July 2017 – MBA IRISH ECHOES

Favorite first year class… Financial Accounting 1&2?

By: Jack Pelzer

At the end of last year, the resident statisticians at the Irish Echoes conducted an extensive survey of the Mendoza student body. Difficult questions were asked. Who is your favorite professor? What would you do differently if you could start over? Which bar is most likely to undercook mozzarella sticks? The results were, dare I say, eye opening. Perhaps most astounding was that a plurality of students selected Financial Accounting as their favorite class.

Yes. Accounting. The course in which one presumably learns how to wear a translucent, green visor and tell boring stories at cocktail parties. How on earth did this happen? Well, it turns out that our survey overlooked a significant lurking variable in the form of Professor Jeffrey Miller.

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The top 3 highlights of living in South Bend

By: Andrew Crown

Four Winds Field, home to the South Bend Cubs. (Photo courtesy Andrew Crown)

Like most Notre Dame MBA applicants, I was delighted when my phone rang with a “574” area code and an invitation to join the program. Even though I was elated to be coming to Notre Dame, I admit that I had some reservations about making the transition from the big city of Denver to the small town of South Bend, Indiana. Fortunately, I have been pleasantly surprised with the quality of life in the South Bend area.

Fitness: A short drive from the Notre Dame campus is the Riverwalk in the neighboring town of Mishawaka. With several miles of paved trails on either side of the St. Joseph River, the Riverwalk is the perfect place for a walk, jog, or bicycle ride. With wide paths and gorgeous scenery, the Riverwalk provides a nice diversion from schoolwork.

Sports: One of my favorite things to do when I was living in Denver was to go to sporting events. There is just something special about taking in a ballgame on a warm evening with your friends. Although it is not Major League Baseball, the South Bend Cubs provide a fun experience at the intimate Four Winds Field. With cheap tickets and concessions, you can have the full ballpark experience for $20. Not a bad deal on a student budget! Continue reading “The top 3 highlights of living in South Bend”

5 pitfalls of terrible leadership stories

By: Jack Pelzer

Photo by Eric Santillian, via Wikimedia Commons

Can you give an example of an instance in which you demonstrated outstanding leadership? You better, because every behavioral interview is bound to include some form of this question. Employers LOVE leadership experience (even if they are filling jobs that require blind obedience to a tyrannical middle manager).

So how can you improve your answer to this inevitable prompt? Unfortunately, there aren’t any short cuts. Crafting a compelling leadership narrative is both time-consuming and difficult, but the good news is that it’s pretty easy to avoid telling terrible leadership stories. Just avoid doing these things:

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The reason why business needs the liberal arts

By: Ephrem Shaffer

(Photo courtesy University of Notre Dame)

By all accounts, I don’t have a typical MBA background. In high school, I was crazy about theater and competitive speech. In college, I joined a seminary and got a philosophy degree. To this day, one of my favorite pastimes is binge-watching the year’s Academy Award nominees for Best Picture.

Yep, I’m a liberal arts guy. It runs in the family. My dad is a high school English teacher, my sister is a music teacher, my other sister is a writer, and the list goes on.

So why did I decide to get an MBA (other than to be different from my siblings)?

My interest in business first emerged during my three years at Korn Ferry, the world’s largest executive search firm. I found business to be a thrilling arena in which competition, collaboration, and problem-solving all collide. Continue reading “The reason why business needs the liberal arts”