind large amounts of data and the diversity at Simon afforded me the opportunity to think about problems in multi-angles”.
By: Dana
It’s May and the Lilac Festival is almost here! An annual Rochester tradition, the Lilac Festival is a 10 day free festival with art exhibits, a parade, food vendors, live entertainment, and of course a gorgeous display of colorful lilacs throughout Highland Park. This year the festival is set to take place May 11th-20th.
As noted on the Lilac Festival’s official website, Highland Park displays over 500 varieties of lilacs on more than 1,200 lilac bushes- so be sure to bring your camera! First planted in 1892 by horticulturist John Dunbar, the assortment has turned into the world’s largest lilac collection, bringing visitors from all over the globe to participate 
in this annual celebration. Over the course of the 10 day event, the festival brings in well over a half-million visitors. So how did the festival get started? In short, the first Lilac Festival informally began in May of 1898 when a crowd of thousands gathered at what is now known as Highland Park to see the lilac collection in bloom. On May 24, 1908 Rochester celebrated its first “official” Lilac Sunday, which later extended to Lilac Week. From there, a parade was introduced that started downtown to the park’s summit, and in 1979, Lilac Week was renamed Lilac Festival (http://www.lilacfestival.com/highlandpark.html). 200+ years later, crowds still gather to see the lilacs, take in the entertainment, and celebrate the start of spring.
The festival is perfect for all ages, and includes free children’s entertainment during the week and weekends. You can participate in the Medved Lilac 10k and 5k family fun run on Sunday, or watch the lilac parade featuring various marching bands, and decorated floats. There are also 2 arts and crafts shows during the weekend featuring local and national artists. For a full list of exhibitors, entertainment schedules, special events, and directions, be sure to check out the lilac festival website online!
In late March, we hosted our second Scholarship Weekend event for the year. Scholarship Weekend is an opportunity for a select group of our admitted full-time candidates for MBA and MS admission to be invited to campus to compete for additional scholarships. Through this event, the Admissions Committee was able to make decisions about scholarship increases, named scholarships, and full-tuition fellowships, and living stipends. During the weekend in March, we had over 50 students participate by preparing for a team case competition as well as informal interviews with Simon alumni, students, faculty and staff.
As a recruitment team member within the Admissions Office, I was thrilled to be able to assist with this program. It was wonderful to interact with many of the prospective students I have been assisting through the b-school search process. The dynamic of Scholarship Weekend is unique in the sense that all students who participate have been already admitted, which relieves quite a bit of stress, but it was also tremendously enthusiastic, not only about the opportunity to increase scholarship awards, but also because of the amazing friendships that were already being fostered among future classmates. Scholarship Weekend is the perfect blend of team-based work, advice from the Career Management Center, discussions with alumni and current students, tours of the Rochester community, lots of great food and laughter, and who could forget – very little sleep!
Thank you to all who were involved in making the weekend an amazing success, including all who participated. We are thrilled to have so many of you joining the Simon School this fall. Prospective candidates considering Simon down the road – this incredible opportunity can be YOURS! Applying early to the Simon School (generally by our January application deadline) can qualify you to be considered for the Scholarship Weekend event. For more information and to learn about Simon Leadership Fellows who were granted their fellowships through Scholarship Weekend events in the past, please click here.
Students at my alma mater came up with some great new ways to use IBMs Watson technology http://t.co/4bdcJgbr #bigdata #simonschool
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#IBMWatson gets accepted to @SimonSchool & helps students prepare for future jobs http://t.co/iWrYESDH #analytics
RT @SenGillibrand: RT @IBM_NEWS #IBMWatson gets accepted to @SimonSchool & helps students prepare for future jobs http://t.co/bfOxrfPW #analytics