Blonde MBADocumenting the life of a blonde MBA student in sunny California. Maybe some blondes DO have brains!

MBA FINALS! Sorry for not talking these last couple of weeks. In finishing up my first semester, I have not only had to spend much time finishing up group projects plus, after Thanksgiving break, have been applying myself to our much-dreaded, upcoming final exams!

If anything, the MBA program is a test of your stamina. Learning the material hasn’t been as hard, but as these next few days will test, taking 1 final exam a day in “hard topics” (accounting, economics, & statistics), it’s all about managing the workload to effectively study.

I’ll definitely have a recap (& more time to update) after next Wednesday, so wish me luck!

BTW, hoodies seem to be the Saturday morning review session rage. Unfortunately, at 8am I was too tired to get a picture.

So, this week is the final midterm before finals, and FINALLY the last Saturday morning review session (at least for a couple of weeks)…the professors seem to like to schedule these midterm review sessions to get all of their class sections in one place and make me drive my butt all the way to school for 2 hours on a Saturday morning, coffee in hand…

Question: Is it bad when we learn more in these midterm reviews than we do in 8 weeks worth of classes?

Just give me the formulas, exact areas to study, quickly run through 1 of each of the problems, and send us on our way…and teach it right the first time!!! At least the Saturday morning is worth it…can’t always say the same for the weekly classes…

Tired of Midterms ~
Blonde MBA

I promise I did NOT abandon this site! As you can probably see, October is the month for MBA midterms…and every other workshop, speaker, kick-off, mixer, holiday you can think of! I probably won’t get to post until next week again, because I have 2 back-to-back midterms that I have to give up my weekend to study for.

At least most of the midterms so far have come back with positive results. I think (and evidently the professors think) that GPA is not as important in the MBA program as in perhaps our undergraduate program. They seem to want everyone to succeed and grade us accordingly…

This does NOT mean that us MBA’s are not working our butts off to succeed on a weekly basis, participating in cases and projects (and not just for our particpation grade…OK at least most of us). Tests won’t matter as much in the real-world…being able to apply what we have learned and the work-ethic and interactions that got us there will.

Phew, I just go out of my first test…not too bad, but if figured I’d wait to say anything about my study group experience until I saw if if paid off or not! On my previous post on study groups, I mentioned my fear of “groupthink” and collectively answering the question wrong…

I forgot something else…5 different people, 5 different study strategies. Alone, this is OK, to each their own device to learn the material. Collectively, however, it’s kind of hard for the person who memorized, yes, MEMORIZED the chapters to study with the person who reworded the concepts via acronyms, real world examples, and songs (j/k, sort of)! Personally, I think you want a little of all the study strategies - there is no one best way - but it does make for an interesting study group.

The results? Being the first test, none of us really knew what to expect… I think ROTE MEMORIZATION was overkill, but it was helpful for me to retype the chapter outlines for repetition, add in some acronyms for possible short answer lists (of which there were many options) and look at the cases we covered in class.

Honestly, the study group did help in a couple of ways. First, there were a couple of things I probably would have skipped over or forgotten to include if someone in the group didn’t bring it up. Second, where one person may not have understood a concept entirely, another was able to explain it in a different way that might have made more sense. As long as you keep a sense of the study strategies that work for you, this can be a helpful addition to your study time!

Well, I’m getting ready to settle in over the weekend a bit to study for the first 2 exams in my MBA program next week! That said, with every exam (or even just for weekly homework), the study groups are forming…during the week, on the weekends, between review sessions, and even on Facebook!

I’ve never been a big fan of study groups, but it really depends on the type of class and the people involved. In a study group, it’s easier, I think, to get into the “groupthink” mode, where everyone argues about the answer, decides unanimously on it, then they get the answer wrong and have to figure it out on their own anyway!

On the other hand, your weaknesses can be another study group member’s strength, and you can really learn things that you might not understand on your own. What’s your experience??

I’m going to check out 1 or 2 study groups for this first round of exams and see how it goes (i.e. if they add value to my study time, or simply add time!). I have to say, though, this is my normal study group…