Saturation

I am sitting here trying to work on my Options & Futures assignment when I realize I can’t actually remember how to calculate continuous compounding without looking at the text, although the prof has been talking about it for 6 weeks now. I think it might be important.

I’m starting to wonder if any concepts, theories and models are sinking in or just visiting my brain for brief interludes between classes and exam writing. This year has been flying by so quickly that I can’t even seem to remember what we learned from one semester to the next. I know I always say that a lot of the first year of mba school has been review, but there have been a ton of things I have learned along the way.

The other day I was sitting in the pub talking with my group about our marketing project (which involves a pub) and they asked me about the Foundations of Integrative Thinking course, and I was amazed that I remembered some of the core concepts in that class. I have to say it pleased me a bit, as of late, I have been wondering if the decision to fast track has been a smart choice. Not because of the job market, more because of the fact that everything is happening so fast, and retention and sanity are just two of my many worries. Our marketing prof makes us recap our insights every class. I think it’s a smart idea. It reinforces core concepts, and forces you to pay attention. I better go and look up that continuous compounding formula now.

Crazy Week

Things have been happening at lightning speed that everything in this past week seems to be a blur. I had classes 3 times this week, and on Sat I spent the last day of summer in a hotel basement conference room learning the requirements to be a CMA marker. Oh and yes, and there was a little bit of market mayhem...

I have been addicted to the news for most of the week. The Toronto financial sector has played the spectator part. None of our financial companies seem to have any significant exposure, however, I think it is more of a wait and see approach. This past week has changed my plans, or rather they seem to be delayed. In some cases, it’s made my game plan non-existent. Any of the networking on job leads that I was hoping to do in the next month have been shifted to the back burner. Contacting anyone now would be senseless and would show a lack of sensitivity. I think I am just going to have to adopt a ‘wait and see’ approach too.

Moving on.. Being in class when a crisis is occurring makes the topic even more interesting. Our Options professor decided to spend the first half of our class giving us an overview of the crisis. It was great! He outlined what credit default swaps were, how the crisis unfolded, and why the US government needed to step in. We had our first Marketing course, and the prof is quite good so far. He really makes you think! At the end of our class he asked us to jot down a few points as to what we learned that evening. We learned about branding, and how successful brands focus on the customer experience rather than just a good product. He did say that he was going to be cold calling, and warm calling. Umm. What is Warm calling? A quick google search produced the following result :

Warm call: A softer version of the cold call where the professors gives a particular student advance warning that he will be asked to comment on a case later in the session or the next day.

Uh-oh.. this did not work for me in Strategy. I seem to embody the proverbial deer caught in the headlights when called upon. The whole idea of cold/warm calling is to think on your feet fast right? Well, this is what they are training you for. I really dislike this method. Everyone learns differently, and there is no one path for business success. I firmly believe that MBA training should allow students to be individualistic rather than conformists.

Alright I will get off my hobby horse. We have a globalization quiz on Tuesday. I haven’t the foggiest idea as to what she has taught us, as the class has been quite boring. All I remember from that class is that she told us about how there was an outcry in China when Kung Fu panda came out. Some Chinese people thought the movie should be boycotted as the movie’s main character was also China’s national treasure. I can’t remember why she brought it up... but, I am pretty sure there won’t be a question on that.

Year 2

I’ve been a lazy blogger for the last few months. Things have really been happening so fast, that there doesn’t seem to be enough time to process the changes, let alone put all my thoughts together. So here goes my attempt:

I left off at my disappointment in the Strategy class. Well, since then we complained, and they listened. They apologized to us about our Skype sessions, and as a result, we got a formal verbal apology and makeup Strategy sessions. We then had our Finance final exam, which was so bad, that the entire class booed the professor when he walked into the bar later that night. Having written zillions of finance exams, I can say hands down, it was the worst Finance exams I have ever written in my life. He said he designed it with the intent that no one would finish. Professional Designation exams are designed like that. You have to be quick enough that you know the answer without thinking more than 1 sec. You know this before hand, and you study with that in mind. An introductory Finance exam shouldn’t be designed like that. He said he realized his mistake, and would bell curve it. We then got our grades, and he still managed to fail two people, and have half the class get a B. So, we complained again, and they listened. And the class average is now a B+ . Moral of the story: Be vocal in B school.

Moving along: This semester we are taking Global Perspectives, Customer Value, and Operations Mgmt. We had our Global Perspectives class on Thursday night. I was sort of excited about this class, but our first lecture focussed on Comparative and Absolute Advantage, and we had to watch an hour documentary on Wal-Mart. Yawn. How many times have we learned about comp and absolute advantage, and how many times have we learned about Wal-Mart. There is significant overlap here, and I wish they would realize this when programming courses. In addition, I am taking the Options and Futures elective.

Year 2 feels different. A handful of us 2010 evening students have switched to full time status. The change has definitely put me in a different frame of mind: I’m more focussed and disciplined. The pressure is on. I only have 8 months left to maximize the MBA education and experience, and find myself that dream job, and oh figure out what this dream job is. I plan on keeping my day job in the process. It’s definitely going to be tough, but I found out that another classmate is doing the same. I’ll keep you posted on the progress.

The Last 2 weeks...

We had our Strategy Final last week. Given the fact that you can’t really study for Strategy, and it was open book, I was fairly laid back about it. Our professor ‘checked out’ on us a couple weeks ago as well, and as a result, none of us really felt the impetus to work hard. We delivered our presentation to our peers, and she was with us over skype. She did the same thing for the final. I really was disappointed in the Strategy class. Strategy is supposed to be fun! She taught us concepts, but I feel that I don’t have a framework for strategy. Her course was just a hodge-podge of concepts lumped together (VRIO framework, Porter’s 5 forces). For our final exam, she made us do a stakeholder analysis on swimsuit design rules....I still don't think I get 'strategic groups'. Oh well, luckily I am not going into consulting.

Anywho, we have one more weekend of school, one Finance assignment and one Finance final left. It’s been really hard to focus on school this semester. I think it is a combination of summer and lack of motivation. I can’t wait for August 7th, because that’s Freedom Day.

Things not to do on a long weekend...

I can think of lots of things to do on a long holiday weekend.. writing an 8 page paper on Integrative Thinking is not one of them. I've been trying to write this Reflection paper for most of today, and it's been a painful process. I haven't been able to focus, and I am not even close to being done. I am blaming it on the long weekend. I have no motivation to study.

This lack of motivation brings up two salient points: (I wish I could count use of Integrative Thinking vocabulary towards my paper!)

Am I in a virtuous cycle? I am trying to finish up early, and have started overloading on courses. Do I lack motivation because I am overloading or am I overloading the courses because I see my motivation levels rapidly declining in the future months?

Second Salient point: I noticed the newbies.. the 3YR11 students. Their faces are so fresh and eager... They seem to embody me last summer.. all full of excitement and possibility. There are times that I wish for last summer back, and there are times that I am so exhausted that I can't wait for all of it to be over. I still feel excitement but it is more about the opportunities post MBA, rather than getting into grad school.

I want to freeze frame some of these moments, replay some of them, and fast forward the bad ones(Stats class!). Because for all my complaining, it is all happening too fast...

Back to the paper...so what's my motivation? Going out for the rest of the weekend..

Tottering along....

Finished the bidding for courses this evening, and it was a daunting task. I put in my bids, and then tried to go back a screen to check what section it was, or read the description one last time, only to find out that all my selections disappeared. Aaah! This happened three times. You think I would have learned the first time around. I tried to be all strategic about bidding – I really did try. But in the end the whole figuring out what was the average bid points, and how many people balloted threw me all off and after those times that my screen selections blanked out.. I just started to randomly allocate points....fingers crossed that it worked!

The days seem to be flying by. We had our Finance midterm last week. I finished the FIT practicum and I have one more paper to write for that course that’s due at the end of this week. Our strategy midterm is due this week, and we had to analyze Coors’ strategy... back in 1985!! It’s very hard to look at the data and “pretend” that Coors is a premium beer....and that they aren't called Molson Coors now. This is the problem with doing cases from 20 years ago.. We have current information (esp on beer!) but are forced to stay in a time vortex... why can’t we examine cases that are current? The FIT practicum was better in that respect where we had to analyze Yahoo!‘s current strategy.

More and more work to follow.....Strategy presentation, and group writeup, strategy Final, Finance assignment, and Finance Final.. nearly there. Just six more weeks.

I have started to realize the value of a two or three year program instead of a one year program. Way back when I was contemplating MBA school, I was leaning towards a one year program. I had thought that the faster I get it over with, the better. However, my thinking has changed.. A year just passes by so quickly, and there is no time to take in what you are learning and solidify concepts, and just think about your career. In a two year program, you are given the opportunity in the first year to sit back and watch a bit if you like, before you dive into a field, or an opportunity. You get to analyze what you are learning instead of just ploughing through the material. You get to take more electives, and build your knowledge. I think this is the biggest advantage. It might take a bit longer, but isn’t it better to have no regrets or less of them anyway?

Looking over your shoulder

We had to analyze Yahoo! Canada strategy in our FIT practicum. It’s been quite fascinating reading all of the articles, and understanding the whole new media landscape. Our task is to define a strategy for Yahoo! Canada in the Web 2.0 environment.

I stumbled upon an interesting piece of journalism in one of the articles “Then, on Aug. 19, 2004, Google went public. According to some former Yahoos, that was a turning point for the company's culture as well. Yahoo became a company obsessed with Google rather than one looking to make the next leap on the Net. "Yahoo became super-paranoid," says one former search manager. "We switched from charting our own course to looking over our shoulder."

That last line struck a chord with me on a personal level. It’s so easy to constantly compare and look over your shoulder. It’s so easy to just take one little peak isn’t it? It appeals to our insecurities. We feel the need to look back and see who’s catching up to us, who will overtake us. We also have the tendency to look around and assess the competition constantly.

We also look over our shoulder at the past and assess what we did wrong and examine our mistakes and all the paths we did not take, and examine the ones we have taken.

My biggest takeaway is to stop looking over my shoulder, and focus on the road ahead. The past is behind me, and the competition? Well, they will always be there, but are they relevant to my goals?