Career Resources & Media from SCU Leavey

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0:00:06.1 Junaid Syed:
All right, let's, let's dive in then. Hey everybody thanks so much for joining the webinar today at Santa Clara University's Leavy School of Business Career Services focused session for online graduate business programs furthering your career with Leavey is the theme. My name is Jun aid Syed. I am an admissions outreach advisor, working with prospective students from pretty much every part of their graduate school journey people who are just starting their search for the right grad program to people who are, have been looking for a long time and are settled in with SCU and wanting to shoot for it and so my job is to support those individuals through the application process and we're joined today by two very special guests really excited about, and I'll let them introduce themselves Shauna we can start with you.

0:01:04.3 Shauna Strauss:
Thank you. Hi everyone, my name is Shauna Strauss, I'm the Senior Associate Director for online programs and employer relations. So I support all of our online MS and MBA students with your career journey throughout the program helping you navigate our resources or workshops connecting you with our career coaches so I'm happy to be here and to answer your questions.

0:01:31.7 Joshua Rosenthal:
Hi everyone, my name is Joshua Rosenthal Shauna does an exquisite job in supporting all of our students so thank you Shauna. I'm the Assistant Dean for the graduate business programs here at the Leavey School of Business I have a the pleasure of working with career management, admissions recruiting programming here on campus as well as with online, and then work within our community, I.e. Alumni partnerships and things of that nature so it's a pleasure and thank you again for joining us.

0:02:03.4 Junaid Syed:
Great, thank you so much Shauna and Joshua, again, a total pleasure to have you both on with us today. And then moving on we're joined by four other extremely special guests that we're really excited to have on. We have a current student, and then three alum and so we'll start off with Pearl if you can say hello and just introduce yourself and I noticed it still says student ambassador under your name, although you're a very recent alum. So congratulations and very excited for you but we'll start with you Pearl we'll go to Runa, we'll go to Harpreet and then we'll go to Sans.

0:02:41.7 Pearl Yon:
Yeah, sounds good. Hi everyone, my name is Pearl I'm a part, I was a part of the online master's program here at Santa Clara University I just graduated on Saturday so recent alum and yeah excited to talk to you all today.

0:02:55.5 Junaid Syed:
Thanks Pearl and over to you Runa.

0:03:00.0 Runa Brakaj:
Hi everyone, my name is Runa Brocka, I am super excited to be here like Pearl I actually just walked in the master's graduation on Saturday, which was so much fun, and my family loved it. Just a little bit about me, I've been working in the real estate industry for 12 years now, I'm all through school, and currently I manage a 3.2 million square foot property which, if you're local you might know Santana Row. And so that's a little bit about my background, and anyway I'm, so excited to talk with you today and talk about anything that you might want to be interested in. As far as your MBA journey.

0:03:41.5 Junaid Syed:
Thanks Runa. Over to you Harpreet.

0:03:45.3 Harpreet Dehar:
Hi, good afternoon everyone my name is Harpreet, and I was part of the online master's program for the financing analytics department. I also graduated this, I would say June, I finished in December but also part of the class of 2023 and prior I was actually an undergrad student at Santa Clara so been a Bronco for my entire grad life and happy to assist and be of any help for any oncoming and incoming students.

0:04:18.1 Junaid Syed:
Double Bronco we love to hear it Harpreet. And we'll go over to you, Sans.

0:04:24.6 Sanskriti Chadha:
Hi everyone. Good afternoon. I'm Sanskriti or I go by Sans. I also just walked. Last weekend on Saturday, and I have another quarter left but super exciting I was part of the online master's in business analytics program. And yeah, hit me up with any questions you might have.

0:04:44.4 Junaid Syed:
Perfect. All right. Thank you so much. Moving on a little bit of agenda for today so the next slide is gonna talk a little bit about SCU and the Leavey School of Business and rankings and things like that, history. We'll move into the career resources portion, which Shauna and Joshua will present for us. And then we'll do the alumni and student career success portion of the presentation with a few different questions that are, we found pretty applicable to people who are in the candidate phase of their journey. And then next steps in Q&A, where we'll talk about you know upcoming deadlines if you are interested in applying to one of these programs. And then the questions of course so hopefully you've come with armed with some questions. And like I said earlier, if not, I'm sure you'll have some that comes to you somewhere along the way. So a little bit about SCU and Leavey, Santa Clara University is an enduring lineage and legacy of intellect, integrity and initiative in the Bay Area. SCU is located in the heart of Silicon Valley. Leavey was founded in 1923 so this year marks 100 years of educating intelligent ethical business leaders. So very, very exciting around these parts here in 2023.

0:06:10.5 Junaid Syed:
And then Leavey was one of the first business schools in the US to be AACSB accredited which has earned them a reputation as an institution of innovation and ethics. Covering some rankings, which are usually top of mind for people who are looking at graduate schools. Poets and quants is really well-respected business publication, business school publication. Their 2023 rankings had the SCU's online MBA program ranked at number 9 best in the country, which is something that was just so exciting when that came through.

0:06:44.0 Junaid Syed:
The Princeton Review, another really well-known publication ranked the online MBA number 11 best in the country. Poets and quants, going back to that one ranked the online MBA number 1 for career outcomes which is again extraordinary. Very exciting because career, what kind of impact your graduate education is gonna have on your career is usually one of the top markers or top identifiers of which school you're gonna end up going with. And then of course something that really ties to that Silicon Valley Connection. Number 2, ranked number 2 for employment in big tech. Which is again something that we're all obviously very so excited about. So a little bit about the school, the business school, a little bit about the university as well. We will move on now to the career resources portion, and we'll have Shauna and Joshua take us through the next couple of slides. I'll hand it over to you both and yeah, it's all yours. Just let me know when to advance.

0:07:55.9 Shauna Strauss:
Okay. So just to go over a few of our resources and how we within career management engage with our students. Our main goal is to give you skills that you will use throughout the program and then beyond. So whenever you are in your job search process or you need to enhance your own professional development skills, we're here to provide you with those resources. A big part of that comes from our location and our connection within Silicon Valley. Much of that is through the faculty that are here at Santa Clara. As well as our alumni who go into work for fabulous companies within Silicon Valley and beyond. And as well as our board members who are typically alums who come in and advise on curriculum or the progress of our programs. As well as the career management aspect of that as well. In terms of professional development. We aim to provide several different workshops every single quarter that focus on professional development. This might be one example is emotional intelligence is something that we really try to emphasize and how important that is.

0:09:11.3 Shauna Strauss:
Whether you're in a management role or whatever your position might be. And so we tried to bring in some external speakers to run some really engaging intensive workshops focused on different areas of professional development. And that's great for anyone, whether you are in the process of looking for a new job or you're just seeking to really elevate your own skills within your current position. One of our main workshops that we do are these SCU alumni panels. We might have on average 3 to 4 every quarter. A big part of that is one, bringing in networking to you so that you can have more of an intimate networking experience with alums who come onto these SCU panels either on campus or virtually, and even if we have them on campus. So let's say you're not local and you can only attend virtually we record all of our events and we stream them through Zoom live anyway. So we try to make it as engaging for those students who are our online students who are not able to come in person. And we also offer variety of career workshops and webinars every single quarter. And just get to give you an example of one that we do that we've offered every fall and spring. It's called our job search series. And this is a weekly workshop where we go through a very specific detailed job search strategy or process.

0:10:38.4 Shauna Strauss:
And we have the same group of students that meet every week. So the idea is to create more of an engaging workshop experience as well. You can go ahead and advance the slide, please. Thank you. A few additional resources. So of course, we offer resume review that's kind of like a foundational service that we offer at the beginning of the fall in the spring quarter. We do kind of a speed run resume review session as you're joining classes for that first week. And we do them virtually. So we have one that's on campus and then one that's virtual to support our online students. One resource that I highly recommend all of our students tap into, regardless of where you are in your journey, is our one-on-one career coaching. So we have around 7 career coaches who have extensive experience within tech, recruiting, HR corporate experience. And you could have like a coaching session once a week if you wanted to. And the idea is that you can be able to meet with these career coaches on any topic.

0:11:08.5 Shauna Strauss:
So it could be a resume review or it could be salary negotiation or you're pivoting from one industry to another and you need some advice. So we wanna make this a high touch experience for you. And our coaches meet virtually, so it's very easy to set up through our platform. All of our coaches are super passionate about the success of our students and they really get to know our students well. And it's just such a fantastic resource that hopefully all of our students utilize throughout the program. Webinars, as I mentioned, we really try to revamp our workshops every quarter depending on trends, industry trends or what's kind of happening within the job market. It might, we sometimes we have alumni who pitch ideas to us and we tend to run with it. So we really try to get creative with what we offer. Job search resources. We have a variety of different platforms that you'll be able to access. So if it's 10:00 PM on a Friday and you wanna work on your resume, we have several platforms that can, you can utilize using AI technology.

0:13:09.1 Shauna Strauss:
And a variety of other things that you can use on your own in addition to that one-on-one support you would get from a career coach or a career management team. So the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship is a really great resource if you are in the startup space. So for example, there's a pitch competition that you can participate in where they have angel investors and VCs looking to invest in new startups. And It's such a great way to be involved in our alumni community as well, because It's not just current students, but alums that can come back and use the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship as well.

0:13:51.4 Junaid Syed:
Wow. Great. Shauna, thank you so much for sharing all that. Obviously, it looks like a very, It's a broad, multi-pronged approach that your department, your team takes to this. So, very nice to see. Very refreshing to see. Moving on, we'll go into some of these questions that we have for our alum, for our current student, and I think I'll pitch it to certain individuals, or each slide a certain individuals. So, and then this first one about faculty connections. I want to hand over to you Pearl. And really, if you could take us through how have faculty connections influenced your career thus far?

0:14:37.3 Pearl Yon:
Yeah, I really took advantage of residency weekend when I first went to Santa Clara, and I met Professor Gucci Zhang there, and he has so many connections with corporate product marketers, and that was the field I was in, but I wanted to get into an Instagram or Facebook or basically any of the same companies. So he connected me to a product marketing manager from Instagram, and she really helped me with the connection, but also understanding how to professionally interview. She was telling me certain strategies and approaches and what they really look for, so that gave me the insight scoop on what I should be focusing on when I'm trying to review for these interviews. But long story short, I ended up at Google, so it definitely helped me land a career there, and I would really appreciate, or I thank professor Zhang for that experience and his help with that connection. So that is true to me, and I think back to that time all the time and how that helped me get to where I am today. So, yeah.

0:15:43.4 Junaid Syed:
That's amazing Pearl. How exciting. And which is great. For sure, I always hear from currently enrolled students or alum, what a great relationship they've been able to cultivate with him and many others, so, great. Did any other panelists wanna join in? I'm gonna encourage you if I didn't pitch a question to you, if you have something to add, feel free to interrupt me and jump in. So...

0:16:05.9 Joshua Rosenthal:
Sure. I'll jump in. [laughter]

0:16:08.8 Junaid Syed:
Yeah. Please Joshua. Thank you.

0:16:12.2 Joshua Rosenthal:
I appreciate the example shared because It's true, when individuals come to Leavey School of Business and you're in the cohort, the main goal is not just to establish relationships with your peers or your classmates, but it is to establish relationship with your faculty. That's the whole reason, sole purpose why they're here at the Leavey school of business. It's just not to teach, but to work with individuals inside the classroom as well as outside, and to have that strong connection to Silicon Valley or to the industry, whether It's in the entire Bay Area or within California is to assist you, when I say you, the student, in their career goals or, even personal goals as well. So faculty members has really taken upon themselves to work with our students one-on-one, It's not a lecture-based environment at all, It's very collaborative, It's discussion-oriented, It's facilitative, which is one of the reasons why that relationship is built in the classroom, 'cause faculty members can see and identify how our students are outstanding thinkers, they're outstanding, critical analysis as well, and they can use that to assist our students to get to their next level professionally with introductions or saying there's an opening here or within my network, so It's fantastic.

0:17:39.1 Junaid Syed:
That's great, Joshua, thank you so much. So useful and Santa Clara is a place that has really worked hard to cultivate that kind of environment that you spoke about, so I appreciate that. We'll move on to the next question here, which I thought was pretty interesting, and Runa we'll pose this one to you. How is your peer network either classmates or cohort, influenced your career?

0:18:08.9 Runa Brakaj:
This is a really fun one that I'm happy to answer. So I was part of the online MBA program, and I actually joined the program during covid, so while I always wanted to go to Santa Clara and I was super excited about joining and starting my MBA, I had the career goal and also the academic goal of completing my master's for many years, as probably many of you also have, and while I love Santa Clara as a Bay Area native, I wanted to go there. I did apply to different schools, and I also consider different schools, as probably many of you are. Getting into Santa Clara, ultimately through some of these webinars and through talking to the campus recruiters and different people, I'm so excited that I ended up making that choice, but joining during covid and also joining the online, I honestly that this might be more of a self-taught program, that was my preconception, which is absolutely not the case. It was very collaborative, and actually, from my very first quarter at Santa Clara, we had a...

0:19:24.0 Runa Brakaj:
You'll have many group projects and even whether online or in person you'll be live sort of either through Zoom meeting, separately arranging to meet with your different colleagues and peers. And I ended up being friends with one of my very first quarter project groups, which we have now as a friend group of about seven or eight close people have gone on two different vacations in the last three years. We've all gone to Hawaii, and we all just came back from Mexico. But more importantly, the connections I made even within the close friend group, but with other people in our cohort have been super, super valuable. It's a very diverse background of students that get placed into the program. Of course, being in Silicon Valley, many people work in tech, but there's also a very significant amount of people who are more entrepreneurial focused or who have different various industries.

0:20:26.5 Runa Brakaj:
I myself work in the real estate industry, which I've been working in for many years. But I've always also wanted to start my own companies. And with some of the relationships I've built with colleagues, not only have we become really close friends, but we also talk about startups all the time. And there's really a lot of different skill sets even within the program. So we've been able to benefit through that. I know I have two close friends who are more in the venture capital space, and they both continuously check in with me on where my startup goals are regardless of my full-time job, [laughter] And they're willing to support me through that. And so you'll really meet friends and colleagues that you'll keep for many, many years to come. And those connections are going to benefit you.

0:21:19.1 Runa Brakaj:
Even within my current job, I currently manage Santana Row. My employer sees the MBA from Santa Clara as a very, very positive and lucrative attribute that I now have. And now that we're coming up against our annual reviews, having just now finished, independently, many executives have approached me and know that I've finished my MBA and are talking to me about further... What's the word? [chuckle] Further roles and opportunities within the company. So from a position of being within a corporation, a public corporation or if you're interested in starting your own businesses, it's a very, very collaborative program and I've genuinely made some of the best friends and relationships within the program, both faculty and students that have helped me throughout several facets of my life.

0:22:21.2 Junaid Syed:
That is amazing to hear Runa and I love that you shared that, especially right at the beginning about how you're... That you had this mis-... At that time you didn't know it was a misconception, but you thought, Okay, it's gonna be kind of self, self-paced doing things on my own. But then when you come in and things start, you realize like what a connected place it is.

0:22:40.5 Runa Brakaj:
Yeah, absolutely. Thinking of online and thinking of COVID and online, I thought I didn't really know what to expect, but from day one of your residency weekend, you're making connections and you're actively speaking to people and seeing them face-to-face. So it's very collaborative across the different programs.

0:23:01.3 Junaid Syed:
Amazing. All right. Thank you so much for sharing. And moving on, this next question, I know, I think all of our alum/student guests wanted to speak to this one. So I'll read it off. How do you use the skills you learned in your Leavey online program, in your current professional role? And we'll, maybe start with Harpreet and then hand it over to Sanskriti.

0:23:30.2 Harpreet Dehar:
Yes, absolutely. And so I would say the program allows for everyone to build on a variety of skills, whether it be through classes, whether it be from what a professor may share or a peer may share. So a lot of us are always constantly learning and gathering information. So I think those skills are applicable in any kind of scenario, not just professionally, but I currently work in private banking and I would say through the finance and analytics program, I was able to gather a lot of the skills which I was then able to connect with a lot of my clients about. Whether it be regarding recent trends in the finance world or just understanding very basic concepts, but being able to relate one-on-one with those clientele and just being able to better understand what the current world is and just understanding the very basics of it. I would say that the program sets up a phenomenal foundation and it's up to everyone to build on that. And whether it be from connecting with your peers or your professors or even guest speakers in some of the classes, just being able to gather those bits and pieces of information and further using them in your career as you grow. That's always been the key.

0:24:44.9 Junaid Syed:
Thanks Harpreet. Sanskriti if you have anything to add?

0:24:49.4 Sanskriti Chadha:
Yeah, for sure. I think the skills you learn in all the programs start the second you begin residency. I remember one of the first things we learned was how to pitch yourself, how to have a elevator pitch and something like that I think takes you... It'll stick with you for your entire career, your entire life. How to really introduce yourself. So something like how those soft skills from that to all of my technical skills that I learned actually in the MSBA program. I'm a data engineer currently, so I feel like a lot of the technical skills that I learned in my classes with data science or machine learning, I'm actually able to make a tangible difference in my workplace. And when I entered the program, I was really looking to enhance those technical skills, but also really understand how that can impact a business and how I can help that way. And I felt like this program really helped meet those goals.

0:25:49.2 Sanskriti Chadha:
Whether it was through projects or just our homework assignments. And I feel like the program allows for you to really make those connections with your peers and your professors to meet all of your goals that you may have for the program.

0:26:03.7 Junaid Syed:
Nice. And then Pearl, if you could share with us the MS marketing perspective with this one?

0:26:09.8 Pearl Yon:
Yeah, of course. So I have a story again. When I was actually interviewing at Google, I was taking this class with Dr. Jay, and he was teaching us how to write a value proposition and how to position a business. And I was a product marketing manager at Kensington previously, but we didn't have a structure for really how to say it in one sentence. And I learned that from Dr. Jay and applied it during my interview at Google, which really gave me that step up. And so I always think back to that moment as well as, without this program, I wouldn't have known that to maybe have gotten the job. So I think that's very valuable and just, a lot of what the other students have said, you're learning a lot of technical skills and soft skills. There's a lot of group projects in the marketing program, and you're working with your professors one-on-one. I like that at the beginning of a module, they always ask you, "what questions do you have at the start of this class that you would like to be solved by the end?" And I always take advantage of that because I either message the professor one-on-one and try to get that implemented into the next 10 weeks, or I kind of get it solved along the way. So I think that's really applicable. And yeah, I think a lot of the skills have been applicable to my daily job and I find it valuable from both ends. Whatever you're gonna be doing. So yeah.

0:27:31.7 Junaid Syed:
Awesome. Thank you Pearl. And Runa, if you'll take us home with the OMA perspective.

0:27:39.1 Runa Brakaj:
Yeah, so this is a very well-rounded program. There are several data analytic focus classes and marketing focus classes that actually, as a business underground major, I was pleasantly surprised at the new depths that we go into from a curricular standpoint. Some of the hard skills I learned, I learned new programs around data analytics through this program. But some of the soft skills I also learned, particularly I took advantage of doing three in-person classes, which you can actually do, as partly, even if you're an online student. And one of the in-person classes I took, which was probably one of my favorites in the whole program, was negotiations. Coming from a field that's very heavy negotiation based, it was... I thought well, let's see what this class is going to teach me. But, it really provided a lot of structure to some of the practice I've already had, but I also learned some new concepts and really got to practice with fellow students, on a weekly basis, again, in person. So there's a variety of skills that I learned online and by taking advantage of the in-person classes, which were all very diverse. As you get further along into the program, you're able to choose your classes and your electives a little bit more, based on the concentration that you would like to take, like to complete. So I ended up completing in a concentration in leading innovative organizations and from a management perspective, that was extremely helpful to me.

0:29:18.3 Runa Brakaj:
I had just taken on in my professional career, an new team with 10 new people reporting to me and at different skill levels. And completing this program while working or by reflecting on my past career experience and on my future career goals really really helped me to put some very hard concepts to what I see in the practical world. And completing the program, really, I was able to leverage that by speaking to my peers, by speaking to professors in a way that you can't always speak to people in your work environment as candidly and as openly as you might be able to in the classroom. And really, presenting a problem or presenting an initiative that you might have while completing the program, it just really helped to match both academics and practice and intertwine them in an elevated way that I just did not get from even being a business undergrad student.

0:30:20.2 Junaid Syed:
Awesome. Thank you Runa. And we'll kick it over to Joshua too before we go on to the next slide.

0:30:26.2 Joshua Rosenthal:
Appreciate it. All outstanding stories and I think it just really speaks to the point of rigor and relevancy. And that's what we have here at the Leavey School of Business, the rigorousness of our curriculum, but really the relevance to industry or to the profession or job skills and requirements that's needed to have success. And so in the classroom, I can't over state this, application and practice, application and practice, whether you're discussing it, collaborating, presenting on it or even writing about it. It's to make sure that you're having success in your career as you're taking your newfound knowledge from the classroom to your profession. And I think that's one of the reasons why our broncos are always accelerating in their professional careers because they're constantly learning something new and implementing it in their industry and people are taking notice, when we create the classes here, we don't start at the beginning, we start at the very end.

0:31:31.1 Joshua Rosenthal:
And that means the student. We think about the student and what does the student need to have to learn to reach their professional goals. And from that point on, we move backwards to the question of "what do you wanna get out of this class? And what are those questions?" 'Cause let's make sure we answer them. If you are looking to sit, take notes, read, go home, write a paper, come back, and gurgitate on the exam, that's not Santa Clara. You are gonna ask to participate, you're gonna get involved. We want to hear your thought process. We want to hear your critical, thinking, your emotional intelligence. We are going to assist you in developing you into an outstanding professional. If you're one already, then you're gonna add more strengths. And if you're just growing in a profession, we're gonna give you that foundation to excel. So, great examples.

0:32:24.6 Junaid Syed:
Thank you so much for adding that Joshua, really thoughtful.

0:32:27.5 Runa Brakaj:
I think I do also wanna add something because I see a chat question here about... Let's see. Saeed Kami asked a question on how does the programme support career change for individuals who do not have sufficient business or managerial experience. I do also want to share that, there were people in the cohort from various levels of professional experience. There were both people coming from undergrad and professionals that had been working for 10 plus years, I would say, and the Santa Clara faculty team can share more on this, but I would say probably on average people had a few years of working experience. Regardless of where you are in your career though, the programme will give you soft and hard skills to elevate your career. I gave the example of my current professional full-time job working for a publicly traded company and just knowing that I finished my master's, regardless of the skills I have through many years of working experience, they're now considering me for much higher ranking positions. There's that component of it, but there's also just the skills and networking that you get from it at any level in your career.

0:33:42.2 Junaid Syed:
Awesome. Thanks for filling that Runa, really appreciate that. I know that's a question on a lot of people's minds. So Saeed thank you for sending that in, and then moving on to the next, this was another question that I think we wanted to hear all perspectives on from the representatives from all programmes. As an online Leavey student or alum, which of the SCU career resources had the biggest impact on your career? Pearl? We can start with you just because I love hearing your story, so we'll kick things off with you. [chuckle]

0:34:18.9 Pearl Yon:
Of course. I want to name two, one VMock. That actually is a graduation requirement, so everyone will have to do it if you join the programme. But I found it really useful. It's basically this tool where you put your resume through it and it generates all these changes that you can make to get a better resume. They'll give you advice on maybe changing words to be more verb-oriented, I don't know, leading or versus just led or something like that. Just the littlest changes that maybe when you put your resume through a filter when you're applying for a job, it won't catch that word.

0:35:02.4 Pearl Yon:
It'll give you a lot of great suggestions in how to maybe change, how you wrote a sentence. So anyways, I found a lot of use in that. And then the second thing is Hand-shake and Handshake, you can connect to a lot of the alum and also a lot of other, I guess mentors that you can have when you're a part of Hand-shake. And I've met with so many from different companies, just hearing their perspective, kind of having coffee chats for 20 minutes here and there to understand what their position is like, what is the company like to get a grasp of the inside scoop of if I would want to pursue a career there or not. So I found those two very, very useful and I use them all the time. So yeah, I would say those are my most impactful.

0:35:48.0 Junaid Syed:
Awesome. Thanks Pearl. Harpreet, how about you?

0:35:52.5 Harpreet Dehar:
Thank you. I would say my top favourite would've been career coaching, which I use from day one to the very end. And I think it's very relevant and relates back to the previous question on how this impacts our day-to-day in our career is for a lot of you will notice that once you put on, you are currently enrolled in a Santa Clara Master's programme, recruiters reach out and fellow colleagues will reach out. And it does open up a lot of opportunities. And having those career coaches there to just use as a sounding board to go through ideas, to go through opportunities has been very beneficial. And I can speak on behalf of a lot of colleagues and peers I had in a lot of my classes is because they have a holistic approach to the current job market and they'll give you kind of unfiltered advice and it is part of a graduation requirement, but they're also there anytime of day to answer any questions and just to kind of be the best sounding board they could be for anyone.

0:36:57.5 Junaid Syed:
Great. And then Runa, how about you?

0:37:04.7 Runa Brakaj:
Yeah, I would say for me, probably two major contributors. The first is also the career coaching, and the second would be just alumni and fellow colleague relationships. I really benefited from having the one-on-one career coach as some of the students here. And alumni mentioned you, it's a graduation requirement, but you can schedule as many one-on-one career sessions with a coach as you like. From the very beginning of the programme to the end of the programme. And Colleen Withers specifically, there was one career coach who stuck with me through the whole programme. And we had several one-on-one phone calls, which I asked career related questions like what about my LinkedIn? And very detailed questions on my LinkedIn, the resume workshop as well. And again, these are just questions that you can't always candidly ask somebody in your working environment because in a working environment, regardless of your goals, you may not be able to openly express your goals as much as you would like to, especially if you have very multifaceted goals like I do.

0:38:21.0 Runa Brakaj:
But with a career coach from Santa Clara, that person who will give you the most open-ended and honest advice and feedback based on what you specifically are looking for, which is very hard to find in a different environment. So the career coaching was really excellent. I asked big level questions and really detailed level questions like what about this wording choice or something like that. And then the relationships with faculty as well. I remember being in a really hard spot kind of with them specifically somebody who reports to me and not knowing how to best kind of handle that, in one of my more management focused classes, I brought that example up to the class and I really got some great feedback on how other students have done it or on their feedback on how they would do it, which again, you can't always get even from in the working environment or even from friends or parents in the way that you'll be able to get professors and from your peers.

0:39:24.4 Junaid Syed:
Great. Thank you, Runa. And then, Sans. Love to hear your take.

0:39:30.5 Sanskriti Chadha:
Yeah. So again, like everyone said, I really thought the one-on-one career coaching was so impactful. I honestly went into it of my first session, not expecting it to be as helpful, thinking "oh what could happen in like a 30 minute session?" But I was so surprised by how casually you could ask any type of question. If you had any concerns about where your career, was going, you could ask the most of vague questions and they would really help you determine what would be the best fit. Maybe open up avenues or show you new perspectives that you never would've even thought of, because they do have years and years of experience in whatever space that you're trying to break into. And there are so many counselors that you could really find someone that is a perfect fit for you, someone who'd be able to give you the best kind of advice. And I found it to be more helpful than I could ever explain. And then I feel like we were able to really use VMock and the career counseling to make sure my resume was the best that it could be. My LinkedIn looked good, so that way people are reaching out to me rather than me having to reach out to people for interviews, jobs like that. So all around all the career resources, I would re really recommend that if you do join the program you really take advantage of from day one.

0:40:56.0 Junaid Syed:
Awesome. Appreciate it Sans. All right, I think this one's the last. This next one is one of the last ones, about tips. So, tips and tricks to share, right? Every prospective students really wanna hear about these and I do too. So, Harpreet, if you can, what tips do you have for prospective students who wanna make the most of CSUs resources in their own career?

0:41:18.6 Harpreet Dehar:
Yes. Happy to share. I would say there's a few. First would be, as many of my peers have shared to make the most of your network, whether it be with your peers or your professors, they are also very well connected and they're always just a good sounding board and always just an inspiration for new ideas and ways to do business. So make the most of networking. SCU has various networking sessions throughout the year or throughout the tenure of your program. So make use of those. There's some online, some in person I would say make use of the career coaching, as the peers have shared their available almost any time of day. So make those appointments, connect with them and build that rapport throughout your journey,'cause they can always be of help and make those difficult decisions with you. And I would say last but not least, just be as involved as possible. This program does go by pretty quickly, whether it be a program of nine months or three years, it does fly by. So take a pause every now and then and just make the most of it by either joining some of the more casual events or going to the more formal networking, but try to make the most of your experience and reach out to us. Us alumni are always very happy to be of any help and answer any questions you may have.

0:42:38.3 Junaid Syed:
Great advice Harpreet. Thank you. Runa, what about you? What tips do you have to share?

0:42:42.8 Runa Brakaj:
I think what Harpreet said was really, all great advice, honestly. I would just say make the most of it, to summarize really makes the most of the opportunities. I know, especially if you're working full-time and doing this program full-time, your time will be limited and of course you have your own, social life, family life and outside life as well. But, there's so many resources available to you while you're completing the program and even afterward, and there's events, there's every week you'll get kind of an email on what's happening, in the online graduate program with different details and events and a reminder on the resources. And like Harpreet said, just take a pause and really make the most of it because it goes by quickly while you're in it feels like it's hard to get through if it's with the more activities you have. But it goes by so quickly. And the more resources that I was able to take advantage of, the more connections I was able to bond with. That's what I really remember now. In addition to obviously the skills I learned. So take advantage of it and make the most of it.

0:44:00.0 Junaid Syed:
Awesome. Thank you Runa. And then Sans, if you've got anything to add?

0:44:03.7 Sanskriti Chadha:
Honestly I think that Harpreet and Runa really emphasize emphasizing the key aspect of making the most of it. I'd like to echo that same concept. It goes by so quick. But there are so many resources at your fingertips once you become a student at Santa Clara. And it's just really important to be aware of it and make those connections with your peers, with your professors. I've had the same professor for multiple classes, which is really awesome. So you can build a connection even if it's an accelerated program. So just be present and take them like advantage of everything.

0:44:41.2 Junaid Syed:
Love it. Make the most of it. Right. Great advice, across the board. This next one, I believe this is our last one. And I know we've got, some questions streaming in, so definitely wanna save some time for those. But Shauna would love to hear from you, about how students can utilize the SCU Alumni Network in their career.

0:45:03.4 Shauna Strauss:
Definitely. There are a variety of different ways to connect with our alums. From what I've heard from students, when I'm having like a one-on-one coaching appointment with a student, we'll go through a few options. So one, you can tap into the alumni network just through LinkedIn. So even just going through our Leavey School of Business page, you can see where our alumni are on LinkedIn and you can reach out to them there. We have our closed LinkedIn group as well, which is just for current students and alumni where we will post jobs, but also alums will post opportunities as well.

0:45:39.4 Shauna Strauss:
And the other thing is joining our events. So even, our alumni panels is a great way to, connect with alums. We recently had a panel this past spring, focused on wealth management, careers in wealth management. And one of our students was networking with one of our alumni panelists and now they are working for Morgan Stanley, through that connection. So, it's moments like that and that you just never know when those connections are going to happen, but you have to be proactive. And that's, it's not gonna come to you. You have to be putting yourself forward, and attending these different workshops, virtually is totally fine as well if you can't come in person. But we do, several networking events as well.

0:46:26.9 Shauna Strauss:
So we have our pretty large networking bash coming in. Coming up in October, last year we had around 250 students and alumni attend. Really great networking opportunity and most likely what we'll do is we'll divide it up again by functional area. So depending on where your interests are, you know, the alumni or the students will be there, to network with. So there are many different opportunities where you can have that organic networking. Another resource that you could utilize is Bronco Exchange. This is a somewhat new platform. I think it's been launched on campus for about a year now. But this supports the entire university.

0:47:08.6 Shauna Strauss:
So not only would you be tapping into the Levy School of Business Alumni Network, but also the larger Santa Clara University, community. And it's basically a alumni student mentorship tool, where you can message and connect with alums, or students who have opted in to provide advice, and reach out to them for career advice. So it's like a messaging platform. You can do phone calls through the platform or video chat through the platform as well. And what's great is that the alums are opting in to use the platform. So kind of eliminates that awkward moment where you don't really wanna reach out to someone, you haven't met before, where you know, anyone on that platform is opting in to have those conversations. So I think that's a really great new tool and we're really trying to, invigorate and get students excited about utilizing that platform for sure.

0:48:04.3 Junaid Syed:
Nice. That's really thoughtfully designed and it sounded like what you were saying in the beginning, was just echoing what others have said is, make the most of it right, Shauna? [chuckle] So I really appreciate that. But yeah. All right, we'll move on to the questions. The Q and A portion. There are a few questions that were asked in the chat. And I'm gonna just comb through here quickly to make sure, that we're not missing any. I know Patrick, you had asked one that Shauna actually, addressed. Will there be any comprehensive career stature I wasn't able to find a career report on your website. To that, Shauna said that the majority of our students, six months post-grad have self-reported employment. Students go into a multitude of industries and roles depending on the program, but around 30% are in the tech industry, majority are working in the Bay Area. So thanks for sharing that, Shauna, with Patrick and with everyone else. Hopefully that answered the question, Patrick, but if you have anything to add, Shauna, feel free.

0:49:03.1 Shauna Strauss:
Yeah, I was just gonna add, you know, if it's specific to finance, our students, generally are looking at, you know, financial analyst roles. They move into FP&A roles as well, or even data analyst positions that are within finance teams specifically. But it is really across a variety of industries as well. So FinTech is something you're interested in. That's certainly, a space where we have alums and students that have moved into, yeah.

0:49:34.1 Junaid Syed:
Nice. Great. And then, let's see. Do you have any information on estimated time commitments for a student enrolled in the part-time online MS FA? So, across the board, be in it, if you're looking to graduate, the program that you're in, in the minimum amount of time required, it's, the guidance that we provide is usually around 15 or 20 hours. Some weeks you'll have more and some you may have less. But, I think that's a good general guide. Jeremy asked, an interesting question here. Given the number of generative AI ChatGPT offerings, how is Leavy addressing this in the curriculum, to improve efficiency, forecast opportunity and, so on? Does anybody have, anybody wanna chime in with that?

0:50:25.7 Joshua Rosenthal:
I know amongst the educational landscape, ChatGPT has been [laughter] spoken about quite, often.

0:50:36.1 Junaid Syed:
Quite a bit, right? [chuckle]

0:50:37.2 Joshua Rosenthal:
Yeah, I mean, from my desk as assistant dean, most of it's been making sure that we are maintaining A, the rigor as well as, reliability and value to the student's work and that we're monitoring ChatGPT from a student's research perspective. But I do know that, anecdotally there are faculty members that are now using ChatGPT within their projects. I know in, IS there's a project with ChatGPT that they're using now, I don't know the specifics, but I know that faculty members are starting to look at ChatGPT and say, Hey, how can we utilize this tool, to teach about it, learn more about it, with specifics in the class objectives in itself. But that's as much information as I have. I don't have the specifics. It's still new and faculty members are starting to look at it and incorporate in their curriculum as we move forward into the next, 23/24 academic year.

0:51:42.6 Junaid Syed:
Nice. Thanks Joshua. And also, you know, I think one of the really, one thing that is very unique about faculty at SCU is they're really given a lot of... They have the ability to update their curriculum very frequently. And so that's something that you'll probably, there'll be more to come on that. But I think that's something, 'cause historically speaking, the world of academia can be a little bit slow moving to things like that. But I think Santa Clara is a place where that isn't really true. But let's dive in to some of these. So the first one we answered live, Sayeed is asking if you'd briefly talk about your capstone project.

0:52:24.1 Junaid Syed:
So my mind goes to the experiential learning portions of MSBA and MSFA. If you could talk maybe Sans or Harpreet, if you could talk about your practicum experience.

0:52:45.3 Sanskriti Chadha:
Yeah, I can go ahead first. So I think two things that were like really applicable learning opportunities in the MSBA program was one, the capstone project and two, the business analytics showdown that we got to take a part of. So for the capstone specifically, how it works is, we're randomly assigned groups and we're able to kind of rank the companies that we would work with. We're given a little bit of a spiel about what the project we'll be working on, with the company is. And for two quarters, you work with your group, a professor and the industry mentor, I guess you could say to work on a project together, which is something that will actually be used for the company. So for me, we actually helped create a software to predict profitability for commercial real estate, which is something that coming from like a data engineer background, that's not something I thought that I would be working with. But it was, I think, one of the most valuable experiences because I learned so much about a field that I didn't know before.

0:53:55.9 Sanskriti Chadha:
And I actually found out that I was really interested in this and I was able to create a software from scratch. And that company will be using that work in the future. So I think that was really cool because you got to work with the team to create like an actual product. And I don't think that's something that you really get to experience anywhere else other than a program like this. And then similarly in the business analytics showdown, you get an opportunity to work with a team kind of like in a competition space.

0:54:30.1 Sanskriti Chadha:
Everyone is using the same data and you have to create something and give some valuable advice depending on I think every quarter it kind of switches with the company you're working with is and like the data you're doing and your goals. But I thought both of these experiences were super unique. So you really learn a lot about how the skills you learn in this program really translate in like an actual company in that kind of space.

0:55:00.3 Junaid Syed:
Thank you, Sans. I know we only have a couple of minutes left here. So I want to get through as much as we can. I think I saw Shauna typing for the average starting salary details question. Did you answer that one, Shauna?

0:55:16.7 Shauna Strauss:
I was just in the process of typing it out. I think it really depends on the industry that you're moving into or or looking at. But there is looking at the brochure that we have. And I think the average salary reported was around 167,000. But I really think that depends on like where you're moving into, 'cause that...

0:55:40.3 Junaid Syed:
Yeah, it's such a such an open question because it depends on years of experience. Industry and all of that other stuff. But there is some stuff posted on the online specific website about that, depending on which program you're interested in. You can find some of that there or connect with me after my email address. I'll actually change the slide so that you can see my contact info so you can reach out to me if you have questions. MBA program minimum amount of time, two years. No, you actually have up until I think about five years to complete the degree. Minimum amount of time to complete is two years. Max is about five years.

[laughter]

0:56:12.6 Joshua Rosenthal:
Sorry about that. I totally typed that answer incorrectly, meaning I misread the question. You can also finish it earlier, too. So we do have students that will finish before two years.

0:56:28.6 Junaid Syed:
Oh, good good good.

0:56:29.0 Joshua Rosenthal:
So it's extremely flexible. But yes, today is correct. Two to five years is, just depends on how you want to go about it. And there's plenty of coaching from our program, our student services team that will assist you. So I'm sorry about that.

0:56:46.2 Junaid Syed:
No, that's all good, Joshua, appreciate that. Preet is asking, what would you say is the ideal student to get accepted from an admissions perspective? Another question, Preet that's kind of very gray. I will say that the cohorts are very diverse. And I think that's something that we really pride ourselves on is when you're in a program, when you're in a cohort, you're with people who have two or three years of experience or with people that have 20 years of experience, you're with people from different sectors that are represented in the program. So diversity is a huge part of it. I wouldn't say there's like an ideal candidate or anything like that. It's just so specific to what your situation is. But if you are considering applying and you want to know if you make a strong candidate for a program, then feel free to reach out. Contact info is displayed here on the screen, question for Harpreet, how will you be leveraging the MSFA degree now that you have finished in your banking career? I see you typing now, Harpreet, do you want to just take it live?

0:57:53.8 Harpreet Dehar:
Yes, happy to. I would say the program has opened up a variety of opportunities and I'm still weighing out some options. But I would say the best case scenario is, it really just opens up a lot of opportunities. And the beauty of that is in the current day and age, it just gives you some options to work with. And I think with the analytics part, it opened up a lot of opportunities to learn areas I had never known about. I was a little more familiar on the finance side, but being able to marry the two and understand both on a higher level, it's just opened up a variety of opportunities. And I just hope to utilize that going forward.

0:58:33.7 Junaid Syed:
Awesome. Thank you, Harpreet. Thank you so much for joining everybody, we do have deadlines coming up for the fall term. So if you're interested in applying, reach out to myself or my colleague, Lynn and we'll be happy to help. Panelists, thank you so much for joining all of the attendees. Thank you for joining...

0:58:41.6 Joshua Rosenthal:
Thank you.

0:58:42.5 Junaid Syed:
And hopefully we'll be connecting with you all soon. Take care, everybody.

0:58:44.0 Runa Brakaj:
Thank you.

March ’23 Silicon Valley Bank Collapse Explained

Seoyoung Kim:
Hi everyone, I'm Seoyoung Kim. I'm currently the Finance Department chair and Program Director for the MS in Finance and Analytics. I think a couple of the questions that you all wanted answered were, “How might entrepreneurs learn about this? How is it affecting the day-to-day work of startups and how can they ease their anxieties around the collapse?” I think the first thing is most of us are very aware that banks don't have all the money on hand if everybody went to grab their deposits. And that's where the FDIC insurance is critical. But problems with banks like Silicon Valley Bank is that the vast majority of deposits are not FDIC-insured because the FDIC only insures up to $250,000. Now, saying only 250K, that's normal for retail investors or a retail individual might have money at SVB, they might have money at Chase, they might have money at Bank of America.

So now, if you have far more than $250,000, which is going to be normal for the larger startups here who are making payroll and who are paying for upcoming bills with that money, then that is not going to be FDIC-insured. Things that are FDIC-insured, the FDIC has said that if there is a run on the bank, you'll get your money within two days. Now, the problem with the deposits that aren't FDIC-insured, typically a bank like Silicon Valley Bank is invested in safe assets. So now, when a bank takes your deposit, they're going to do a lot of things with it. They're going to make student loans, they're gonna lend money to people so they can buy cars, get a house, et cetera. Now, with Silicon Valley Bank, they took a lot of those uninsured deposits and invested in US treasuries and invested in agency residential mortgage-backed securities.

So agency residential mortgage-backed securities are backed by Fannie and Freddie. So these are conforming mortgages that will ultimately be made whole if there's a default but all of that takes time. And now with US treasuries, we know that the US hasn't yet defaulted on anything. There's this hoopla about the debt ceiling every once in a while. Especially this time around, it was an even bigger deal that made the US CDS spreads go up. But for the most part, we're not really worried about US treasuries. But the problem, if you're buying these long-term US treasuries, you will get your coupons and you will be made whole over time. But in the interim, there's something called interest rate risk. So when Silicon Valley Bank bought these long-term US treasuries back when interest rates were super low, and then we saw over the last year, the Fed continually went on to raise interest rates.

So what you learn in Finance 101, and what we call Finance 3000 here at Santa Clara, is there's a substantial amount of interest rate risk, or what we call price risk, in these "riskless securities.” So in these default-free riskless securities, there's still a lot of price risk in that when interest rates go up, the prices of those securities come down. So now, when people are coming to collect their deposits, Silicon Valley Bank needs to sell those treasuries, and if they keep having to sell those treasuries at a lower price, now they're in trouble because they don't have the leeway to wait until they can get money whole on those US treasuries. So as this was all happening, then people became worried: “Oh no, will we be able to get our money out to make payroll?” Even if people guarantee that they'll give you your money, you don't know when and how long for the things that aren't FDIC-insured.

So even with all the activity that the US government has made over the weekend to tell depositors that they'll be made whole on their deposits, depositors are still uncertain as to how much they'll have immediately available. The depositors who weren't FDIC-insured, they're concerned as to how much will be immediately available and how long it'll take for them to be able to get all that money over time.

“What can the entrepreneur learn from the collapse? How is the collapse affecting the day-to-day work?” So the day-to-day work is impacted. Even as of last week, where, if there's a hold up on getting your money to make payroll, then entrepreneurs and co-founders need to start thinking about how are they going to pay employees immediately in the near term? And employees, who don't have the same kind of equity stake that an entrepreneur has, won't have the motivation to stick around and do the work.

And rightfully so. And so, entrepreneurs would also need to think about what is their own liquidity backstop? So even though the government has said that they will guarantee all of the deposits, entrepreneurs still have to worry about immediate-term liquidity. And some of the questions here are, “How much should you rely on a local bank like Silicon Valley?” Silicon Valley Bank was FDIC-insured, but they're not what we call a SIFI, or what we didn't call a SIFI then. Now the the federal government is becoming concerned. A SIFI is a Systemically Important Financial Institution. So something that a lot of people aren't aware of is years ago, and this is seven, eight years ago, where Chase, Bank of America, these very, very large banks. Now, they are far larger in terms of the kind of deposits that they have. Where Silicon Valley Bank was in the billions, these banks like Chase and Bank of America are in the trillions for their deposits.

These guys were requiring insurance to be paid by institutions that were going to have larger accounts that exceed the $250,000 maximum that FDI insurance provides for. And so the banks were already thinking about this problem, these larger banks, whereas smaller local banks like Silicon Valley Bank weren't requiring that type of additional insurance from their depositors when those depositors went above and beyond the 250,000 maximum that FDIC was insuring. And now, to give a sense of how much of this is an issue with Silicon Valley Bank, more than 80% of the deposits at Silicon Valley Bank are uninsured. So you can imagine that these guys are very nervous. They're less nervous now that over the weekend, the federal government has decided that all depositors are going to be made whole. Now, that's different from the investor. The investors are probably gonna walk away with nothing here. And by investors, I mean the equity participants in Silicon Valley Bank and some of the other banks that you're seeing going down just within a matter of days of each other. So I suppose the biggest thing would be: Don't put all your eggs in one basket. Try to ask your bank what would happen in the case of a liquidity crunch and have a liquidity backstop of your own.

[music]

Seoyoung Kim:
Hi everyone, I'm Seoyoung Kim, Finance Department Chair and MSFA Program Director at Santa Clara University. And I have here with me, Fiona.

Fiona Geisinger:
Hi. I'm Fiona Geisinger. I'm Co-Founder and President of Owl Search Partners. We're a retained search firm for finance, accounting and people, roles. I am also a Santa Clara University MBA alumni, class of 2012.

Seoyoung Kim:
Right now, it is a particularly tough job market. I mean, we are in a tech winter. So what are you hearing and seeing right now in terms of the hiring trends and also the layoffs?

Fiona Geisinger:
This is such an interesting market. And it's such a great time to be having this discussion, because it's not the crash we saw back in year 2008. This isn't the same crutch, this isn't everything's going to zero. There are a lot of jobs out there that are being hired for. There are a lot of people that are getting laid off, and there's more jobs that are opening up. And what we're seeing is the industries that are making an impact in a way are the ones that are getting funding, and that are hiring, that are ramping up. So we're seeing a lot in the MedTech space, we're seeing a lot in the sustainability environmental space, we're seeing a lot in the SaaS space in companies that are helping other companies be more efficient with cost savings and different areas like that. We're not seen as much in the hyper-growth scaling IPO space. So when you're looking in a finance role and you wanna be that person who's taking a company public, over and over again, you wanna be that serial leader, that's not out there right now, because people are in survival mode. It's almost... We talk about this hibernation load that we see. Lots of layoffs, holding the steady staff. That steady staff is the skills that they're looking for, someone who can wear a lot of hats and carry the torch until we get out of this winter, as you had mentioned.

Seoyoung Kim:
When you're dwindling down to the few, then everybody has to do everything as opposed to having one specialized role. In terms of the most competitive skills that employers are looking for right now, 'cause you're talking about what to beef up, of course, the FP&A skills. What else would you recommend that our MSFA students, or even MBA students, should focus on in terms of being most competitive for employers when they complete their program?

Fiona Geisinger:
I think it's less about the area you're going into and more about what you can bring to the table. So both MBA and the MS Finance degree, make sure that the skills you're bringing are very diversified, especially in this market. We're in a market right now where there's a lot of people looking for work. And companies are a little uneasy about things that are happening in the market. So they're not gonna hire multiple people for the same role, and sometimes, especially in the startup environment, which is what we see a lot in the Bay area, they want someone who can wear a lot of hats. So when you're going through your programming and you're starting to program all the classes you're taking, diversify what you're taking and be able to speak to multiple levels of the different areas. So to finance situation, if you understand throughput FP&A and your basic financial statements, but you also a little bit more on the analytical side and understand how to maybe do more of a sales finance or investment finance and understand your ROIs and net present values, you're bringing more to the table. And I think from what we're seeing in the market, that is what is getting the offers, is the people who show that they're beyond the box of the job description.

Seoyoung Kim:
What can you say about specifically our online MSFA program and our online MBA program? What specifically do we do at SCU that you've noticed to connect students who are online to our Silicon Valley career networks?

Fiona Geisinger:
The online MBA and masters programs in general, there's two different types of them. There's the programs that you go into just to get that degree. Santa Clara is not doing it that way. They're making sure there's networking going on, there's on-site, you have to come to campus a couple of times to meet the students, there's still collaboration work. There's still those same case studies of showing different areas of Silicon Valley work, bringing people in-house to do lunch and learns and happy hour chats, there's still that connection to the Silicon Valley world, and to CFOs and CEOs and founders and leaders. That sets it apart from other master's programs because they're essentially taking the in-person program and translating a portion of it online, but still having it as challenging as if you're sitting next to the person. And then you add these case studies and these group projects and you still have to learn the management skills of working together, and you still have to learn how to deal with different personalities, and all the skills that you should be getting from a master's program.

Seoyoung Kim:
I like that because we are very vast and connected in Silicon Valley, and it's hard to feel if you haven't been plugged in here yet, but as soon as you come to Santa Clara, we really are immediately plugged in to this area by dint of our vast networks. Thanks so much again, Fiona, for taking the time to chat with me. So to all of our students, current and perspective, this is Fiona Geisinger. She's one of many amazing people that you'll have contact with once you're here at Santa Clara, and I'm Seoyoung Kim, Finance Department Chair and MSFA Program Director.

Fiona Geisinger:
Hi, I'm Fiona Geisinger. I'm Co-Founder and President of Owl Search Partners. We're a retained search firm for finance, accounting, and people roles. I am also a Santa Clara University MBA alumni, class of 2012.

Seoyoung Kim:
When you're laid off, what is the best way to frame this layoff? Or what is the most successful narrative that you can frame around this layoff?

Fiona Geisinger:
With this job market right now, it's almost expected that you're getting laid off. And I think the best way to frame it, is to speak about positives that you learned from your company, the impact that you made, and if it was a team, like a whole team that got laid off, it's good to talk about that, so that it shows you're not singled out as a layoff to get rid of you, as opposed to, "This function is going away... ", or, "Part of my team got laid off."

I work with founders daily. First time founders, especially, that just don't have as much of a grasp around when people get laid off, it's not about their skills. So to frame it around, "Our company, unfortunately, lost funding", or, "We had to go into hibernation mode", or whatever the words were on why that reduction in force happened, it helps set the stage to why. But coming at it with a positive light, which is, "While I was there for these six months, we built out this function", or, "I was able to build out this, and unfortunately, I didn't get to see it come to a fruition." And having that positive spin shows that there is no animosity, and that you're a good worker, and that you're gonna come in and give your all in the next role.

[music]

Nydia MacGregor:
Hi, everyone. My name is Nydia MacGregor and I'm Associate Dean for Graduate Business programs here at the Leavey School of Business. It is my great pleasure today to welcome Dean Grier to join us as we talk to him a little bit more about his background in industry and how that influences and inspires us here at the Leavey School of Business.

Ed Grier:
Hello. I'm Ed Grier, Dean at the Leavey School of Business here at Santa Clara University. Prior to becoming a business school dean, I had a wonderful career at the Disney Company for nearly 30 years and that had a huge impact on who I was as a leader and how was successful. And I rely on what I learned at Disney at Leavey as well. Set huge expectations, be clear about those, building high performance teams, and also the environment is so important. Making sure that everyone feels welcome, they're included in decision making and we all benefit from the success. There are a lot of great universities in the valley or close to valley but what makes us stand out is that we're right here in the middle and it's a unique position. We have great programs, we have great professors, you expect that. But we have the connectivity to the valley that no one else can really claim. Our alums are very close. We can literally reach out and touch these big companies and small startups, and that makes it unique for us because we can pull that activity right into the classroom. So we're real time all the time and so not only are you learning from our great professors, you're also learning from the people out there in the real world. And that word's used a lot, I know, but people that are really doing it day to day. Nydia, I get the opportunity to ask you a few questions now.

Nydia MacGregor:
All right.

Ed Grier:
Our MBA, what makes the curriculum so distinctive?

Nydia MacGregor:
There are three things that really make it unique. One of them is the Management 3000, which is really our leadership course. They coalesce in their cohorts, they learn something intensive about themselves and it begins the transformational process of turning them into a principled leader. That's one piece. We also have another course that's called Doing Business in Silicon Valley. In that particular class, students get a chance to interact with VCs and really understand what the ecosystem is here that generates just a tremendous amount of innovation. And then finally we have a final core course that's called Business for the Common Good which covers understanding how business can be a force for good in society and that both means, yes, building profits but also means for the planet. And then they end the class with different industry leaders on those same topics intentionally talking about what's the cutting edge question right here right now.

Ed Grier:
You mentioned Silicon Valley. So how do we leverage that, that opportunity?

Nydia MacGregor:
Silicon Valley is the inspiration for what happens in the classroom on a day to day basis and so, as a result, students really feel connected across industries, not just sort of narrowly on tech but whatever industry is here in the valley. I think it makes a huge difference in the preparation our students get.