The First Week (8th - 13th Sept 2008)

Integrative Thinking, Statistics, Managerial Economics, Managing People in Organizations and Financial Accounting. It was an awefully busy, but engrossing first week. But something I learnt quickly is that the most important skill we need is time management. Its not just about the academics, but throw in information sessions, elections, club events and social events and you will be left gasping for air.
The first week has set the trend of the whole program. Its Monday morning and I already feel sleep depraved. The pace of the MBA is excruciating, to say the least. But then this is what I have set myself for and I am enjoying myself, or at least have enjoyed myself at the end of the first week. Thats more politically correct.
The professors are great. Will Strange is teaching us Managerial Economics. He does liven up the class. He has an awesome sense of humour and his classes are not just about equations and graphs. He is trying really hard to make Economics interesting for us. We already took a look at 'Supply and Demand'. This is one concept which we probably will need to use a lot whichever path we follow after this, be it finance, consulting, marketing or general management.
Uli, the German stats prof was the one everyone was scared of. He is the only one who 'cold calls' in the first quarter and sure enough in the second lecture he picked upon two unfortunate souls to dissect a statistical problem in a business scenario and identify the statistical unit, response variable and factor variable. Although I find the subject matter to be pretty drab, I think he has a way to make the subject come alive. I am actually trying to look at the numbers without thinking of just finding the standard deviation or mean. I am trying to make some sense of the data.
Integrative Thinking is a course I am still trying to figure out. I mean we had a role play negotiation game which was fun. But I am a little behind in this course already and need to catch up on all the readings. John Eesch is reputed in Rotman to mark everybody on an average scale. That is only around 10 % of his class gets an A. Everybody else is assigned a B+.
Jennifer Berdahl is teaching us Managing People in Organizations (MPO). This class uses the case study methodology. We are asked to read cases and come to class, where the case is dissected. This class has marks for participation. So expect a lot of noise.
Financial Accounting is taught by Franco Wong. Mr Wong makes excellent use of the classroom camera when he teaches. So far the subject seems to be ok. But its pretty easy to fall behind. I am making balance sheets after a long long time. It was good recapitualation. But next week onwards, things wont be so hunky dory. We are going to use the Accruals Method in accounting. Which means we will be using the time value of money and take into account factors like depreciation, before putting a book value for our assets and liabilities.
Well thats all about our action packed first week at Rotman. I will keep you posted on our second week.

Orientation Day 2nd Sep 2008

When a kindergarten teacher walks into class and says "Good Morning", the whole class sings out in unison, "Good Morning teacher". In high school, when the teacher walks in and says "Good Morning", the students couldn't care less whether it is morning or night. In business school when the teacher walks in and says "Good Morning", the students make a note of it in their notebooks. They might have to use it sometime in the future.

It was 'Orientation Day' at the Rotman school and assistant dean, Richard Powers had set the tone for our MBA program. We were seated in groups of 8 on round tables in the atrium of the building. We had a power packed day ahead of us. John Cassaday, the CEO of Corrus Entertainment was on next. He spoke about his career path and his experience at business school. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that he was a Rotman alum. He threw the house open to questions and there were all kinds of questions thrown at him. He dealt deftly with the questions and then made way for Alison Levine. She was the team captain of the first American Women's Everest expedition. She has an MBA from Duke and had worked for 3 years with Goldman Sachs as an analyst. She showed us an amazing presentation with pictures from her numerous climbing expeditions. She drew parallels from her climbing experiences and the business world. It was a fun way to learn about the importance of team work. During the Q and A, I asked Alison which was tougher, getting an MBA or scaling Mount Everest? Surprisingly Alison did not dismiss the question as the joke that it was meant to be. She made an honest attempt to answer the question and from what I understood, she probably hinted that the MBA was tougher. Ok now I am beginning to get cold feet.
Luch was on the lawn of the Robart's Library. For those of you who do not know this, Robart's library is the third largest library in North America after Harvard and Yale. Post lunch we were divided into teams of 4 to play a simulation team exercise to climb Mount Everest. The game was developed by Harvard and it wasnt the most entertaining or captivating game that one has played, but it had its moments. And more importantly it solved the purpose of getting the 4 us to really know each other well.
The last part of the day was a cocktail party hosted by the dean. After a bout of sushi and wine I was all set to head back home. We had to report to school at 7:30 am for the Orientation Camp the next day and I wanted to call it a night as early as I could.