Master of Science in Accounting:  Professor Kulsrud’s 9th Annual Dionysian Bash AKA The MSA Picnic,
Saturday, August 16Th

 
Please join us for food and fun! New students, take this opportunity to meet members of the faculty, current students and alumni who can tell you what the program is really like!
 All conditionally and unconditionally admitted MSAs are invited. Alumni should drop in as well. Spouses and significant others are welcome, but please—no children, pets, non-Elvis fans or livestock!
 
WHERE:  The Mansion at Oak Hill
Northern Beach Shelter #2
5801 E. 116th Street
Carmel, IN 46033
Map: http://www.oakhillmansion.com/pages/gen_locations.html
 
WHEN:  Saturday, August 16th from 4:30-7:30pm
(Orientation from 3:30-4:30pm)
 
WHY:  To suck up to your instructors, to meet the MSA program staff and to meet other MSAs, and to hear about our new degree, the Master of Science in Taxation. And because this is your last chance to have fun before we hold your nose to the grindstone!
 
WHAT ELSE:  A mandatory orientation for students starting in Summer or Fall 2008 and anyone else who has questions about their program (Schedule, LIPE, E-Mail, Registration, Oncourse). These students should arrive at 3:30 pm SHARP.
 
THE FINE PRINT
1. Please RSVPand tell us if you are - or are not - coming. If you are coming, tell us if there will be one or two attending.
2. RSVP to Kristina Snellenberger by Monday, AUGUST 4th. Call her at 278-3885, or email her at krisnell@iupui.edu

The most rewarding part of my job is hearing success stories, especially when they are hard-earned.  Early this week I received an email from a former student detailing his own job search - which involved a career change - and offered some practical advice to current Kelley students.  I asked him if I could share it with you. I think you’ll be as impressed as I was. Here it is:

Dear JR,

About two years ago I came and made an appointment with you to discuss career options for my extremely unusual situation.  I don't expect you to remember this meeting, as it was only about 45 minutes and we only met on one occasion.  However, I wanted to update you and let you know my personal experience so you may share with anyone who has "unusual" circumstances such as mine.

I was a returning adult student (I am 33) in the Kelley School of Business.
I had just returned to college full-time after working in retail management for 13 years.  The odd thing about my situation was that I was not returning to study management - I was doing a complete 180 degree turn in my career and studying Computer Information Systems (with absolutely no real-world experience in the field).  The reason I had come to you was to discuss what you thought I could do to get myself ready for the job search process (I came to you about a year before my expected graduation of December 2007).  In a nutshell, from that 45 minute talk, I deduced I would need to do a LOT of legwork on my end to get a job - the implication was the field I was looking to enter was not very "cookie cutter" and I would need to develop some specific skills to market in order to succeed . . .   You prepared me for the cold fact that my career path was going to require a lot of legwork on my part.

With your advice in tow, I talked to professors and business professionals to try to determine what sort of IT positions my management experience would benefit.  One specific example, during a project with Pratt Corporation, I took an opportunity to pull the Vice President of IT aside and get his opinion on my skills and the sort of position he thought I would be suited for.  I also scoured the internet to try to find common denominators among IT jobs on skills that I could attempt to hone.  This information led me to begin self-studying for a project management certification (which I received in November 2007).  In addition, I began to do a lot of work on my own developing small/useful programs in Visual Basic.net that I could put into a portfolio to show potential employers (as an example, I created an eBay sales invoicing program I used to track my sales in an Access database and generate invoices).

I graduated "with distinction" from Kelley in December 2007 and began the job-hunt full force.  My personal goal was to have a job by the middle/end of February.  I had numerous phone interviews but the thing that was getting in the way was I had zero experience in the IT field.  I worked with two separate placement firms - both of which were telling me I was only suited for a level I technical support position (answering phones).

While working with the placement firms . . . both were telling me to kind of sit back and let them do the searching - not a good idea.  Frustration was mounting because I knew that if I could just get into a company for a face-to-face interview I could convince them I was the person for ANY job.  I soon abandoned the placement firms and resumed the search on my own.  I re-worked my resume (because obviously something wasn't drawing interest) and plastered it everywhere.

I also sent off copies to all major companies in the area.  Then it happened....

One day I received a call to interview as a Technical Assistant for Frank DeLisle and Associates (a contractor at Eli Lilly who found my resume on Kelley Careers).  When the job was described to me I was interested, but not to the point I was overly excited.  I met with the owner, Frank, and he was impressed with me.  I showed him my portfolio of programs and explained in depth my computing knowledge and project management abilities.  After that long interview (at Starbucks near IUPUI) I was called back a few days later.  He told me he wanted to bring me into Eli Lilly for half a day of interviews - but not as a technical assistant - as a Data Systems Analyst!

I cannot begin to explain how excited I was - this is job I went back to school for.  Shortly after, I went through a series of four interviews at Lilly with various levels of management and was hired on as a Data Systems Analyst making [a very competitive salary].

My story is one that many good things can be learned from:

1)  Drastic career changes are possible and can have excellent outcomes.  I was making $38,000 after 13 years in retail - after getting my degree I just started my new job in March making [significantly more].

2)  I probably studied harder on learning the job market and what I needed to do to bolster my resume than I did in any college course.  I recommend spending a LOT of time looking at job postings for your projected career well before you start looking for a job.  This way you can see what skills are commonly requested in your field and do your best to gain those skills or learn as much as you can about them.  A lot of IT jobs want project management skills - so I got a certification in project management.
     
3)  You don't have to know a specific skill they need - but show you can learn it!  My job requires SAS programming experience.  I have ZERO experience but did a lot of research on it.  In the interviews I explained that I knew what it was, had viewed sample code, and would have no problem applying standard programming concepts to the language.  I also explained that I realized how easy it is to learn a language - what is harder is learning how to properly program...which is what I was taught at IUPUI.

4)  Know who is interviewing you!  I was being interviewed by the head of the Epidemiology department.  I had NO IDEA what this was so I researched it.  Sure enough, one of the first questions he asked me was what I knew about Epidemiology.  I was able to blow him away with my knowledge of epidemiology because I prepared ahead of time.

5)  Interview yourself over and over!  I used to interview myself all the time in the car - asking myself questions I thought could be asked.  I was amazed at how many times I caught myself saying things that would definitely not help in an interview.  By hearing it out loud it gave me that opportunity to learn how to answer commonly asked questions without shooting myself in the foot.  "What are your weaknesses?"  I definitely learned how to answer this question in a very positive way that helped my interview.

I am sure you hear stories like this all the time.  However, I am extremely proud of how my situation turned out and wanted to share with someone at the school that helped make it all possible.  Thank you for reading this...and I hope knowing of my experience may be able to help you with someone else in the future in a similar situation.

Hi and happy summer!

I’ve had the opportunity to do some training and explore my career and my personal strengths recently. I’ve learned a lot and wanted to share some great insights into how to take charge of your career -- and life -- from panelists at the IU Kelley CareerMoves conference held recently.

• Make yourself indispensable
• If it feels uncomfortable, do it. Don’t shy away from the unknown, the “never done it before” or the chance that you might not do something perfectly the first time
• It’s all about attitude – yours. In good and not-so-good times, how you choose to respond and be every day is sometimes all that matters
• Look in the mirror. It might be you!
• Get a mentor – you’re never too old or young. Ask someone you admire and respect. A mentor can be from your employer, your profession, even volunteer work
• Ask people “what do you think?” “how do you feel?”
• Own your own career and life. No one else is going to do it for you

Would love to hear other thoughts! Have a great day.

Want to know what a Recorder does outside of the office?

I just bought my first house...well, since I was divorced 16 years ago.  I swore I would never get a house again.  I didn’t have the money to fix things and I didn’t want to worry about upkeep.  An apartment was just fine for me.  That was until my older daughter moved back in with my younger daughter and me.  She also brought her 2 cats.  It got crowded!

Well, April 24th I closed on my 2 story 3 bedroom 2 ½ bath house.  It needed work, and I couldn’t get out of my lease until the end of July, so I figured we would paint, put in new floor, etc.

It is now June 17th and we are still working on it.  I knew I wanted to put in a new floor in the kitchen.  However, I didn’t realize how hard it is to remove the adhesive off the cement slab from the vinyl linoleum that was on there.  We also had to remove wallpaper from the kitchen walls.  It came off easily, but so did the paint on the rest of the walls!!  It peeled off just like the wallpaper did!  No, they didn’t paint over wallpaper, it just peeled.

We now have the kitchen primed, cabinets clean, and the floor just about ready for the vinyl peel and stick flooring we are going to put down.  It has taken a VERY long time, but it will be worth it.

My daughters’ bathroom also had wallpaper on it.  We thought, “no problem, we know what to do now.”  No such thing.  This paper is not about to come off.  We rented a steamer thinking it would do the job.  It is, but according to my daughters, the people who lived there got paper that was made to last for 100 years.  They have been working on it all day and that is what I am going to be doing when I leave here tonight.

I have not had a hard time sleeping for the last 2 months.  I work here at IUPUI and then go straight to the house and work until 9 or 10.  I then go to the apartment and crash.  If you come to see me and I am yawning, please take no offense.  It is just because I didn’t get enough sleep!

I plan to have the house fixed enough for us to move into it during the first week of July.  That will give me time to get the apartment really clean.  I NEED that deposit now!

Now you know what a Recorder does on her “free” time...at least for the next few months.  It will take us that long to get everything all done.  But it will be nice to have a place that I can truly say is mine!

It’s been a while since I posted my blog last time.  I've been in Japan for two weeks, and came back beg. of this month.  Since then, I've made week long trips to Columbus, GA every week.  Weekend is the only time I can come home and let my hair down for a while, and then, go back to do some house-keeping things (they are piling up!), and work for my summer class. 

The trip to Japan was part of my internship I’ve been doing since last September.  I’ve been working as an intern for a firm in north-side Indianapolis.  This firm does financial examination (kind of auditing) for insurance companies nationwide.  One of its clients has a Japan branch, and that's why I was in part of this.  We conducted some interviews at Japan, and met some key persons at Financial Management Department.  My major task was to assist and help with staff both US side and Japan side, including translation and interpretation. 
 

The Japan branch of the client was located in Shinjuku, Tokyo, in the middle of the business district.  Every morning, we walked to the building where its office is located (the office building was only 3 minutes away from the hotel we stayed). Typically, we had one or two meetings (interviews) with different people in a day.  I learned how interview should be conducted, what kind of questions need to be asked, and how the overall process goes for the examination, etc.  The most important thing I learned was, being bilingual (or understanding two languages) is not enough!  You really have to know more than just the language!  Knowing language and knowing business is different!  I thought I did good amount of prep before going Japan by translating lots of financial/IS documents and by looking some documents that the firm did last examination.  But it was certainly not enough.  One of the things I could have done before going was reading the client’s last year’s Annual Statement, and maybe knowing their main products and their features.   
 

I am expecting to visit Japan again in August for the same client, so this time, I should be fully prepared!

Canada Fishing Blog

This week, my twin sons (Aaron and Joshua) and I traveled to Kashabowie, Ontario for a family fishing trip.  My father, my bother David and his step-son Bo, my brother Bruce and his son Ryan and two family friends travelled joined us on the trip (total of 10 people).  Kashabowie is West of Thunder Bay about 60 miles.  The lake is called Shebandowan Lake.  It is about 35 miles long.   My brother Bruce and his son have been up here several times.  This was the first time for the rest of us.  The lake has very little development around it.  The set of cabins and the camp ground near us are just about the only signs of development that I saw around the lake.  The lake was formed when they dammed a river.  The valley had many high peaks and cliffs, so the lake has lots of little islands that stick out in the water, creating great places for fishing.

Seven days of no internet and no cell phone.  A little nervous about the electronic disconnection, but generally I found it invigorating to be away from everything; not needing (being able) to check in on work or other items.

We mainly fish for walleye and northern pike.    We primarily catch and release over the week.  We catch enough for our dinners and kept the larger fish that we are permitted to bring back to the states with us.  We each brought back our limit of walleye (3 under 18 inches and one over) and our limit of lake trout (2 permitted).  We also brought back a couple of northern pike, but the primary goal is lake trout and walleye.

The first day, we focused on walleye, using leeches as bait.  The second day we focused on casting for northern pike, and the third day we went trolling for lake trout.  On the third day, we portaged our boat to a second lake, Greenwater Lake.  There are no roads that go to Greenwater, so we had to carry the boats, motors, and other equipment from one lake to the next over an area of about a quarter mile.  Fortunately, my brother and his friends planned for the trip, by making a set of wheels to help transport the boats.

At Greenwater, I caught two lake trout and two northern pike.  One of the northern pike was 39 inches long.  It took close to 20 minutes to pull the northern into the boat.  It’s the largest fish that I ever caught.  When it bit on the bait, it took off and the drag on my line spun. Each time I would pull it with 15 to 20 feet of the boat, it would take off to the bottom of the lake, pulling out the drag on the line.  I pulled it up to within 20 feet of the boat about 6 different times.  The goal was to wear the fish out so we could get it close enough to the boat to net it and pull it in.  Once pulled in, we measured it, took several pictures and released it.  If it made it to 39 inches, it deserves to live another day.  It was a great time!  See a picture at the following link
http://bus.iupui.edu/carow/pictures/canada1.jpg

While fishing for walleye and northern, we also caught a good number of bass.  In fact, I think I probably caught more bass than either walleye or northern.  Regulations in Canada only allow you to bring back 2 small bass, under 14 inches, so we caught and released the bass.  My largest bass on the trip was about 19 inches, weighing 5 pounds.  This is by far the largest bass I have ever caught as well.  I probably caught about 4 bass each day that were over 15 inches.  See a picture on one of my bass at the following link
http://bus.iupui.edu/carow/pictures/canada2.jpg

You can also see a picture of some of the lake trout caught on our trip
http://bus.iupui.edu/carow/pictures/canada3.jpg

Aaron and Joshua also caught the largest fish of their lives.  We usually fish for bass, sunfish, and crappie in Wisconsin (occasionally northern pike), but chose to go to Canada for a great family get-together and some of the larger game fish.  Aaron caught a 24 inch walleye, Joshua caught a 27 inch northern pike.  Each caught loads of fish, especially small-mouth bass.

We fished close to 8-12 hours each day, played a few games of cards, and had a great time telling stories about our fishing adventure. 

Hope you are also having a great summer.   
 

It can be hard to line up guest speakers for evening classes during the summer and it’s hard to blame anyone for turning down an invitation.  After all, how can you fault anyone who would rather take full advantage of evenings when it’s light and warm (when it’s not pouring rain, of course) until almost 10pm, especially after a full day’s work?  Well, using my mighty powers of persuasion (and some much appreciated help from Molly Chavers at IndyHub and Jill Margetts at Young Professional of Central Indiana), the CPO managed to bring in an A+ lineup of professionals for a 3-week series of Thursday evening panels that concluded last Thursday.  Students in X320 – Career Planning heard from three panels, each offering a distinct range of voices and advice regarding the job search, careers, professional development, and every other topic students had questions on.  I wish I could provide you a succint list of takeaways from the discussions, but I have learned after a few years in the field that each student comes away from these panels with a different perspective, depending on their attitude and individual situation coming in.  Instead of giving you a summary, I'll instead invite you to join us for a future panel discussion (dates will be posted on the CPO website). 

Check out the Summer 1 lineups: 

Recruiter Panel – Thursday,  May 22 (6:00 - 7:30 pm)
Rocki Howard – Allison Transmission
Cathleen Litz – That’s Good HR
Bob Zurface – LM Henderson & Company

Professional Panel – Thursday, May 29 (6:00 - 7:30 pm)
Alex Fritz – Blue and Co.
Laura Henderson – Baker Hill
Jennifer Kirchhofer - ExactTarget
Brad Litz - The Litz Group
David Nie – Ice Miller
Jamie Ratner – Morgan Stanley

MBA Panel – Thursday, June 5 (6:00 – 7:30 pm)
Faraz Abbasi – Centerfield Capital Partners
David Ernst – Vertellus Specialties
Troy Hedge – BioCrossroads

I actually recorded the first 2 panels with the intention of posting them on the Kelley website, but after hearing how openly and honestly our panelists discussed their own lives, it’s easy to see how they might not want everything they shared to be broadcast to the entire world.  However, based on the positive feedback from students and the panelists, we are hoping to make this panel series a regular fixture in all of our X320 classes.  Again, all students and alumni are welcome to attend, whether enrolled in a particular section of X320 or not.

Also, if you have anyone you’d like to recommend for future panels, please let me know as we will be sending out invitations for Fall and Spring in the coming weeks.  I will be blogging about community involvement and professional development in the coming weeks as well, but I would encourage you to check out IndyHub and Young Professionals of Central Indiana in the meantime.  They are both excellent organizations committed to providing networking, social, and professional development opportunities for all young professionals across the city – and you don’t have to wait until you finish your degree to start getting involved.

Kelley!
 
What’s up? It has been a few weeks since my last post and time has gone by fast! I am sitting in the plane on my way back to Indy, and thinking about what interesting things I can write about. The aerospace industry has been shaky, busy and extremely challenging lately. The economy has slowed down a bit and most companies are feeling the impact (especially the aerospace industry). We are paying higher prices for things that we had taken for granted- the world is finally catching up with the US!
 
As more and more countries travel further in their journey to become industrialized nations, resources that were once plentiful for a few Western nations must now be shared with other countries. There is high commodity demand and not enough supplies. Our generation will face increasing challenges in the global market, but I think Kelley does well in preparing us for these challenges. Now and going forward, we will have to work together with others from around the world to find solutions that will result in win-win situations for everyone.
 
In two weeks I will be moving to England for an assignment within the company’s overseas operations. I am very excited as I will not only be working overseas, but will be working with our Asia Pacific customers. International Business has always been a passion of mine- I truly enjoy working with people from diverse background. If this is something that interests you, I would highly recommend looking for a company that would give you the opportunity to work overseas for a period of time- there are many of those in the Indianapolis area- and of course if you are mobile, you have plenty of choices around the country. Further, as companies become more aware of globalization, they have specialized development programs for college grads with high potential. These programs provide years of experience in just two or three years!
 
Well Kelleygues, I promise to keep you updated on my European and Asian adventures. Until then all the best and enjoy the summer.
 
Jaime