Membership:

To become a member of the GBA, you must pay a membership fee of $80 which includes admission to GBA events, student business cards and free drink tickets at MBA Happy Hours.

Payment:

The GBA can accept cash or checks (made payable to GBA) for membership.  Membership fees will be collected on Thursday, August 23^rd and up to the first Happy Hour on Thursday, August 30^th.

For more information, contact Aija.

First year MBAs may not be familiar with this term, but after your first finance course you will dream about the Weighted Average Cost of Capital (WACC) of whichever company you are studying.

According to Investopedia.com, WACC is a calculation of a firm's cost of capital in which each category of capital is proportionately weighted. All capital sources - common stock, preferred stock, bonds and any other long-term debt – are included in a WACC calculation.

WACC is calculated by multiplying the cost of each capital component by its proportional weight.

Broadly speaking, a company's assets are financed by either debt or equity. WACC is the average of the costs of these sources of financing, each of which is weighted by its respective use in the given situation. By taking a weighted average, we can see how much interest the company has to pay for every dollar it finances.

A firm's WACC is the overall required return on the firm as a whole and, as such, it is often used internally by company directors to determine the economic feasibility of expansionary opportunities and mergers. It is the appropriate discount rate to use for cash flows with risk that is similar to that of the overall firm.

On Monday, two recruiters will be on campus to talk about characteristics of a great resume.  Doug Gambrel, Director of CIGNA's HealthCare Leadership Program and Melissa Cummings, Director of Workforce Planning at Aetna, Inc will review resumes and what makes a resume shine.  Both Doug and Melissa have been recruiters for a number of years and recently Doug was the Director for the business placement and career center at Yale University's School of Management.

Your resume will be one of the most important documents of your MBA career at UConn and this is a phenomenal opportunity to listen to two recruiters who view literally hundreds of resumes each year.

Date: Monday, August 27^th

Time: 5:00 PM – 7:00 PM

Location: Room 106 in the School of Business

Dress: Business casual

What to bring: Hard copy of your resume

For more info, contact Kevin.

Reminder about the Resume Book:

The School of Business MBA program has created an electronic resume book for both 1st year and 2nd year students, which will be sent to our database of recruiters on September 10th. Several hundred people will receive this book of resumes, so you can understand the importance (do not underestimate it) of this book with your resume in it. Remember, the power of your resume is that it is the document which optimizes the chance for success of your internship/job/career search.

Resume Submission Guidelines and Timeframe:

All resumes must be submitted via Business Career Connections at https://www.myinterfase.com/uconn/student/ by end of day on Wednesday, August 29th. This will give the Business Placement & Career Center (BPCC) the time to review your resume and make any suggested changes before all the resumes are bundled and emailed to recruiters. If your resume is not submitted with updated information by the 29th, the last known resume the BPCC has on file will be used in the resume book. On August 27th, the GBA has scheduled a resume workshop with two representatives from local companies.

Have you met your mentor yet? If not, now is the time! Join us for the 1^st MBA Mentor Happy Hour.

Date:  Thursday, August 30^st at 5:00 PM

Location:  Thirsty Dog Pub & Grille

GBA membership:  If you're a GBA member, the first drink is free! If you're not a member, now is the time to join!

If for some reason, you haven't met or heard from your mentor yet, please contact Jessica Berman at jessica.berman@business.uconn.edu.

Things to ask your mentor:

1. Scoops on professors
2. Places to eat
3. How to approach recruiters
4. Tips on surviving
 

Your mentors are here to help you so ask questions. Please feel free to contact them or stop any of the other 2^nd years in the hallway between classes to ask questions.

We're here to help you out and make your 1^st year a little easier. Just ask!

On Thursday, September 6^th, the GBA will be hosting a one hour presentation on "Navigating the Cocktail Hour" followed by a cocktail hour hosted at the Nathan Hale Inn.

Aetna, Pratt & Whitney (UTC) and ING will be joining us to address the issues they feel are important for students to know when addressing recruiters while trying to balance a cocktail in one hand while handing out cards with the other.

This is a great opportunity for students to get some inside information and be able to practice on recruiters and receive feedback. Plus it's another opportunity to meet recruiters and remind them that you'd like to work for them!

Date: Thursday, September 6^th

Time: 5:30 PM – 8:00 PM

Location: Room 122 in the School of Business & the Nathan Hale Inn

Dress: Dress is professional. Suit & tie for gentlemen, suits and blouses for ladies.

GBA membership: All students are welcome to attend the one hour session. The following cocktail hour will be open to GBA members only.

For more information, contact Kevin.

As we all know, Dr. P. Christopher Earley has accepted the position as Dean of the School of Business Administration and we are all very excited about his arrival in January.  Below is a brief bio on Dr. Earley.

Dr. P. Christopher Earley is former Dean and Cycle and Carriage Chair at the Business School, National University of Singapore. Prior to that Professor Earley was Chair and Professor of Organisational Behaviour at the London Business School. He has held academic chairs at Nanyang Business School and Indiana University. His interests include cross-cultural and international aspects of organizations such as the dynamics of multinational teams, negotiation and conflict, the role of face in organizations, and motivation across cultures.

He is the author of ten books and numerous articles and book chapters, and his recent publications include:

He has taught executives and consulted for companies such as Nestle, Cisco Systems, Samsung, General Motors, Unilever, British Aerospace, Mercury Asset Management, Eli Lilly Pharmaceuticals among others in England, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Israel, People's Republic of China, Singapore, South Korea, and Thailand, among others.

Keep in touch with the recruiters you met at orientation and send them a thank you note to help them remember your name!