The Big Draw Chalk Art Festival

On Saturday May 11, 2013, I attended the Pleasanton Chalk Art Festival – The Big Draw hosted by the city of Pleasanton. The event was colorful, creative and fun. In this event, artist from various backgrounds and experience showed their talented skills in the form of chalk art. Artist worked extremely hard to show their masterful pieces while the weather kept getting warmer. Throughout the day people walked around enjoying the various activities around the streets while taking pictures of the artist at work.

When I arrived, there were experienced and amateur artists enjoying and drawing their pieces. The streets were blocked to allow people to walk around and enjoy the drawings. The attendees were mostly families that came to enjoy a wonderful day and many had their children take part in the event by drawing. Personally, I was mesmerized by the creativity of the art and skills of the artist. Many of the drawn pieces were absolutely true works of art.

Overall, I had a wonderful experience in this eventful that allowed me to appreciate creativity and imagination in its purest and simplest form. I am looking forward to next year to come and, who knows, perhaps I might decide to join the chalk fun!

Below is a link of all the pictures I took. Please check it out, you would not want to miss it!

Advice to myself as a new MBA student:

I will like to take some time to reflect on what I could of have done to improve my MBA experience now that I am at the end of the program. Although I am satisfied with what I have achieved so far, I feel there are some points I could improve on. Thus, here is my advice to younger me as a new MBA student.

Organization

• Schedule – set a schedule for the quarter, month and week. This will help you prioritize course work and know exactly when work is due.
• Time management – learn how to use your time efficiently. This will help set time for personal and fun activities.
• Be on time – make sure you are on time for meetings. Not being on time will irritate classmates and show unprofessionalism.
• Attention to detail – pay attention to detail when turning work as this will show you are organized and professional.

Discipline

• No Procrastination – avoid procrastination as this will lead to sub-par work and will reflect negative in your grades.
• Keep your head up – there will be difficult times, but you must keep your head up because in the end everything will be OKAY.
• Push yourself – you must push yourself when you are tired and lazy, you CAN do it!
• Fun activities – be discipline when doing your work, however, set time to enjoy yourself.

Initiative

• Be Courageous – do not be afraid to do things you are not used to. You are there to learn!
• Lead others – take the initiative to lead others in order to practice your leadership skills and get hands-on experience on what it is to manage others.
• Network – use this opportunity to meet others and create a network. This can ultimately help you land a job once you are done!

New-Self

• Step out of your bubble – be ready to step out of your comfort zone in order to see, learn and experience new things.  
• Create relationships – create relationship with classmates. Perhaps one of these relationships will help you in the future.
• Professional – always act professional. You must be respectful so other can respect you.
• Avoid unnecessary confrontations – unnecessary confrontations will only waste everybody’s time. You must be willing to listen and learn from others.

Overall, you must always be respectful, professional and understanding so you can enjoy your overall experience.  

A great weekend full of new learning experiences:

In today’s blog I would like to share my business competition experience. The International Collegiate Business Strategy, ICBS, competition was held during this weekend in Anaheim, California. The team members were Andrew Vargas, Charlene Cervantes, Leigh Purry, Denise Thao, Wenwen Jiang, and I. During this competition we got to compete with four other business schools throughout the U.S. This business competition was an opportunity to apply what we have learned in this program.

 

Our company, Pioneer Intellectuals, was a leader in portable charging devices that sought to maximize stakeholders’ return. To do so, our team had to strategically plan a path to this success and do so intelligently.

 

Our strategic plan revolved in creating and applying a policy to maximize our stakeholder’s return. Throughout the competition we faced many challenges that almost led to our company’s bankruptcy; however, we recovered and we were able to successfully turn profitable.

 

This weekend showed me what it takes to run a company as understanding a business goes beyond revenues and profits. Moreover, the experience I have acquired has allowed me to learn and understand how set a plan and strategy to lead a successful company.

 

Overall, our efforts were re-paid with first place in the Stock-Price Reward and second place in Overall Performance.

 

 

Personally, I will also like to thank my teammates and advisor for this great experience and support.

Technology’s impact for better or for worse.

I begin my first blog ever and cheers to that! My first blog will discuss the impact of technology for better or for worse.

Technology is affecting us all and this is evident everywhere. You can see it being used in all industries. For example, doctors are now using computerized system to keep track of patient’s record. In transportation, there are systems linked to computers to keep the flow and traffic of vehicles running smoothly. And ultimately, technology is evident in people’s everyday life as most of us, if not all, cannot function without accessing some sort of technological machine or device daily.

But, how does the use of technology affect us?

Well, I believe technology has great benefits that I am able to use to improve my professional and personal life. Technology has become pivotal in my MBA program because I am able to use technology to maximize my output. This is the case when I use Google+ Chat. This program has helped me interact with classmates and share information from the comfort of my home. This allows me to be more efficient as I do not need to waste time and money to travel and meet physically. This also allows me to keep in touch with classmates instantaneously if I have questions.

However, I believe technology also has its negative impact. Technology can allow people to rely on their devices to an extreme that their only form of communication is through technology. This is seen as people are attached to their devices because is their only communication platform. This constant interaction with technology will lead people to lose the physical interaction with others.

As technology continues to grow, there will be positive and negative impacts. We should not emphasize technology, but rather the people creating them. If we do, there will be a decline of civic engagement in society. Let’s enjoy technology and use it to connect us all, not to separate us from our social engagement.