Time flies

Wow, it's already end of June and tomorrow I'm gonna have the last exam of my third term.

I feel kind of guilty not to have written anything here during almost two months. There would have been quite a bit to talk about.

However, I was crazy enough to subscribe to 13 credits. Usually the school does not allow students to take on more than 9 credits in order to avoid overload. I got special permission to take an additional course, boosting my credit load to 11. Then I just joined one more course without officially subscribing to it (as I wouldn't have gotten permission anyway ;-).

I have to say - in retrospect - 13 credits is simply too much. There hasn't been much time left for anything else and my social life has been lying fairly low. But somehow I survived. I always do ;-)

On a side note: I'll be in Switzerland from July 1 to July 7, so if anybody wants to see me, that would be the occasion. Then I'll be off to the Philippines for 2 months and after that I'll be staying in London for another 4 months.

Exam success

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!

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!

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.

Time flies...

Today we had the midterm exam for Operations Management and this Friday we'll have the Corporate Finance exam.

It's unbelievable that the second term is already half over... Time really flies!

Tom Callarman (the Operations Management professor) saw me today and said something like "you don't seem to be overly nervous". So I told him that even though I had no clue about the formulas and theory covered in the textbook, I was quite confident since I see operations problems as something that can (and should) be approached by means of logic and common sense - and my IT engineering background certainly helps in this regard.

In any case, both the OM and CF professors are excellent. I could grasp all the essential concepts in class and didn't have to read any textbook to make sense of the material.

I've made up my mind

I'm gonna do my exchange to London Business School.

I know, London looks like much less fun than L.A. (and please don't even mention the difference in terms of girls...). But at some point you have to grow up. And take informed decisions. And emphasize long-term value over short-term fun. Otherwise you'll never become an influental, big, rich CEO of a large multinational. Such as Kenneth L. Lay. Or Bernard J. Ebbers.

However, there's still a tiny glimpse of hope! I listed L.A. as my second choice and there is a slight chance of being denied the exchange to London ;-)

The exchange dilemma

We just got our Term 1 transcript.

Apparently it was a typo when they stated that the grades would be ready by end of February. So my rant was only partly justified and I hereby apologize for wrongly accusing whoever responsible. No, it is not like they discovered this blog and traded non-expulsion against rectification ;-)

Anyway, my grades turned out to be better than expected. I got a B+ in Organizational Behaviour, which is kind of hard to explain after my inital exam results. Looks like the other professor in the second half didn't hate me as much... I mean... valued my contribution and humour much more than the first one (thanks Jean, we all love you!).

And now to something completely different...

With my current grades I get a fair chance to go to my exchange school of choice. Which has created a new problem.

See, I think I should go to LBS because they have a good reputation and an excellent alumni network. And since I see my future mainly in Europe that looks like a huge long-term payoff.

But then again, I'd love to go to UCLA. The weather is much nicer, the school specializes in entrepreneurship and in general it sounds like much more fun. Not to mention californian girls - oops I didn't say that...

So what's it gonna be: Long-term payoff or fun?

Strategy is breathing down my neck

We just had Strategic Management course. The professor is new to CEIBS. He got his PhD from MIT Sloan and taught at INSEAD before coming to China.

He kicked off his course by giving us a written case study assignment to be done over this first weekend and another one to be done during our precious spring vacation. He also supplied us with 4 course books of reading material, this is about the same volume as all other subjects combined.

HEY! WAKE UP! This is laidback China. This ain't no Wharton or INSEAD. If I wanted to work all freakin' weekend I would have applied there directly!

Jeez' I'll really have to think of some strategic evasion techniques, cuz' otherwise I can trash my Term-2 resolution right here, right now...

The first day

So today I had my first day of classes and it looks quite promising: Operations Research with Tom Callarman is a real treat and Corporate Responsibility looks at the "other" side of China's rapid growth - a sad view as you might imagine.

I'm glad CEIBS is trying to sensitize future managers to environmental and social problems. Sometimes here in China you get the impression that people simply don't care. But the bitter truth is, they don't know. That's one of the downsides of keeping the public happy by censoring negative information in mass media.

Luckily, my blog is already banned in China, 'cause otherwise it certainly would be so now...

Picture this: Reportedly there are over 30,000 internet censors at work in China whereas the Environmental Protection Agency is staffed by 200 full-time employees only (18,000 in the US) and the Energy Bureau has 100 full-time staff (US: 110,000). Scary!

Make sure you check out this NY Times article on the "other side" of China. It's not only worth reading, it's a real eye opener!

Feverishly awaiting the finals

I got myself a cold when coming back to Shanghai. Nice move. The culprit was probably a freezer-like air conditioned cinema on my last day in the Philippines.

What the HELL is wrong with those people, that they always have to run their A/C on full steam, until one cannot see the movie screen anymore, because ones own breath condensates in midair?!

Anyway,
I had planned to spend all Saturday really studying for Statistics and Financial Accounting. Instead I'm now lying in bed with 38.5 fever, lazily dreaming away - not to say halluzinating ;-)

I'm not complaining, though, as this gives me another great excuse to procrastinate studying a little longer...

This morning we had to give our presentation for Business Writing and Presentation Skills class, which was videotaped, since it represents the final exam for this subject. I hope to catch a glimpse of myself later this week, performing in front of a totally bored must-be-there-audience with feverishly glazy, red eyeballs and a sore nose.

A (better) world without accounting

Whoa, I'm finally done with Financial Accounting! We finished our paper and presentation slides on the financial statement analysis and company valuation today.

I'm really glad to have this time hog off my back! It was such a pain to prepare the slides with all the charts and numbers in an easily comprehensible way. Especially since one of the companies we had chosen was a Chinese one, which publishes its annual reports in Chinese only...

After going out with Heinz on Friday till 4am or so, I was really, really (I mean really) tired during the weekend's OB classes. Which was interesting nonetheless, seeing myself in the OB lab on videotape reacting to situations when I'm actually really worn out.

OB and the work-life balance

I just booked a flight to the Philippines!
What, that's nothing to do with Organisational Behaviour you say? WRONG!

I little background: Those who know me will testify that I'm a really lazy guy when it comes to studying. I basically went through all my undergrad and grad years avoiding homework as much as possible. I always bragged not to have had the best grades but by far the highest efficiency.

Now that I'm older, I thought I might try and act a little more mature, maybe put some study effort into what I've paid a lot of money for. So I decided to really study for OB, as it seemed to be a subject that has great applicability and value in the "real world". I read the whole damn' textbook front to end, something which I haven't done for any other subject (so far I haven't even opened the economics textbook once). I actually was so comitted that I took the OB textbook with me on my vacation trip to Guilin (I know, I'm a sicko, sigh).

I also wrote a 2-3 page summary for each chapter. This is the only time in my entire life, that I've ever summarized a text book in writing. So when the day of midterm exam came, I was soooo in mastery of the subject, that I was done with the exam in little more than half the alotted time (see here). WOW! I'm such a cool guy, I thought ;-)

Time warp: We just got back the grades for the OB midterm. I scored among the lowest 15%.

Now speaking of OB, Skinner's motivational theory, equity theroy, extinction of behaviour, etc. I was quick to assess the damage and draw the appropriate conclusions. STUDYING DOESN'T PAY OFF! I tried it once, and guys, believe me, it simply doesn't.

So I decided not to repeat the same mistake twice. I will use the study week (one week off before the final exams in which we are supposed to refresh all the course contents) to go to the Philippines for scuba diving. Now that's what I call work-life balance!

Trust me. Experience tells me that I'll score much higher this way. And if not, at least I'll claim the record for highest efficiency once again...

A motivational boost

We just got back the grades for our second group case in Marketing...

After the serious blow on the first one, I spent considerable time analysing and working on the second. So it better be good. I actually vowed to my group, that if we scored below 95, I'd never ever do a marketing case again ;-)

Here's the result: 95/100, the second highest grade among 40 groups! Not bad, ey?

While I still feel, that I know sh*t about marketing, at least this gives me the feeling that I have somehow progressed a bit during the past months.

(This post courtesy of in-classroom wifi networking)

World record in case writing

Could be that I've just set a new (inofficial) world record in case writing efficiency...

Background: We had to write an individual 10 page marketing paper, but this time not for marketing class but for business writing class. The main difference is, that no attention will be paid on the depth of analysis. Instead, grading will focus mainly on the structure and wording.

Since I didn't feel compelled to put much effort into it (I know that I can write stuff, if it really matters), I decided to opt for optimum efficiency.

So I analyzed the case in about 1.5hrs and then wrote the entire 10 page report in about 4.5 hours. Let's see wheter I'll get away with that...

(This post courtesy of in-classroom wifi networking)

The mid-terms are over!

Finally, we've finished the last mid-term exam. So it's party time again!

I just had OB today and my hard studying of the subject matter seems to have paid off. At least I was done with the questions after little more than half the allotted time. I wonder how my answers will be evaluated, though, as I just couldn't resist to go WAY further than what the questions asked for.

In any case, I probably gave up most of my competitive advantage anyway, because I supplied some fellow students with the book summary I had written (which had taken me about 30 hours of continous reading and summarizing...) And, boy, material like this spreads fast on a compus.

On a high note

We just got feedback on the very first group project that we had handed in.

Quote: Your grade on this paper is 96. One of the best papers on this deliverable. VERY strong paper. (As I grade your paper, I’m almost done with the papers and this is the highest grade so far…)

Let's hope this is a better predictor for future performance than the Marketing papers, where the class was slammed with a 76 point average, that "had been artifically raised in order not to demotivate everyone"...

Easy peasy

Today was the first lecture day.

Some overeagerly hard working students already tried to spread panic by claiming that one would have to prepare homework for certain sessions and they started to solve some exercises listed as homework for the first lecture. What a weird thought though, solving the assignments before the lesson! Makes the professor kind of redundant ;-)

There's not much stress yet, as the first lectures in each course consisted mainly of administrative issues and a short overview of the course. Let's see how the week develops...