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Parent's Newsletter - Fall 2007

The Goizueta Undergraduate BBA Program office and the Goizueta Business Library proudly present the inaugural edition of the parent's newsletter, featuring five articles written by BBAs, to give you a taste of the diverse and stimulating life your students lead at Goizueta.

Read about the student-initiated Shadows Program that provides opportunities for students to get a feel for what the professional world is like and then look at an exceptional international internship story, thanks to a parent’s network of friends.

Hedge funds fill the business pages, so our BBAs formed a club to get up to speed on these alternative investments vehicles. Our future Goizueta Principled Leaders also make time in their busy schedule to tutor high school students.

We hope you enjoy this slice of what is happening in the BBA Program. We want to hear from you about what you would like to read about in the Spring edition of the newsletter. Send us your comments by Feb. 25 to parents_newsletter@bus.emory.edu and your student will be entered into a raffle to win lunch with Dean Benveniste or a networking lunch with a Goizueta MBA. There will be 10 lucky winners.

Lee Pasackow, Newsletter Editor and Business Librarian
Lee_Pasackow@bus.emory.edu


Stories featured in this issue...




News from the BBA Council


2008 Undergraduate Business School Leadership Conference

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The Alternative Investments Group (AIG)


Every idea and expression of interest has the opportunity to materialize into a student club or initiative at the Goizueta Business School. The Alternative Investments Group (AIG) is a perfect example of this reality. AIG is a new BBA student club devoted to hedge funds, private equity and venture capital. These areas of finance are on the rise, yet not well understood by undergraduate students. The club aims to educate BBAs about the alternative investment industry and help them network with professionals to pursue careers in this burgeoning field.

Alternative Investments Group

AIG endeavors to set Goizueta apart from other undergraduate business programs around the country. We started AIG with the understanding that hedge funds and private equity are not going away and will likely continue to expand over the long-term. There is a lot going on at Goizueta to support this notion. We have a lot of work to do to build this club into the vision we have for it and we are very excited about our prospects.

A month after AIG formed; the Goizueta Business School received a major gift of $10 million from a private donor to establish The Emory Center for Private Equity and Hedge Funds. While the center is still coming together, it plans to jump right into the thick of things this spring by supporting a major student event with AIG. Dean Larry Benveniste stated that the Center offers a great opportunity for students to take part in an industry that will truly set Goizueta apart from other business schools around the country and he is thrilled that the students are so eager to get involved.

The Alternative Investments Group has a series of events planned for the spring semester. Jai Mani, a vice president of the club, is spearheading a networking event with alumni and other professionals in New York during the BBA Career Trek in January. Rashid Lattouf, another AIG vice president, is organizing a hallmark event, which will surprise the academic and professional communities in how avidly undergraduate business students are involved with the alternative investments industry.

Alex Chadwick, Alternative Investments Group, Co-President, BBA09

For more information on the Alternative Investments Group, contact Alex Chadwick at Alexander_Chadwick@bus.emory.edu

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Kudos to our BBAs


Kudos to our BBAs
  • Eden Chen, Jennifer Lin and Paul Tsyrlin -First Place- Nationwide Fisher Biz Quiz National Challenge, hosted by The Ohio State University's Fisher College of Business
  • Ariel Katz – only BBA participating in Goizueta’s first annual Real Estate Case Competition
  • Jeffrey Abram Ader, Tao Bu, Carolyn Brassey Chandler, Jennifer Lauren DiNicola, Abhinav Gupta, Lauren Katherine Shores and Julian Sinclair Smith – 2008 Who’s Who Among Students in American Universities and Colleges
  • 65 BBAs received business research certification after completing 3 or more classes conducted by the Goizueta Business Library

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The Goizueta Service Organization (GSO)


The Goizueta Service Organization is exceptionally passionate about our mission of helping those less fortunate than ourselves. This semester we launched a SAT tutoring program at Druid Hills High School, which is located next door to Emory. Every Friday for about six weeks, 20 dedicated GSO members tutor 50 high school seniors and juniors at Druid Hills, covering everything from basic algebra to essay writing skills. We are considering expanding the classes to Wednesdays and including sophomores in the program next semester. The lead on this project is sophomore Robert Sigman, Vice President of GSO, who has done a phenomenal job with this initiative. As co-President of GSO, I am especially proud of this SAT program that helps students achieve their goals of a college education.

In addition to the tutoring program, we plan to launch other programs next semester such as a tax advising session with senior citizens and a mentor program with high school students in the City of Atlanta. Social responsibility is so important in corporate America today, and we are proud of the Goizueta students who have taken the initiative in their college years to get involved and help the less fortunate. When Roberto Goizueta envisioned our business school, he envisioned a forum in which we would emerge as “Principled Leaders for Global Enterprise.” I think Mr. Goizueta would be very proud indeed of the volunteer spirit expressed in the Goizueta Service Organization.

Tao Bu, BBA Council president, co-president GSO

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BBA Class of 2009 by the Numbers


Goizueta Business School at Emory University - BBA Program
  • 28% Hold an Elected Office on Campus
  • 33% Study Abroad
  • 16% Have Started a Business
  • 53% Volunteer 3+ Hours Weekly
  • 1362 Average SAT
  • #4 2007 BusinessWeek Ranking
  • 77% High School Varsity Athletes
  • 3.5 Freshman/Sophomore GPA
  • 37% Are Fluent in a Second Language
  • 27% Born Outside the United States
  • 100% Are Ready to Take on Any Challenge

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Goizueta Shadows


What is life in the professional sphere really like? The Goizueta Shadows Program allows students to find out by offering the opportunity to gain on-site experience in their area depth , as well as b uild their professional network. Students spend a day “shadowing” an alumni or professional at a participating accounting, consulting, marketing, or finance firm within the Atlanta area. Besides providing students with insight into their profession’s daily job activities and requirements, the program is also beneficial to the Goizueta community. It allows companies who might not currently be recruiting at Emory to see the caliber of students for themselves while also developing a relationship with the Goizueta Business School.

Goizueta Shadows

Gordon McKemie (BBA07) started the program in the spring of 2006 in response to students’ requests for increased career and internship opportunities. The Shadows Program has since placed 167 students in 20 Atlanta firms. This semester the coordinators, Carolyn Chandler and Danielle Rounick, matched 38 students with 14 firms including 360i Marketing, A.T. Kearney, Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo, Delta, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and SunTrust Bank.

While “Shadowing Day” is unique in each company, most host companies explain their daily routine, introduce the students to their products, provide a tour and reserve time for casual Q&A with alumni and employees over lunch.

Student response to the Shadows Program, both this semester and in years past, has been outstanding. In a survey provided to students who participated in the program this year, 95% said they would recommend Shadows to a friend and 90% said they thought Shadows helped them get a better feel for the lifestyle of their respective professions.

Check out the student excitement from the recent Shadows visits:

“The shadow experience with A.T. Kearny was very informative. As a junior with little knowledge of consulting, I received a great explanation of what consulting consists of on a day-to-day basis. I learned the different types of projects you could be assigned to as a consultant, how it would be starting off after graduation and how the company hierarchy wsorks, as well as the negative and positive aspects of the job.”

“I enjoyed shadowing at PricewaterhouseCoopers. As an accounting student, you learn a lot of textbook knowledge from your courses and do practice problems, but in the real world, industry solves the problems; they are not pre-written. At PricewaterhouseCoopers, I befriended Matt who worked in Risk Assessment. Matt was very open and personable, and he let me read a ‘classified’ report that he had done a year ago. I met several of his co-workers and got to feel what it was like to work in an accounting office. You cannot get this experience from reading a textbook. I would recommend that any student interested in accounting shadow at PWC. It was an experience of a lifetime!”

“I really enjoyed my time shadowing with a number of Wells Fargo employees. I met a variety of personnel from business development, corporate foreign exchange and corporate and commercial banking. They were very friendly and a group of us had many opportunities to listen to professional advice and general information about the company. I would definitely recommend shadowing at Wells Fargo for anyone interested in commercial banking or corporate banking. It is extremely useful to get to know employees, speak to them about their work lives and get a feel for what the company's culture is like.”

The Shadows Program is always looking for new companies in the Atlanta area to host students. The next Shadowing dates will be in the spring 2008 semester. Please email Danielle_Rounick@bus.emory.edu for more information about how to get involved.

Danielle Rounick, Shadows Coordinator, BBA 08

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Looking for an International Internship – Talk to Your Parents!


As a rising junior, I knew that landing a meaningful consulting internship would be a challenge. Most of the top consulting firms accept rising seniors for their summer internship positions. As a result, I sought other resources to make sure my summer was productive. Fortunately, my splendid internship was only a phone call away. The director of Deloitte in Delhi just happened to be my father’s childhood friend. We talked on the phone and planned together my job responsibilities. He was more than happy to assign me to group of analysts who were putting together an internal research paper on strategies in the emerging organized retail industry in India.

New Dehli

Most days I visited stores, warehouses, corporate offices and trucking companies to interview the owners in order to collect data on the emerging organized retail industry.

On other days, I found myself surrounded by analysts trying to decipher emerging trends and strategic moves that the new players in the industry were trying to employ. The team consisted of eight people, only two of them were educated in the west. While this was quite a stimulating and enlightening experience, what made it most extraordinary was that the business culture in New Delhi was similar to every Deloitte office across the world. The work ethic was very professional and demanding while the analysts were bright and talented.

The internship completely exceeded my expectations. This was my first experience in a corporate environment, so the learning curve was steep, but the exposure I received was invaluable. Not only did this internship at Deloitte reaffirm my desire to be a consultant, but it has also helped me to prepare myself for future internships and jobs.

My father’s friend was impressed with the education I am receiving at Goizueta. We are a diverse BBA community and I know fellow students are eager to have an international internship experience. Perhaps other parents in our Goizueta family have contacts abroad and would be willing to arrange an internship so other BBAs could benefit as I have from a fabulous internship experience abroad.

Kabeer Khurana, BBA 09

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