The first two exams are over!
I studied all weekend to cram the stuff in my head that I had missed during the past few weeks. It would be fair to call it a 28 hour study marathon...
And guess what, it payed off!
Ok, I don't have results yet, but I felt very comfortable at the exams (Managerial Accounting and Operations Management). And even having two exams on the same day turned out to be much less tiring than I had feared.
On a side note: After winning the Littlefield competition, I actually managed to screw up the Littlefield-related question on the Operations Management exam. It doesn't get much more embarrasing than that one might think...
But actually it does. Right after the exam, the school hosted a little celebration party where our Littlefield victory was duly recognized by the dean. Including free beer for everyone. A very smart move, considering that we have another exam tomorrow morning. I bet the school never got away that cheaply beer-wise with any other party they ever hosted!
Monday, April 28, 2008
Friday, April 25, 2008
Strategy Project woes
There it went, my study week.
I still can't believe that I actually spent an entire week on the strategy project!
The story: For Strategic Management, rather than taking an exam, we had to hand in a 20 page strategic assessment paper. Because I didn't want to spend mindless effort on an assignment-only paper on any random company, I decided to have a closer look at my own business, or - more correctly - the business I co-own to 30 percent.
Now one would think that doing a strategic analysis and coming up with some recommendations would be quick and easy fix for a business one knows that well. Nothing could be further from the truth, however. I guess knowing too much detail sometimes only complicates matters...
But the really hard part was the writing. While I had a fairly clear picture early on, it turns out that writing down the stuff in a logical, easy to read fashion for someone who's not an insider (i.e. the professor) can be a really hard thing to do.
So that's how I ended up wasting my entire study week on writing the paper. Granted, I didn't work as hard as I could have and a tiny little bit of procrastination might have played its role as well ;-) But the net result is, the study week is almost over and I haven't spent a single minute on studying the subjects I will be tested on next Monday...
The paper looks quite cool, though!
I still can't believe that I actually spent an entire week on the strategy project!
The story: For Strategic Management, rather than taking an exam, we had to hand in a 20 page strategic assessment paper. Because I didn't want to spend mindless effort on an assignment-only paper on any random company, I decided to have a closer look at my own business, or - more correctly - the business I co-own to 30 percent.
Now one would think that doing a strategic analysis and coming up with some recommendations would be quick and easy fix for a business one knows that well. Nothing could be further from the truth, however. I guess knowing too much detail sometimes only complicates matters...
But the really hard part was the writing. While I had a fairly clear picture early on, it turns out that writing down the stuff in a logical, easy to read fashion for someone who's not an insider (i.e. the professor) can be a really hard thing to do.
So that's how I ended up wasting my entire study week on writing the paper. Granted, I didn't work as hard as I could have and a tiny little bit of procrastination might have played its role as well ;-) But the net result is, the study week is almost over and I haven't spent a single minute on studying the subjects I will be tested on next Monday...
The paper looks quite cool, though!
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Exams again...
We have just finished our last lecture of the second term. Gosh, I can't believe that it's already eight months that I've been living in China. Time passes so quickly in this place!
Tomorrow will be the exam in Corporate Governance. Then we'll have a week to study and prepare for the exams, which is what I need exactly, since I still have to write the Strategic Management assignment and I have not much of a clue about what we were supposed to learn during the past few weeks.
Having been visited by various friends over the continuous period of almost three weeks, I haven't gotten around to much studying. And I was rather sleepy in class, too, after taking people to the various hot clubs in town the night before. Add our littlefield simulation and the 24x7 MIT OpSim challange to that and you can guess where about I stand education-wise.
So for a change, I won't go on a scuba diving vacation during the study week, although both the Philippines and the Maldives are currently luring me to their beaches.
Tomorrow will be the exam in Corporate Governance. Then we'll have a week to study and prepare for the exams, which is what I need exactly, since I still have to write the Strategic Management assignment and I have not much of a clue about what we were supposed to learn during the past few weeks.
Having been visited by various friends over the continuous period of almost three weeks, I haven't gotten around to much studying. And I was rather sleepy in class, too, after taking people to the various hot clubs in town the night before. Add our littlefield simulation and the 24x7 MIT OpSim challange to that and you can guess where about I stand education-wise.
So for a change, I won't go on a scuba diving vacation during the study week, although both the Philippines and the Maldives are currently luring me to their beaches.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
#1 world-wide
For the last few days I was part of a team that competed in an Operations Management challange hosted by MIT.
With the damn thing running 24x7, I'm kind of sleep deprived by now, since we had to come up with decisions and implement measures 'round the clock. I probably slept a total 12-16 hours during the past 4 days.
However, the whole thing is finally over, and after catching up on some sleep, I'm happy to report that my team finished first, before teams from UCLA Anderson, MIT Sloan, Harvard Business School, Wharton, INSEAD and many other well-known business schools. In fact, three teams from CEIBS finished among the top ten. So we really are the world-wide elite, it seems ;-)
It was an absolutely fantastic experience. Our team, consisting of one student each from China, Denmark, India, Malaysia and Switzerland, was absolutely fabulous and we worked together as smoothly as you could possibly imagine.
But the best part was yesterday night, when we took our Operations Management professor out to celebrate and got him drunk as hell...
With the damn thing running 24x7, I'm kind of sleep deprived by now, since we had to come up with decisions and implement measures 'round the clock. I probably slept a total 12-16 hours during the past 4 days.
However, the whole thing is finally over, and after catching up on some sleep, I'm happy to report that my team finished first, before teams from UCLA Anderson, MIT Sloan, Harvard Business School, Wharton, INSEAD and many other well-known business schools. In fact, three teams from CEIBS finished among the top ten. So we really are the world-wide elite, it seems ;-)
It was an absolutely fantastic experience. Our team, consisting of one student each from China, Denmark, India, Malaysia and Switzerland, was absolutely fabulous and we worked together as smoothly as you could possibly imagine.
But the best part was yesterday night, when we took our Operations Management professor out to celebrate and got him drunk as hell...
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Don't believe the rumours
Some people have suggested that I might have bled to death, since nothing has happend on this blog for over a month.
Bear with me. I'm not dead yet, although I did catch a sexy James Bond (or Harry Potter)-like scar on my forehead.
The reason it's been quiet is simple: I had two very busy weeks and I piled up a lot of things to write. Then I got visited by Ursula and I spent every single free minute touring the city with her. At the same time we played an Operations Management simulation which run 24x7 for a week, so I was busy managing my virtual factory. And now I got visited by Roli and Herby, so I spend the days in school and the nights in clubs, which simply leaves me neither time nor energy to write.
And yes, I hate blogger for its clumsy interface without real WYSIWYG preview! Since its so buggy and doesn't let me add pictures to articles I've written in the past, I have to do the stuff first-time-right, so I'm not exactly incentivised to quickly type something and then revise it later on. I know it's lame to blame someone else, but I want to make this place look nice, with loads of pics, not just text.
Next week, I'll catch up on the past. Promised.
Bear with me. I'm not dead yet, although I did catch a sexy James Bond (or Harry Potter)-like scar on my forehead.
The reason it's been quiet is simple: I had two very busy weeks and I piled up a lot of things to write. Then I got visited by Ursula and I spent every single free minute touring the city with her. At the same time we played an Operations Management simulation which run 24x7 for a week, so I was busy managing my virtual factory. And now I got visited by Roli and Herby, so I spend the days in school and the nights in clubs, which simply leaves me neither time nor energy to write.
And yes, I hate blogger for its clumsy interface without real WYSIWYG preview! Since its so buggy and doesn't let me add pictures to articles I've written in the past, I have to do the stuff first-time-right, so I'm not exactly incentivised to quickly type something and then revise it later on. I know it's lame to blame someone else, but I want to make this place look nice, with loads of pics, not just text.
Next week, I'll catch up on the past. Promised.
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