End game for Term 1

We just finished the last set of lectures this weekend in MGMT 621, Management of People at Work/Organizational Design, ACCT 620, Financial Accounting, and MGEC 603, Economics of Managerial Decision-Making. Here's some thoughts from the weekend.

In MGMT 621, Prof Ryan encouraged us to personally reflect on the lessons learned this past weekend. Here's the question: Do I need depth or breadth in my career? This is something I'm thinking about with respect to the next step for me. I think the answer is depth for me.

It was very useful to see GE ex-CEO Jack Welch on video along with the now deposed HP CEO Carly Fiorina. The case studies on People Express and Southwest Airlines were interesting as well. GE certainly seems to take management much more seriously than what I've seen at the big O.

My study group presented The HP Way case study. The prep was a little last minute with all the stuff going on but we did a good job on it. Our presenters delivered the preso well and it seemed to be very well received. It was interesting to analyze the Fiorina era and the Hurd era. The FAP is taking a lot of time for us, and we had some good progress this weekend in our group meetings. It was worthwhile to physically go to our FAP company for two days last week to meet the execs and to see the company culture real-time. There's no substitute for seeing it in person.

ACCT 620 ended with the best lecture we had this term. It was great to take a full set of financial statements from Corbomax and apply what we've learned to slice and dice the case study. Prof Lambert really did a fantastic job with this lecture. I'll never look at a financial statement or press release the same again, that's for sure. In talking with some classmates afterwards, everyone agreed that this last lecture was a great one. We used pretty much everything we learned the entire term in this one case.

MGEC lectures are already finished up so we didn't have a lecture this session. I wish the schedule was a bit more forgiving as we had to absorb the class faster than usual; it ended last session, one month before finals. That's the nature of the program though. Prof Smetters taught a very entertaining class...he's a funny guy and I think a lot of us like his sense of humor. The course material is engaging as well; the problems are interesting and applicable. We did have a useful MGEC review this session from 8-10pm. Our TA Karl really cracked me up. It was late (8-10pm) and we were punchy. I'm sure he was as well, as it was 11pm-1am EST.

Here's what he said:

"In the business world, accidently doing the right thing is fine. On the exam, accidently doing the right thing won't be fine."

That said, for now I'm off to study MGEC and accounting and work on the FAP! Out until the end of the term....