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.

With the Thanksgiving holiday coming up, most of the semester’s MBA group projects are due either just before or just after the break. What this means? Hours of group meetings!

With a multitude of meetings & projects, many with the same people, how do you coordinate your efforts?

1. Come up with an action plan -
By deciding how to attack the project in advance, you can save yourself and your fellow group members huge amounts of time and limit your wasted effort. Sticking to the plan and figuring out what needs to be done to accomplish your goal will keep you on track, and any needed adjustments can more easily be made along the way.

2. Divide and conquer -
MBA group projects tend to be rather large in scope…the reason? The professors want us to cover as much material as possible, so just the sheer quantity of material to be covered requires a divide-and-conquer approach. Of course, each of the group members needs to pull their wait, or you’re going to have a gap in the material…so while giving up your complete control of the project, you do need to make sure that group expectations are clear up front!

3. Find a balance between agreement & conflict (in a good way)
A cohesive group (which most of mine are) is great…less emotional conflict and more agreement, which definitely speeds things up. On the flip side, we purposely try to promote more intellectual conflict, playing “devil’s advocate” where needed or presenting a different view of things. Without this conflict, we could all very well be stuck on the wrong idea, but none of us would say anything different! Make sure you are seeing all sides of the story, to see if there is anything you can do better, without disturbing the peace!

4. Employ your strengths
One of the struggles when it comes time to pull an MBA group project together is pulling together 3-4 different styles…one for each group member! Not everyone can write the paper, so figure out a good role for each person…either one that you know they’re good at (which you probably WON’T know in the beginning), one they want to try or practice on, or whatever each can do the quickest & best! You get the picture…while everyone is the “best writer,” not everyone can write. Judge your comparative advantages and employ them accordingly…

So, I am DEFINITELY not an expert on MBA group projects, and we’ll see how the finished projects come out (I’ll let you know how this week goes!), but these are definitely lessons I’ve learned so far this semester…

I’m sure I will have more insights as the semester and program progresses…what have been your group experiences, for better or worse? What have you learned from them?

Being in an MBA program what with all that is going on in the economy, some classmates and I are kind of wishing that our professors would give more insight into the economy and how it affects the realities of business.  We feel that, in the shelter of the program, the MBA professors can offer insights from the real-world or even academic explanations for some of the current events, so that we can better understand what is going on & effectively lead when we get out!

Of course while my management & statistics instructors may not have much to offer & it would take all of our courses off track, why does my accounting professor talk more about it the current state of things than my economics professor… hmm?? I do have one project of “Fed watching” but as the economy seems to be doing everything in reverse, things it has never done before, this hasn’t led to much explanation or insight into the economic events.

That being said, regardless of course content, an MBA program is supposed to be about reality-based education…what better reality is there than an unstable economic system (wait, did that come out wrong?)

I hope that in the course of our time in the program (& with the dollars we are spending), we can get a little more insight as our economy (hopefully) progresses!

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.

Today’s economics class: “What are the microeconomic causes of the sub-prime crisis?” This is probably the first of many questions are going to go over my head as I’m going through my MBA program, but I’m alright with that! Today was the first day of class, and I can always attribute these to being a Blonde MBA…

Just kidding, but I do not pretend to have a clue about things that I really, actually have no clue about. One of the key parts about going through the MBA program is being prepared, staying on top of the times and current events, and being able to defend all sides of a case study (which I think I am better at, given a little information)…

Of course, in staying on top of the current events and pursuing the studies that interest me for a career, it’s much easier for me to pay attention to topics that interest me in the fields of my choice…finance and banking are obviously NOT my field of choice!

Anyway, meet one of my new best friends…

Staying on top of the times...