Road trippin'

Here's the story of six 1st year MBA's who embarked on an exciting adventure to sunny Southern California.

For the first time ever, the BYU Powers That Be planned a three day break from classes Wednesday, Thursday and Friday for the express purpose of visiting companies, networking, having interview flybacks etc.

So the six of us jumped in the car and took off for the hotbed of commerce, Southern California. Here are the featured players :

Me

Marci

Derek

Rob

Gordon

BrandonHere's a rundown of the week's events:

Tuesday

After the brain-drain of taking our Operations mid-term, we were more than ready to get on the road. We made really good time, stopping only for really important stuff like gas, potty breaks and to grab some choice grub at In n' Out in Las Vegas.

Rob, me, Brandon, Gordon, Marci

Wednesday

Our destination for Wednesday morning was in one of the many areas of SoCal on fire, so we got an early start just in case of delays. On our drive down into the LA area Tuesday night, we could see the fire light on the tops of the ridges just over the mountain from us. It was pretty crazy, so we were a bit concerned about road closures etc. Everything was fine but the aftermath of the fires along the road was evident. Check out the smoke and burned land just off the road:




Rob's brother-in-law works in finance for Black & Decker Hardware & Home Improvement Group in Lake Forest, CA, just outside of Irvine. Rob arranged for us to meet with some folks there and it was awesome. (In my next entry, I'll talk about what we learned/discussed from our meetings.)




After lunch and a good time at B&D, we made our way down to Long Beach to visit Boeing. We met with an hr representative who works in Global Recruiting and learned more about how one of the largest airplane manufacturers and defense contractors finds talent.



And since we were so close, we decided to stop by the Newport Beach Temple. It is a bit unique because unlike many other LDS temples, it is pink and looks like an old spanish-style mission. So incredible (I think I might have found a new favorite temple!) Notice the smoky air from the nearby fires.




With our business done for the day, we changed into our street clothes and started the quest for our dinner. On the recommendation of Brandon's roommate who used to live in the area, we settled on Rockin' Baja Lobster, a nifty little baja seafood mexican place on Balboa Island.

Oh baby. It. Was. Good. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

They are famous for their seafood buckets...and there is a reason why...they are A-maz-ing. If you are ever in the area...make this a stop on your itinerary.

Thursday

Our next stop was Edwards Lifesciences in Irvine. They are a medical device company most famous for their heart valves. We met with a Utah native working there in marketing and had the opportunity to view the clean room where they "manufacture" the heart valves. Very very cool.


That night, we met for dinner with another Utah native who works for Mercer, an HR consulting company.

Friday

Of course, we couldn't go to SoCal without visiting the Happiest Place on Earth...Disneyland. Our newly acquired business training in marketing and operations threatened to derail the fun as we noticed all the line bottlenecks and promotion opportunities in the parks. But finally we relaxed and through the magic of FastPass, we hit all the top attractions, watched the best shows, and experienced the magic of Disney.





We decided to ride Splash Mountain and all got soaked...

But I think it brought us closer together as a group. :)

So in conclusion...this week was fantastic all around. I met with some incredible people at respected companies, spent the week with my amazing classmates and got to know them in ways (both good and bad) just not possible sitting in class, laughed, learned, laughed some more and basically had a blast. (MBA professors are you listening? This was an incredible experience and well worth the time out of class).

Tomorrow I'll post some of the "key takeaways" I learned from our meetings this week. But for now I've got to get to bed. :)