A little bit about Ithaca, NY...

If you can't already tell, I'm one of the few MBA students who came to Cornell with a family. My wife and I have three kids so location was a HUGE consideration for us when we were deciding which school to attend. I wanted my family to enjoy the two years and not be crammed in a one-bedroom apartment in the middle of a big city. Ithaca has been the ideal location for us - in fact my wife has been surprised how attached she's become to this place.

If you've ever been to Ithaca, you won't have to look longer than a couple minutes before you see a bumper sticker or t-shirt with the saying "Ithaca is Gorges". There are more waterfalls, lakes, gorges, and trails around here than you could possibly have time to visit in two years. The finger lakes area of upstate NY is one of the most spectacular parts of the contiguous states. I have to admit though, it does get painfully cold here in the winter time. But with places to go like Wegman's, the ScienceCenter, and the Museum of the Earth, there's always somewhere for the family to have fun no matter how much it's snowing outside.

And you don't even have to have three kids to like Ithaca! The Johnson School has such a close-knit community since nearly all of your classmates live within a mile of campus and you're always hanging out together. NYC is only 4 hours away, and it's easy to hitch a ride since there's usually a classmate or two taking a trip down on the weekends. Ithaca even boasts a small airport that will connect you directly to NYC, Philly, or Detroit. Of course there's a trade-off of not going to school in a major metropolis (like being further away from recruiters and industry events), but the quality of living and the intimate social environment have definitely been worth it.

20 Students Running $14 Million

Let me tell you about one of the biggest reasons I chose to attend Cornell. I wanted to learn the asset management business and Cornell is home to this thing called the Cayuga Fund. It's a student-run hedge fund, established as a separate entity from the school, that has grown to about $14 Million in AUM. The remarkable thing about the Cayuga Fund is that the money we manage belongs to legitimate investors expecting a return - it's not play money from a university endowment like most other student-run funds. I wasn't involved with the Fund during my first year at Cornell since it's designed for 2nd-year students only, but now that I'm one of the student portfolio managers, the Fund literally takes up half my time. It's a sweet deal - I get class credit for doing what I love to do.

Here's how it works. The Cayuga Fund has a proprietary quant model that spits out recommended stocks to buy and short. There are 20 student PMs (portfolio managers) each assigned to a specific sector (capital goods, energy, tech, consumer cyclicals, etc.). The PMs take the model-generated list of stocks and then perform fundamental research on each of the names in their respective sectors. When a PM has conviction to add a stock to the Fund on either the long or short side, the student pitches the idea to the group and then we vote on it.

I'm truly amazed at the amount of resources we have as students working on the Fund. Not only do we get to use systems like FactSet, StockVal, eSignal, and CapitalIQ, but we also have access to some of the best minds in the investment management industry. Student PMs on the Fund recieve instruction from Sanjeev Bhojraj (extremely talented professor at Cornell) and Dan Burnside (adjunct professor who runs a quant fund at Clover Capital). If there are any readers out there interested in applying to Cornell because of the Cayuga Fund (assuming I have any readers :), I would be happy to share more of my experience. Email me at crs63@cornell.edu.

Goodbye paycheck, Hello more student loans

It's hard to believe how fast my internship flew by. Time again for tests, deadlines, and group assignments...

After spending over six hours in the car for what should've been a four hour trip (weekend traffic was herendous), my family and I rolled into Ithaca on Friday night. Although it's nice to be back, my mind has yet to switch to "school" mode and classes start tomorrow at 8am. The nice thing about your second year in B-school is that every single class is an elective as opposed to required core classes. Now I can focus on things I really want to learn like Investing in Distressed Companies and Equity Derivatives (two out of the four classes I'll be taking this fall).

I expect that the time spent in the real world during my internship will give me a better framework and perspective for my second year at school. I'm looking forward to sharing my experiences with first-year students so they can be better prepared for the grueling process of finding an internship on the buy-side. There were things I would've done differently (like not being picky about the city I wanted to work in) and things I definitely would've done again (like building relationships with second-year students who had previously worked in the industry). One of the truly great things about the Johnson School is that I'll have ample opportunity to be a mentor to first-year students since there are so many ways to get involved. I'll be a tutor, a co-president of a club, and a work group leader all during the fall semester! Oh, and I still have to attend class.

Intense summer

After nine weeks of reading 10ks, building financial models, digging through research, and pitching stocks to my portfolio managers, my internship is nearly over. The large cap value team at Bear Stearns Asset Management has been a perfect fit for me, so it's going to be hard to head back to Ithaca in a couple weeks. Not to mention that I'd forgotten what it's like to get a bi-weekly paycheck. :)

My summer has been everything I expected it to be, and more. Not only did it give me an opportunity to use all of the tools I picked up through the CMAM immersion and the Investment Management Club, I also learned a great deal about the risks/rewards of running a business in this industry. Reading about your firm every other day in the Wall Street Journal definitely made the experience real.

My wife and I have 3 kids, so moving to New York City for the summer was quite an adventure. We found a furnished condo in New Jersey that worked out perfectly. And getting around the Big Apple has been easier than I thought. During the weekends, we've made family trips to the Bronx Zoo, the Disney Store, Central Park, and more. I think my wife is ready to return to "normalcy" at our home in Ithaca, but we'll all remember the wonderful times we've had this summer.

My wife and I are originally from Salt Lake City, UT and we have three beautiful kids (they obviously take after their mom). After spending three years within the Private Wealth Management unit at Goldman Sachs, I returned to school to follow my dreams of running an equity fund. Cornell has been the perfect place to gain the network, experience, and skills needed to succeed in the investment management industry. I spent my summer internship at Bear Stearns Asset Management and I’ll be part of the Cayuga MBA Fund this year. I love sports and enjoy traveling with my family.