F1GMAT: Does the Evening MBA program provide networking opportunities?

Sean(GA Tech Evening MBA): Wow, this is a great question. IF the question is, are there settings where the evening students go to structured events designed to meet professionals in their desired industry, then the answer is no. IF the question is are there opportunities to network with your peers, then YES. One of the distinct advantages of the Evening program is that all of my class mates and peers are employed at the very companies that the Full Time students wish to get placed. I have met and am now very good friends with classmates that are successful at companies like, Turner, UPS, Lockheed Martin, Delta, Newell Rubbermaid, WorldPay, KPMG, Home Depot, SunTrust, Chick-fil-A, Norfolk Southern, and many others. On a daily basis I have the opportunity to grow and build a network of like-minded similarly aged professionals that are willing to slip a resume onto decision maker’s desks. In that regard, I think the network I have created is quite impressive. With that in mind, like anything in life, it is your personal effort that makes the Evening program worthwhile.

Read F1GMAT's Interview with Sean Ullman - Georgia Tech Evening MBA

Adv Seminar in Accounting Ending, Review and Grade

I took this class in the Summer of 2011, this is an Accounting Elective.

This class was my third to date with Debby Turner, after Financial and Managerial Accounting and International Accounting. I have a great idea of what to expect from her courses. Let me say that this wasn’t a typical accounting class, there weren’t debits and credits or really any sort of basic math. Finally in the MBA program we talked about some of the recent (past couple decades) of “accounting failures”. We analyzed if these were indeed accounting failures or if they were actually ethical dilemmas and legal issues. Hint: They weren’t accounting failures. The format was pretty simple, there were only about 20 students in the class so Class Participation was expected and represented a portion of the final grade. There were weekly assignments that needed to be turned in for a grade and a final exam that tied the course together. All that was really required was to read in advanced and answer the questions assigned as homework, and participate in the class.

We spent about four weeks on Enron and what exactly happened and how they failed; really interesting stuff honestly. We analyzed the legal ramifications of mark to market accounting and what exactly happened at Enron leading up to the resignation of Jeff Skilling and the eventual “death” of Ken Lay. We read and discussed WorldCom and HealthSouth, exactly what happened to each company. We hit on the causes and legal ramifications of the failures in congress.

We learned more about Sarbanes-Oxley and Dodd-Frank acts and exactly what they mean to companies around the United States. There was so much information in this course that really bridged the gap for those of us who don’t really know all the details of these frauds and company failures. I highly recommend this class, whether you are accounting or finance savvy or not. I learned quite a bit about the world of accounting, and little about how to detect the possible frauds just by looking at the financials. I give the class information and format as well as the professor a solid “A”. I got an “A”.

Operations Management Review, Ending and Grade

I took this course in the Spring of 2011:

This was an MBA level Operations Management Course. I will say that Ravi Subramanian was a great professor, educated, and general was excited to be teaching this class to Evening MBA’s, who are professionals and were eager to share their knowledge. There was a class project where we had to find an operation based problem, reporting on the project, analyzing the procedures and offering improvement insights and successes. My group had a few students who worked in operations and they gave me unbelievable supplemental knowledge to the teachings of the class.

Topics covered included flow charts, the basic of operations, Gantt charts (which have since come up at my work), bottle necking, and the like. Let me say that someone in operations for a living may believe the information in the class was way too rudimentary. It is possible that my operations based colleagues felt about this class the way I felt about the Marketing Management course I reviewed earlier. But for someone with no existing knowledge of the details of Operations Management, I found the course interesting.

The class had the project and a couple exams for the grade. Let me say the exams weren’t easy, in fact I found them to be difficult even open note exams. And the only problem I have with the super difficult exams is that we get the questions wrong but don’t ever learn the correct answer. If the goal of the program is to learn the material, and we get answers wrong on tests but never get to discuss the right answers then we have a batch of information we never really learned. I know that is a different diatribe, but I think it is important. I don’t care if I get a 50% or a 97%, in both circumstances there is some information I don’t know very well. Ravi specifically went over each exam questions for the class so we all knew where our thought process should have been… so refreshing that he went over answers to questions so we could learn. If the students didn’t think the same way he gave us a chance to write a request to regrade that question. If the argument made sense and could be justified he would give the points back; even if it was semantics based arguments – which resulted in my getting an answer correct.

This class was a great learning experience and honestly made me consider taking more operations based classes in the program. I think that is a very high praise from me as it takes a solid educator to sway me from the goals I have set for myself in the program. I give Ravi a solid “A” and the class a solid “A”, even though I received a solid “B”.

International Accounting Grade, Ending and Review

This is an elective for an Accounting Concentration, I took this class in Spring 2011.

I decided that I would do my best to focus all of my electives in Accounting, so upon completion of the program I could of satisfied the legal credit requirement to sit for the CPA exams. If I make every elective Accounting I would be pretty close to satisfying the requirements legally from an education point of view. I believe I would have 27 of the 30 required just by making that designation. So accounting electives would have to be the only electives I would take, if hearing about accounting classes bores you, I am sorry, I will do my best to entertain.

International accounting is great because it is a specifically designed Independent study, it is an accounting elective, and it satisfies the International elective criteria that is required in the program. Talk about knocking out three birds with one stone. I sat down with Debby Turner and got the information and approval to register for the class – a policy of all independent studies. We rented text books from Debby and she gave us a list of multiple questions that corresponded to each chapter, the answers to the questions, and the rules for a small paper that was to be written prior to completion.

I woke up on Saturdays read the chapter and answered the questions, without looking at the book or the answers, graded myself and if I got 90% or greater I moved on. If I didn’t, I would look at the questions I answered incorrectly and revisited the topics. I would retry the exam, there was some sure fire human error and bias in the process though, since I already saw the answers, it helped me learn. I repeated the efforts until I scored over 90% and then moved to the next chapter the following week.

I learned a lot through the process about the international side of accounting, the different rules, the most likely future of accounting, the way things are done in other countries and how they change their accounting to trade on different stock exchanges, and the tax related rules from working and producing products or owning land overseas. Ultimately, I was able to put together what I believe was an articulate paper that answered some of the questions I had when I started the course.

I have stated before that I like to know what I don’t know about a topic, this independent study allowed me to learn everything that I could in the time allotted. I very much like Debby Turners approach to accounting and the learning process matches mine almost perfectly. I recommend this class to anyone and everyone that has any interest in Accounting and needs their International elective satisfied still. The material was perfectly presented so I give Debby an “A” , and the material an “A” as well. I got an “A”.

Marketing Management 1 Review, Ending and Grade

I took this course in the Spring of 2011:

Marketing Management was an undergraduate marketing class presented as an MBA marketing level course. I completely understand that this is an Intro to Marketing class, but the topics were very basic and we missed an opportunity to dive into the mathematical portion of Marketing. I an MBA program that has a certain IT flair, this missed opportunity really hurt the course in my opinion.

The class was one of those where you come to the room and sit down to watch the professor lecture from the slides from the textbook, there was no need to be there other than if you wanted to supplement the reading with a regurgitation of the book in the class. That isn’t always a bad thing though; it helps drive home the point of the material. Marketing is broad, it is hard to define, it is hard to determine the value the marketing department is bringing to the table. We hit on all the key topics, from advertising and the marketing mix, the four P’s, the process of segmentation and the difference between Sales and Marketing. All of these topics are important, but as a group we only scratched the surface of how each is accomplished.

We didn’t discuss the science of Marketing, we didn’t delve into the mathematics of how segmentation is accomplished, how companies conduct and execute user and client data to better the products or approach. In fact the only time this information came up was in the class simulation. I had no idea how to properly invest in the future of the company we were simulating or how to use my department’s resources to ensure my clients were happy and continuing to use my company. Ultimately, I made it through about 3 of the 4 years of the simulation and I was fired as marketing manager… I wasn’t the only one fired. We weren’t equipped with the knowledge to be a marketer when we completed the course.

This was an intro to the ideas of marketing class, not a MBA Marketing course at a Technology Institute. I was disappointed, maybe because of my expectations going in that weren’t met, or the fact that the class culminated in a simulation in which I was fired. I will say though, I think the professor was engaging and involved the class specifically in the discussions through small in class assignments. I believe that in the short run of things Professor Vantine was handicapped with having to teach basic knowledge and couldn’t or didn’t have time to do any more than scratch the surface of each Marketing discipline. I also understand if each person wanted to know more about marketing they could take more classes on the topic.

With all of that said, this was an undergraduate level Marketing course in an MBA curriculum. If you knew nothing of Marketing going in you may learn quite a bit, but if your company has a marketing department or have ever worked for a company with a marketing department you already understand the basics of marketing. I will further this by saying that Peter Vantine did a good job, my only personal gripe was this: it was stated by the professor that a basic “30,000 foot view” understanding of the concepts would be enough to do well on exams and perform well in the class. I take “well” to mean an “A”, I studied concepts and ideas not definitions and didn’t do as well on the exams as I would have if I was told to know the definitions in the class.

A memo to all future students: an “A” means knowing ALL of the definitions, not understanding the concepts. I got a “B”, to the class I give a “C”, to the professor I mimic the “B”.

Business Communicaitons Review, Ending and Grade

I took this couse in the Fall of 2010:

This is a class that I did not like. A third party company taught the speaking course and it was only one credit. The class needs to exist for those who are more uncomfortable speaking in public, I get that. However, I could say a simple test could result in waiving the communications class from a good portion of students in the program. Additionally, I have been in sales or a sales discipline for my career, let me say that I wasted the money in this one credit class and got nothing out of the lessons except jokes to poke fun of my friends in the program. This should be reevaluated by those in charge of the program.

There was no grade, only a pass/fail option. For those of us in the program paying out of pocket this was truly a waste of money. If I would have given this course a grade, I would say that it deserved a D in my mind. I won’t issue a grade since the third party company didn’t give me a grade either: rather I will give them a FAIL.

How could it be better? Actually discuss Business Communication. Effective Agenda creation, power point discussions, how to effectively create a memo, what to do with personal twitter accounts, how to use LinkedIn more effectively… I could go on and on. No one that I know took this class and now is a wonderful public speaker: Just sayin…

IT Management Review, Ending and Grade

I took this course in the Fall of 2010:

Saby Mitra was the professor who taught the IT Management Course. Let me say firstly that I understand IT is a difficult course to teach as the topics are not just moving targets, but are constantly evolving at such a rate that it seems like an interesting choice to teach the material. I would have focused less on the details of IT, like what 3G is and how it works, but more on the business application of IT as a field. This was a detail of IT class, firstly, not my forte. This will skew my review, as it is my review.

There were quizzes administrated almost every class, and on days where there weren’t quizzes an attendance sheet was passed around. A couple of the lowest grades were dropped and then 20% of the final grade was determined through this methodology. Good news, this was the first semester where he didn’t demand class participation; I have stated before that demanding class participation is not my favorite. There were two case write ups which were to be completed in groups of 4-5 students. He wanted the cases to be neatly organized with headings. I get that, as it makes it easier to follow and read. In a class like this at a program like Georgia Tech there are many people with an IT background, these resources were pretty evenly spread over the groups to essentially give groups a couple people who already had a grasp on the material. There were a couple of Exams and they were related to the cases and readings assigned.

I had very little interest in the topic and at times a difficult time following the discussions when they extended to much into the specs and details. This was the first course at Georgia Tech that I thought was placed in the program only because of the Tech name. I truly feel like Saby did a great job of teaching the material in the course and understanding that some people have a hard time or no interest in the specifics of a technology field that is fluid and evolving daily. I got a B in the course. I will give Professor Mitra and the course as a whole the same grade. I will also say that if one tries hard and shows the effort, it would be hard pressed for someone to get less than this grade. In fact, from my experience, only those with a heavy IT background could get a letter grade above this established B range. Ultimately, this is a necessary class for Georgia Tech and worthwhile to take. I learned as much from my peers in the class as I did during the lectures. Plus side, it was only two credits.