Graduation

Years of life: 2

Tuition per year: $45,000

Years to pay back student loan: 20

Cornell Commencement: Priceless (well it did cost $18.89 to rent my regala, but I got to keep the tassel)

I'll sure miss the Cornell MBA program.  It was a fantastic two years. 

Johnson Follies - MBA Lucha

So each year the Business School puts on a show full of student made videos dubbed the "Johnson Follies". Its a fun ending to the year. Here is my contribution - the MBA Lucha.


You can find more if you search YouTube for Johnson Follies.

Ivy League Trailer Park

Here is a quick recap on my past year: Since last fall our family returned from an summer internship with Johnson & Johnson in Philadelphia, studied a semester in Ithaca, New York (Cornell), then spent my last semester abroad in Monterrey Mexico. Just a few weeks ago we drove 32 hours from Mexico back to central New York in order to be here for graduation - it looks like we made it out before the swine flu hit. My wife Nicole likes to remind me, "You sure are lucky to have a wife who follows you around like this." I certainly am.

We arrived in Mexico in January and it was great. We'll surely miss the juicy tacos, limonada, nice people, loud singing at church, friends, culture, and warm weather - I only had to wear a jacket 3 times. During my semester abroad, the Wall Street Journal and other news outlets published many stories about the violent drug wars going on in Mexico and mentioned the city of San Pedro multiple times. We lived in that wealthy suburb of the Monterrey. Because the city is one of the affluent in Mexico, the Drug Lords can live there and flash their money just like the rest of the residents without any suspicion. We never met any of the Lords but saw lots of Ferraris and Porsches driving around town.

Luke (5) and Caleb (3) attended a Spanish Preschool each morning and loved it. They didn't mind that no one spoke English. His last day of school Luke said, "But Mom, I can't leave, I haven't learned Spanish yet!" The church we attended had a Sunday School in English with about 6-10 attendees There were a few families from the American Consulate in our ward who were put up in big beautiful houses in Monterrey and they played a big part of Hilary Clinton's visit in March. We had a wonderful time and highly recommend a semester abroad to any who has the opportunity. Nicole posted lots of pictures on our blog: http://theradrollins.blogspot.com/.

One thing we won't be missing is the Mexican police. In the past five years in the USA I have been pulled over zero times. In the past 4 months in Mexico I was pulled over 5 times. In each ocasion I told the officer that I can't give him money. In 4 of those ocasions he let me go without a ticket. However, the 1 time I did receive a ticket was on my drive out of the country. I refused to pay so he decided to give me the ticket and take my license. So now I don't have a license and Mexico is too far away to go the the police station to retrieve it...we are still trying to work that one out.

While in Mexico I spent about 60 hours of my life writing a business plan. Last fall I met up with a Cornell Biomedical Engineer student and we started a medical device company based on his technology - a contact lens that regrows damaged corneas. It will be a less invasive and less expensive alternative to cornea transplantation. Two weeks ago we presented at Cornell University's business plan competition and Rice University's competition. We won the Cornell competition and walked away with over $20,000. We plan to put the money towards the business and move forward with it. The technology is being developed with government grants, however, those don't pay me any money so I'm looking for part time work in Ithaca to put food on the table after I graduate in May. If you have any extra food storage please send it our way.

After we discussed my job plans, Nicole once again stated how lucky I was to have a supportive wife. However she wasn't as excited about my plans to apply for government housing and food stamps. After not having an income for two years we qualify for all the "free" New York social programs...an Ivy league MBA living on welfare. We actually have a lot of good friends who live in a trailer park in town and we've talked about moving there, my guess is that it is the smartest trailer park in the world as its full of Cornell PhD students sprinkled with central New York hillbillies. Who can beat a $9,000 home with a $300 rental fee. Those Cornell PhD's have money smarts too.

Winning $22,000

Skype is a great tool when you are living in Mexico. In an earlier post I wrote about "speed networking for entrepreneurs" - an event I put together to match business people with idea people. At the event I met up with Brian Lawrence a Cornell Biomedical Engineer Phd and we started a medical device company based on his technology. In Mexico I wrote the business plan and Brian and I communicated through Skype and Gchat.

Last week we presented at Cornell University's business plan competition and Rice University's competition. We walked away with over $20,000 and some great contacts. Here are a few articles on the event.

Startup showdown

http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2009/smallbusiness/0904/gallery.startup_showdown_2009.smb/5.html

Students play game of capitalism

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/chronicle/6379679.html

Pulled Over 5 times in Mexico

So my time in Mexico ended and i recently drove the 32 hours back to Ithaca, NY. I'll surely miss the juicy tacos, nice people, warm weather, new friends, and interesting culture. I had a wonderful time and highly recommend a semester abroad to anyone who has the opportunity. However, I wont miss the police or the swine flu.

In the past five years in the USA I have been pulled over zero times. In the past 4 months in Mexico I was pulled over 5 times. In each occasion I told the officer that I can't give him money. In 4 of those occasion he let me go without a ticket. However, the 1 time I did receive a ticket was on my drive out of the country. I refused to pay so he decided to give me the ticket and take my license. So now I don't have a license and Mexico is too far away to go the the police station to retrieve it...I'm still working on that.

Anyhow, I'm back in the states enjoying the many activities at the Johnson School, and realizing that I'll never have to take a finals exam again.

Sage Hall @ 1AM

Sage Hall, Ithaca, NY EGADE, Monterrey, Mexico

Sage Hall (the business school) is an interesting place to be at 1AM in the morning. In my nearly two years as a student this has happened to me only a few times for groupwork and a few more times to watch NBA playoffs on the big screen TV's on the lower level. I make it a point to get home to my family in the evenings and get my work done during the day. Regardless of the time of day, you'll always find people in the building working on something.

I much more prefer working during the day in either the large glass atrium or in the library next to big windows that overlook East Avenue. However, when you work in the attrium don't plan on getting much done because there are too many people coming up and talking to you about assignments, projects, job search, or soliciting help for a survey for a marketing research class.

Although they were completed about the same time (Sage Hall was remodeled and EGADE was built in the late 90s) they definitley have different personalities. Nearly all of the teaching occurs during the day at Sage and there is an event 3-4 nights a week. At EGADE, nearly all classes occur at night. All the hubbub happens between 6 pm and 10 pm and any social activities are held at the main University Campus about 10 minutes down the road.  I must say that I enjoy the fact that Sage Hall is right in the heart of campus.

El Maestro

I remember in the 5th grade being scolded by my teacher because I said "Teacher, can I go to the bathroom?" You just don't refer to someone as teacher in English. As a Spanish speaking exchange student in Mexico I love the fact that I can say Maestro Hernandez or "Teacher Hernandez". It sounds important. I can refer to someone as licenciado (ungraduate degree), maestro (masters degree), and doctor (doctorate degree). It might be cool to be refered to "Master Rollins" when I graduate. However, my favorite is that it is perfectly normal to call someone goridito (little fat one) - though I'm still not accustomed to using that.

Speaking of Maestros, EGADE is primarily a teaching school while Cornell is considered a research institution. I have enjoyed professors at both schools. In Mexico, I have teachers who have been in their industry for 25 years teaching my class. At Cornell, I enjoy learning from teachers whose textbooks are not only used in our class but across the country as well. While most have industry experience, research is a top priority and most professors only teach one semester and are researching the rest of the year. I've know some students to overload a bit on classes in a semester because they are interested in taking classes from professors who won't be teaching the next semester.

Living next to the Drug Lords

Last week the Wall Street Journal published a story about the violent drug wars going on in Mexico and mentioned the city of San Pedro multiple times. I happen to live in this wealthy suburb of the Monterrey. Because the city is one of the affluent in Mexico, the Drug Lords can live here and flash their money just like the rest of the residents without any suspicion.

As far as I know, I haven't met any lords at EGADE, the school I'm attending. Nobody has listed drug lord as their primary occupation. I've met students who work at Pepsi, Cemex, HP, a bottling company, and one even owns 3 or 4 gasoline stations (many go to school and work full-time). Every one is very friendly and helpful. However, I haven't been able to meet as many people as I would like to down here.

One of my primary reasons of returning to school was to create a large network full of people who will be future leaders of business. Cornell's Johnson School makes networking a top priority and I can honestly say that I know 80% of my class very well (and many from the 2008 and 2010 class). I would have no problem calling them up in 5 years to chat about a business proposal or talk about opportunities at their company. Things like Sage Socials, $JSMISC, a small community, events, clubs, classes, class nametags, and symposiums make getting to know each other very easy. I realize how great the networking focus is now that I'm away from it.

100 degrees in February

So now that I'm studying in Mexico I can give some perspective on attending a different business school in a different location. I'll share a bit about the environment. First of all it hit a 100 degrees here just the other day while it snowed about 10 inches in most of the northeastern states including Central New York. Although the 100 degrees was a bit of anomaly (its normally about 75 degrees this time of year) the snow in Ithaca wasn't.

I'm the type of person who actually enjoyed much of the winter atmosphere in Ithaca. There was always plenty of interesting classes, homework, symposiums, socials, and club responsibilities to keep you busy. Additionally, because its a college town many activities exist outside of the Johnson School. Here are a few examples of what I did to keep myself entertained in the dark days of winter: Stephen Colbert comedy, an international juggling competition, the indoor climbing wall, weekly basketball, Cornell hockey games, Banff film festival, skiing at Greek Peak, Baily Hall concerts, and events at the Johnson Museum. And although I'm not a bar guy I know that plenty of students enjoy a night at nearby college town.


Hockey games are by far some of the best sporting events I've ever been to. The crazy crowds, the cheers, the color red, and the 40 other Johnson school students who attend make the outing lots of fun. Check out the Cornell Event calendar (www.cornell.edu/events) .

A 32 hour drive

Recently I drove 32 hours to Monterrey Mexico to begin my semester as an exchange student. I got some light snow, torrential rains, and some blue skies too. Here in Mexico I'm enjoying 75 degree weather while my classmates are putting up with the Ithaca winter (which all-in-all isn't that bad especially because you're studying).

At Cornell, about 30 spots are available to exchange students each semester. I applied to take one of the spots and was selected. The school has a full-time employee working with exchange program so everything runs very smooth. I chose to come to Mexico because I was a two year full-time volunteer in Mexico when I was an Undergradute and I always wanted to return and learn about the business side of Latin America.

Other Johnson students went to China, London, Spain, Austrailia, South Africa, Chile, France, just to name a few. The majority go in the Spring because of job search concerns in the Fall. Although I was hesitant about giving up a semester at the Johnson School I figured that I couldn't pass up an opportunity like this. If a full semester abroad is not your cup of tea then there are plenty of international trips to go on - I was fortunate enough to go on the Japan/Korea tip at the end of May.

5 Week Vacation

Being in school means extra long vacation breaks (unfortunately they are not paid vacation). My last day of classes was December 16th and most second years don't start class until January 20th. Many student take this time off to do absolutely nothing. Some participate in the 3 school sponsored trips over the Christmas Break - Eastern Europe, China, and India. And also there is a 3 week class or that begins January.

I spent my time split between family, skiing in Utah, job hunting, and working on a project for Cornell's Technology Transfer Office. The project invoved developing a business plan for one of the agriculture technologies - it was great but the industry had only a little information about it. 100's of technologies are posted on the CCTEC website www.cctec.cornell.edu If you have some time, poke around the site - if you are interested in Entrepreneurship, nearly all of the technologies are available for "internship" like experiences.

MBA Mariachi

So earlier this semester I thought, "It would be fun to do a talent show!" So I worked with a few students and we pulled a few acts together. We named it the "Johnson Jollies - a live variety show starring you!" and had the show after the last final exam was over. The first video is a highlight reel of the show.



This next video is my act - an MBA mariachi. I'm quite partial to Mexico because I was a fulltime volunteer there for 2 years about 10 years ago. I'm also returning to study abroad one semester in Monterrey, Mexico for my last semester. About 30 students are allowed to study abroad each semester and they attend schools all over the world. I have classmates who have gone to Australia, China, Chile, South Africa, London, Spain, France, and more. Christina Sneve is dedicated to the study abroad program and is great at answering all questions regarding going abroad.

Each semester we have about 30 or so international exchange students come to the Johnson School. These last few months I played on the Johnson School Intramural Volleyball team with a very tall Russian exchange student. We called him the "Russian Enforcer" and he was by far the best hitter and player on our team. We had a great season and it was fun to get to know him!

Anyhow, without further adeu, here is the MBA Mariachi:

Primal Yell

At the strike of midnight this past Tuesday I heard a primal yell.

At Cornell University students from across the campus and collegetown scream out in unison the night before the first finals start. This yearly tradition ushers in "hell week" which starts after a week a study and ends with the last final exam. With two little kids at home sleeping I didn't participate in the yell.

The first year MBAs are preparing for 3 rigorous finals from the core classes and an integrative case that lasts two days. After three semesters at business school, I think the first semester was the most intense. Course work lightened up after that first semester but then I became involved with many other aspects of business school such as recruiting and club leadership.

Currently, I have two final exams, one case, and two papers to write during hell week. Back to work.

Free Trip to San Francisco

Well....sort of. Recently I had an all expanse paid trip to the West Coast to interview in San Francisco. The long flight on US Airways was a bit of a drag, but I enjoyed the 75 degree weather and visiting my hometown of four years. the company I interviewed with put the students up in a nice hotel and bought us all lunch and dinner. It was a exciting trip.

Going through the interviewing process at business school is both rewarding and exhausting. I enjoy meeting many impressive people from different companies and receiving all the perks that go along with it. But having five interview in one morning can be draining - just make sure to have a water bottle on hand.

Cornell on YouTube

Here is recent promotional video about Cornell.  I think the points made in the video are right on.  You can see my take on my pluses and minuses about the school in my first blog entry.

Dwight wants to go to Cornell

The Johnson School at Cornell got a kick out of a recent episode of a popular American television show named The Office. We would love to see Dwight show up in school – he seems to have some great agriculture experience.

Dwight might to want to work on his interview skills. When interviewing with the admissions office make sure to demonstrate a strong interest in the school and know why you want to come here.

Some interesting tidbits about 2009 applications from Director of Admissions Randal Sawyer: "Last year we were up overall 24%, this year we were up 21% in applications. We are just under the 3,000 mark for what will be 270 seats this year, so that is a great number of applications. Our most ever was during the tech boom years, when we saw about 3,100 or 3,200, so we are in striking distance of a record number of applications to the Johnson School." I don't have the stats in front of me but 2010 was up again.

Elvis Sideburns

Pair of false sideburns for sunglasses
Patent No. Des. 376,811
Issued: December 24, 1996
Inventor: Allen Lowe
First, the Groucho Nose, now Elvis Sideburns!

In Law for High Growth business class we discuss some interesting topics. Recently we learned about Patents and Trademarks. Professor Zach Shulman is a Lawyer and Venture Capitalist. We all of his industry experience he has many interesting stories about each subject. At times its difficult to get through class because so many questions come up from the class.

If you want to see more unusual patents like the Elvis Sideburns check out http://www.bpmlegal.com/weird.html. Professor Shulman brought in a partner Brown & Michaels, PC to add to the Patents discussion. The partner shared many interesting patents - you only have to have a product that has Utility (no matter how small) and is Novel.

Needless to say the discussion was a little more lively than our Warrants and Convertible Debt financing.

How-To: Business Plans (+Free $200 Startup Software)

• Have you written a business plan?
• Are you in the process of writing one?
• Do you have a great vision for a business but are unsure how to begin preparing a biz plan?
• Are you interested in participating in the business plan competition?

On October 29th the Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital Club hosted the "How-To: Business Plans" workshop in Sage Parlor. Beyond the free food and drinks, this event included presentations by a great panel of faculty speakers, and each person in attendance received a free license for the Palo Alto's Business Plan Pro software ($200 value). Its nice that companies like to give free stuff to MBAs.

As part of the workshop I shared with students the great resources that we have here at the Johnson School Library: http://guides.library.cornell.edu/businessplans. Our school subscribes to multiple databases that for an individual would cost thousands of dollars. For example, one industry report from S&P costs $695 - and as students we have access to all of them!

...I'm not sure where I'll get access to these great databases when I graduate.

Bright Ideas, Meet Entrepreneurs

As an officer in the Entrepreneurship Club I wanted to bring together the bright brains of the technolgy and science schools with the business minds of the MBA program. To do so I organized an event with fellow students that would foster cross campus relationships.

It was held in the atrium of the brand new LEED certified Weill Hall which now houses the biomedical engineering school. Its about a 10 minute walk from the business school.

The event was great and not only did we have speaker David Fischell '75, MS '78, PhD '80, Chair of Cornell BioMed Society (Issued 86 patents, founded 9 BioMed Device Companies, Director of 8 tech companies, is one major serial Entrepreneur), but we also had a little speed networking take place. I enjoyed meeting many great students from across campus. I hope that events like these foster more startups coming out of Cornell.

Touchdown!...now meet some people

Saturdays in the fall mean crisp weather and American Football. Watching Cornell beat Yale on Saturday afternoon not only exhibited big hits, cheerleaders, and salty pretzels, but also an aspect that I love about Cornell and the Johnson school - the collegial atmosphere. About 25 students showed up to enjoy each others company and the game, and even more showed up for an impromptu tailgate party on the roof of a student's apartments.

The Sage Social (a weekly event) leading up to the game was football themed and included hot wings, sausages, drinks, nachos and lots MBAs and faculty. During the social I met new first year classmates: Paco from Mexico City who talked about the country's President Calderon and how the leader is addressing the drug trade, and Oded from Israel who conversed about his military experience in his home country. Later, I caught up with Matt who interned at Goldman Sachs and discussed his thoughts on the recent market bailout and Goldman's reaction.

These events really lend themselves to good times, meeting interesting classmates, and creating the "strong and weak ties" that you'll learn about in Managing and Leading Organizations.

What to wear on the first day of school...

Remember worrying about what to wear on the first day of class? We'll for a married guy with kids those days are long gone, I've just been worrying what classes to take. I'm planning to take a strategy class taught by a grizzled industry veteran Jan Suwinski who is also on the board of 4-5 companies. Entrepreneurship classes take up another load, one being taught by the super practical Laywer/VC/Entrepreneur Zach Shulman. The second is taught by Professor Ola Bengtsson who brings to class an entrepreneur and the venture capitalist that funded the entrepreneur's startup. After hearing the VCs and the Entrepreneurs two sides of the story, Ola gives his academic thoughts on the story.

Finally, I've thrown in a sailing class -- I just purchased some Sperry Top-Sider shoes. I think sailing is a requirement of all Ivy League schools.

Selling Drugs

Interns In Philly

Ah yes, The Internship. When classmates ask what I did over the summer I respond, "I sold drugs." Which is almost exactly what I did while I was a marketing intern for Johnson & Johnson's over the counter drug division. Along with 29 other interns in the Philadelphia office I was wooed with many diners, events, and VP chats. My project was to take a rough product concept and refined it based on consumer insights. Furthermore I worked on naming, forecasting, pricing, and regulatory (and boy do drug companies have to jump through a lot of hoops). It all culminated with a massive presentation to about 20 coworkers.

Kudos to J&J - drugs certainly are interesting. Too bad the wining and dining stops once you accept full time employment...

(Here is a video of a summer intern scavenger hunt in Philly - the music won our team some extra points. By the way, those are Rocky poses.)

1st Year in the Books

It's quite sad really. As an undergrad all I could think about was escaping from school after years of exams, $0.89 Taco Bell Burritos, and dorm furniture. But upon returning to business school I realized how great students have it - especially Cornell MBAs. The subject variety, intellectual challenge, and afternoon naps are well worth the $40,000 a year tuition.

Looking back I have been super content with my attending Cornell. My above expectation list includes:

Career Management Center - This group knows each of the students and how to get them a job. They are amazing!
The Collegial Atmosphere - You'll definitely feel back at school. The fall leaves, the beautiful campus, the marching band, and the eclectic events that accompany college campuses.
The Friendly Students - Single, married, International, and more. Everyone is in the same boat here and we enjoy each others company. Big plus to the student activities center - we have 3 fulltime employees who help run student events.

Below expectations:

Entrepreneurship - I was really hoping for an integrated entrepreneurship society at Cornell, help finding an idea, and advice on writing a business plan. when I didn't see that this was fully in place at school I became an officer in the Entrepreneurship Club and am trying to make some updates to the program.

BIO

Entrepreneurship and Marketing is my primary focus at Cornell's Graduate School of Management (MBA class of '09). On the side I explore Ithaca's famous gorges with the Outdoors Club, toss footballs as president of the Football Club, and spread the entrepreneurial spirit as an officer in the EVC Club . Furthermore, I'm a member of the most exclusive unofficial club on campus - the parent's club. I have a wonderful wife and two little blonde boys ages 2 and 4.



Before my coming to Cornell, I received a B.S. in business from BYU in Provo, UT. While at BYU I took a two year hiatus to be a full-time volunteer in Mexico. After graduating I moved to San Francisco to work at Gap Inc as a merchandise planner managing a $220M division. Later, I was selected to perform market analysis at the Gap's new fourth brand Piperlime.com. Finally, I decided to leave the big corporation and work at a profitable startup named Shade Clothing in Salt Lake City. All this time I ran the website www.gorillabags.com where I sell funky and fun college furniture.