Renting an Apartment in Boston

Finding housing in Boston can be tough especially if you are moving from a different state. When I began looking for housing last summer I had no idea what the market was like, how brokers operated, and what questions I should ask, so for those of you who will be moving to Boston from another part of the country here is a list of tips I've learned over the last year. Some of it may be obvious already, but here it is:

-Almost all leases start Septmeber 1st and run for a year. However, you can negotiate with your landloard to have someone else take over the apartment in May or June when the school year runs out. This may be important if you have an internship or job in another area. Subletting does happen but in my experience landloards are getting tougher about it.

-If you are a full time single student you will probably need a cosigner. Yes, it seemed weird to me too since I have rented apartments for the last six years without one, but Boston is different.

-Getting an apartment without paying a brokers fee in September is tough but it can be done. Check craig's list under the "no fee" section, but be carefull a lot of sneaky brokers put apartments in there that are "half" fee.

-It is helpful to ask who the other tenants are the in building, (i.e. undergraduate students, grad students, young professions etc).

-Check out the property management company online, there are reviews on yelp that can be helpful. My management company was good for the first few months and then they started to get really shaddy. I looked them up on yelp and saw that other people have had similar issues with them.

-Finally, this BU medical campus office can be helpful. Their website gives good descriptions of different areas and neighborhoods and what you can expect to pay.

Networking at SAKS Fifth Avenue

[Post by Julien Lee, MBA Class of 2009]

One of the two major events that the Women's MBA Association hosts each year is the Alumni Networking Night in the spring semester. (The other event is the fall EMPOWER conference that brings women business leaders from different industries to campus to share advice and insights with participants.) This year, we were fortunate enough to be able to host this event at SAKS Fifth Avenue in the Boston Prudential Center.

The night was a huge success! We had over 60 attendees with about 40% alumni who graduated as recently as two years ago to alumni that graduated in the 1980s! It is wonderful to see that conversations and connections were occurring as freely as the champagne was flowing! Many of the women also got to do some shopping as all participants were given a 15% shopping discount at SAKS that night. The food was definitely a highlight as most people couldn't stop talking about the prosciutto wrapped asparagus, california rolls and chocolate dipped strawberries!

My time as President of the Women's MBA Association is quickly coming to a close and I will need to hand over the reins to my successor. The transition will be bittersweet as I will miss the opportunities this position has made available to me, but I will be glad to have one less thing on my list of responsibilities. As an alumnus, I will be sure to keep my eyes open for any WMBA invitations and will look forward to attending next year's alumni networking night!

Until next time,

Julien

Reinventing Management

[Post by Sougata Basu, MBA Class of 2010]

Boston University Graduate School of Management hosted the annual MBA Symposium on February 28th, 2009. During the past few months we have seen some rapid and random changes in the business world. The cascading effect of excess leverage has destroyed the world economy. So it was apt to focus on “Reinventing Management” during this year’s Symposium.

Apart from the Keynote speakers, there were several panels on Consulting, Energy, Entrepreneurship, Finance, Real Estate, Non-Profit etc. The speakers were senior executives from reputed companies who are leaders in their respective industries. Students from various Boston-based business schools attended the event.

The day started with a motivating speech by Randy C. Papadellis. He is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Ocean Spray Cranberries, Inc., the number-one brand of shelf-stable juice drinks in the United States. He shared his experiences and gave us his insights on how to lead effectively. The second keynote speaker was Dr. Gary Hamel, who is a visiting Professor of Strategic and International Management at the London Business School and one of the world's leading experts on business strategy.

Some of the recent events (like the failure of Lehman Brothers) show us that senior management doesn’t always take the right decisions. However a collective failure of so many financial institutions shows us that there is something fundamentally wrong in the present management systems. We will need to analyze and challenge the assumptions which form the basis of business decisions. That’s what we mean by “Reinventing Management".

Many organizations face a lot of problems and challenges especially related to human resource management. However most of the HR managers and CXOs are not willing to accept this fact. That’s where the problem lies. If we don’t accept the problem, we can’t solve it. For example many engineers are not really engaged in any creative engineering, but just keep doing some routine job. This leads to de-motivation and lower productivity. Most of the firms facing these challenges have not come up with anything more than a normal curve to assess employee performance. Is that enough?

It’s time we question the existing management systems and change them to be suitable for businesses of the 21st century.

-Sougata