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.

Why Such Inactivity from me?

During my blogging sabbatical I accomplished many things. In December of 2010, my fiancé at the time and I bought a house. We had no idea what to expect in the process other than the fact that we had very little money with which to do this.

First backstory: When I lost my job last year I was placed in a predicament, I had no incoming money and had many outgoing bills. This created a problem for me. My girlfriend and I were getting pretty serious and lived about two blocks from each other in the Virginia Highlands. She let me move in, pretty much immediately and she supported me… I will forever owe her for that. A man changes when he doesn’t have a job, at least I did and I am super glad she was there for me.

About two days prior to the day I lost my job I asked Lindsay’s parents for permission to marry their daughter. This was a great choice for me as I knew she was the one worth spending the rest of my life with. They said yes and I was ready to ask away. Two days passed and the ring was burning a hole in my pocket, and I needed to ask her, I lost my job and moved into her apartment. Needless to say, that was the final boost I needed to make sure we weren’t just living together, so I asked her to marry me which was planned already.

She said “yes”.

We lived together with our three cats and dog (which wasn’t allowed in her apartment). Needless to say after about six months of living together with an illegal dog the landlord found out and we left. We moved in with her parents on October 1, 2010. We had been talking about buying a place at that time, though we didn’t have that much money saved. Living with my future in-laws in Alpharetta gave us the incentive and the wherewithal to start saving to buy our house. We put in an offer and closed on our first house in a two month timeframe, best decision ever… now we are homeowners… see why I disappeared from August 2010 to December 2010 that makes sense. We now own a home in Oakhurst (Decatur Altanta line in East Atlanta) that was built in 1920. We have our first yard and our first homeownership experiences. It took a while to get used to the yard and the work. Then what?

Well, I decided to take three classes at a time to speed the process.

AND we were planning for a wedding. We got married in June 2011. What a stressful and glorious time leading up to the big day. We wed at the Botanical Gardens, supposed to be outside (rained, so it wasn’t), but the wedding is a story for another day. We honeymooned, I finished the summer semester and now am ready to catch up the blog.

Organizational Behavior Review, Ending and Grade

I took this course in the Fall of 2010:

Let me start by saying that the professor, Nate Bennett, was one of the most personable and interesting professors I have had in the program. Nate’s style was very fitting for the class material. He rolled in made a joke, related the material to current events then sat down in a chair in front of 70 people and just opened discussion. I will say that my view of the class may be different from others because I do well in environments where there is open dialog.

All that one needed to do was read the material assigned take some notes and be prepared to speak on the topics during class. Since the material was not analytical in nature I could easily pick up on the point of the articles and discuss the important points relating to the inherent nature of humans. The topics ranged widely. We read an article and discussed in class how hospitals in New Orleans reacted to the influx of patients and the loss of power during Katrina. We analyzed how the hospital handled the patients and what wards in the hospital got the most resources, whether that was ethical, and who should be liable for deaths. As a class we talked about how people behave in different situations, we looked at the psychological impact of workers being watched by their supervisors. We watched a movie, Lord of the Flies, and analyzed how children responded when they were faced with determining a leader, and were surprised by how long the children were separated from adult authority figures and how they chose their leaders in such a desperate environment.

I loved the class and the professor. Honestly, up to this point in the program I have had a real disconnect to my specific knowledge of some of the specific disciplines of business. Accounting is accounting, and finance is finance, and economics is economics, however Organizational Behavior is the process of dealing with people. People are irrational, we make decisions with our own biases and much of the time we form opinions immediately and justify those opinions as the base point for our arguments going forward. Professor Bennett was a wonderful facilitator, playing devil’s advocate as needed and helping knock home some difficult topics. I took this course in the Fall of 2010 and wouldn’t take it in the summer (courses too short) as the material really suited my style. Again, others who prefer an analytical perspective with concrete answers to questions could be uncomfortable in the class at times and those who are reluctant to offer their opinions may be drowned out of the discussions.

There was no project, either personal or group, there were a couple tests and class participation was key and graded as such. When 70 people need to speak to get participation credit there are too many hands and much shallow discussions where students need to say something even if it isn't vital to the conversation at hand. Regardless of this small downfall I give this couse MGT 6100 and the professor a solid "A". I loved the material and the format of the class, I will say that I got a lot out of the format of the class and Professor Bennett's discussions, I got a "B".

Financial Management Review, Ending and Grade

Here is my, honest review of the summer “semester” as it relates to the Evening MBA program at Georgia Tech. Firstly, let me say, for the program to be completed in the very feasible and allotted time frame of three years, students taking two classes at a time MUST take classes during three summers. With that simple fact stated, the summer term was a shortened and very abbreviated version of the courses we signed up for. Because of the shortened classes, I felt like we missed out on some material.

The Finance Class was an interesting situation. The summer class should have been a full 11 weeks, but because it was on a Monday, we missed two class periods because of holidays. So what is normally 45 hours of material (as described in the previous post) is in actuality taught in a very generous 27 hours. I say generous, because we were let out of class early more often than not. We could have easily reached 30 or so hours and covered another topic, the classes are a lot of money and I have very little interest in getting out of class early.

Our understanding of the material of the class was based on our performance on two exams and three projects. The three projects were group assignments that were directly related to the material we were covering at the time they were due, which was awesome. However the spacing of the projects was questionable. The first project was due pretty early on in the class and was very quantitative in nature like the teaching style of the first two thirds of the class. However the second project had very subjective material and expectations that weren’t properly explained; the third project was due when we turned in the second project. Because of the logistics of the due dates we were unable to follow the subjective shift of the course as we would be expected to do in a normal Fall and Spring semester, with at least a week of time between receiving the grades and the next project being due.

Professor Clarke did a great job of bringing the material to real world applications. Though I can’t help but feel that we missed out on material because of the abbreviated term of the summer. I ended up with a “B” in the class, which was what I had hoped for. The Group projects brought my average down quite a bit. Overall I would give Financial Management a “B”. I don’t believe we had enough time in the summer to learn the material properly enough to apply all the concepts to our real life jobs.

Economics Review, Ending and Grades

Here is my, honest review of the summer “semester” as it relates to the Evening MBA program at Georgia Tech. Firstly, let me say, for the program to be completed in the very feasible and allotted time frame of three years, students taking two classes at a time MUST take classes during three summers. With that simple fact stated, the summer term was a shortened and very abbreviated version of the courses we signed up for. Because of the shortened classes, I felt like we missed out on some material.

The Economics class was divided into two classes of five weeks each; one Micro and the other Macro Economics. Five weeks: let me just say that five weeks is about 17 hours of material learned. The normal semester is 15 sessions or 45 hours of material. Now, Economics has been split into two courses for the entirety of the program, so half the normal time, or 22.5 hours would be expected to learn the same material as would be expected during the normal Fall and Spring Semesters.

I love Economics, the principles and Game Theory is exciting and very informative. The course felt rushed and with only one grade, the final exam, it was difficult to gauge my grasp of the material as we progressed. The professor was great. Professor Higgins was the kind of guy you would want to grab a scotch with, light up a stogie and chat about life and all of its infinite mysteries. Because he was so darn personable and easy going some of the people in the class (just one person) always found a way to ask pointless questions that derailed the train of knowledge. I know you have to answer student’s questions, but this isn’t a one on one learning environment. The rest of the class just zoned out when the kid talked, which made the focus and attention of an evening MBA very difficult, and at times frustrating. With that said, I don’t know how Professor Higgins could have altered that one person’s behavior, even though I feel the class’ frustration was evident.

Teaching, and learning, economics involves a lot of graphs and complicated equations and movements. The sheer nature of the subject makes Power Point presentations extremely difficult to follow. Professor Higgins understood this difficulty. He even came to one class two hours early to re-teach complicated topics to those of us who wanted to learn it. In this smaller group environment, he used the white boards and made “live” changes to graphs. When he taught in this fashion, the material clicked extremely quickly.

The course grades were assigned based on only one grade for each class. Because of the difficulty of the material and the short time frame, the professor gave us the opportunity to take the test in groups of two, to ease the burden. Boy, am I glad he did, because my partner had a much better grasp and understanding of the material than I did, he was able to help supplement the material taught in class. I ended up with an “A” in the Micro Economics class and a “B” in the Macro Economics class. Overall, I was quite pleased with my grasp of the material and the amount I learned in a short period of time.

Based on the limitations of the timeframe of a summer Evening MBA course, I give Professor Higgins a solid B+. Though, his willingness to extend the reach of his material to those of us who really wanted to learn it was just fantastic, the time frame limitations really hurt the class. Overall the Courses, both Macro and Micro got a “B” from me.

The Job Hunting Process

As everyone knows, I was laid off in February, due to the Economy, from a very small financial company. I spent essentially four and half months in limbo. I knew that I wanted to marry my girlfriend, so I proposed even without a future plan for getting a job. I will say that not knowing what was going to happen in the next weeks was a very scary thought.

I was enrolled in school that started in January, but without a job I didn’t know the benefit of being in an Evening MBA program for Professionals. My fiancé was extremely supportive as I looked for jobs that were a good fit for me to apply. In my time unemployed I applied to over 120 different jobs, I know this because I put each one, along with the description of the duties in my iPhone calendar, and I counted them. This means that I applied to 30 jobs per month… really, one job I was qualified for per day. I didn’t stretch on my abilities and I didn’t reach for positions I wasn’t qualified for.

Applying for jobs every day, and only hearing rejections is really damaging to a person’s self esteem. To the point that I talked to my fiancé about the possibility of switching to the full time MBA program if September came and I didn’t have an offer for employment.

Eventually, I branched away from my history in Hospitality and Finance and opened myself to the world of non profits, as I have always been interested in them. I did this in such a way that I would be applying for positions that fit my history and skill set. One of the first jobs I applied for in Non Profit was the one I eventually was offered. The process just took a while, as expected in this economy.

I am happy to report that after three weeks in this new position, I feel like I am building a career each day I am here, and not just working a job.

Data Analysis Review, Ending and Grades

The second course I took during my first semester was Data Analysis (an Excel based Analysis and Basic Statistic course). This course was fundamentally awesome. I have no background using Excel as a tool, so every bit of material was really quite useful.

I would say the book for the course “Data Analysis & Decision Making 3e” was definitely worth purchasing, all of the material covered in the course is covered in depth in the book. The book also came with a disc with additional free add-in material that helps with real world application and shows the reader the usefulness of Excel as a business tool.

With all of that said… The book was a better resource than the lecture. The professor, Robert Burgess, is articulate and detail oriented. Unfortunately, this type of material can only be covered in a certain way. So, at times the lectures, dragged a bit, although they were easy to follow. The professor did a great job of using off topic material to keep the class fun, which is very much appreciated from the student’s point of view.

There were three tests in the class, all of which gave a really good overview of the application of the material. This is a technical university, and because of that, I am happy this course was added to the core requirements.

The largest percentage grade in the class came from a group presentation using all of the material learned in the course. The interesting thing about the organization of the groups, is that the professor had us each take an online survey to find information on our personal backgrounds. He then put our groups together in a way that created the most “chaos”. My background was in Hotel Sales, my group mates ranged from Marine Biology to Engineering to Finance. The group worked very well together, as unlike undergraduate studies, everyone was enrolled in the MBA program for the same reasons: to learn.

I will add one more item to commend the professor, he gave a group project that was extremely open ended, which kept the class interested and was a great end of course presentation / case study on how randomly thrown together groups could interpret the exact same set of directions differently. The presentations and group project was really a lot of fun. Doing the group project was at times frustrating and difficult to see past the insanity of the open ended project. Once you could catch a glimps to the professors end game everything became much more clear. On the final day of class when all the groups presented, everything that wasn't cleared up prior to that point, instantly clicked.

Ultimately, I walked out of the class with an “A”. I feel that is the perfect representation of my knowledge on Excel after completing the class. I would also give the overall class a “B+”. The professor did a great job of making the material interesting to the students, but as the class applied to lecture, it was hard to handle at times. I have a hard time believing that any of the other core courses will be able to take such drab material and apply them in such creative ways; thank you to Professor Burgess for a well thought out and interesting class.

Accounting Review, Ending and Grades

Let me tell you a little about this last seven months. I started school at Georgia Tech, I took two classes in my first semester. I believe that Accounting is extremely important, this class was a combination of Financial Accounting (first half of the semester) and Managerial Accounting (the second half of the semester).

***Firstly, the book was an absolute waste of time; the professor just went off of her own notes… Don’t buy the book; it is of no value to the course.

The Financial Accounting information as taught was awesome. The material taught me the ability to look at a company’s financial statements as a means to find “red flags” that would indicate trouble in the future. Since I was laid off in February and actively looking for employment, I focused on applying my knowledge to find a large successful company that I wanted to work for. So, for me, the application of the material was almost immediate and extremely useful.

The Managerial Accounting portion was a little easier to apply. Since the class was focused on how to react and record transactions from an inside the corporation view point, the material wass a little more intuitive, falling in line with my personal background.

The material for both courses was covered in traditional lecture, small group projects (2 people), and exams.

Ultimately, I ended up with a “B” in the class. It wasn’t the grade I wanted, but with the personal distraction of being laid off mid semester, the week the second exam was due, really distracted me from performing my best. I learned a large amount of information and believe that all of the material is applicable (almost immediately) when transferred to the business world.

On a more financial based grade scale, I would say that I would give the course and instructor, Debbie Turner, a solid grade of “A”. Sometimes in education, I would say that although my grade was not, ultimately what I wanted from the class, I left with the belief that my knowledge taken from the class is more on par with an “A”. In all reality, it was what I learned and can apply that is directly related to how I feel about the course. I would say that I am very happy with my first MBA class at Georgia Tech.

Everybody Loves Murphree

I spent four months trying to prioritize my needs for my new job including what industry I wanted to join. I had experience in Hospitality (Restaurants and Hotels) and Finance (TPA Firms), but ultimately the one common denominator is my passion for Sales. The principles of sales supersedes the industry. With this revelation in mind I could peruse any industry of my choice.

So, I spent about five or six hours per day looking for a career in non-profit. What did I do with the other two or three hours a day?

Everybody Loves Raymond.

I have now officially seen every single episode of this show in syndication. I know the plots of each show now based on the opening scene. I enjoy Robert, Ray, Marie, Frank, they are like my little TV family. I watched shows like According to Jim, Yes Dear, King of Queens, and Friends.

I know every sitcom joke from the 1990's. I can recite entire scenes from each of the shows, ultimately a horrible truth to admit. I watched shows when the lovable lead male lost his job and the entire episode was about his lackluster attitude or his schemes to get reemployed. I took those episodes to heart as they always seemed to hit a little too close to home.

I have developed a new attitude about people searching for work. In the past I felt like they were laid off because of their lack of effort, but the reality is that it may not have been through any fault of their own. I don't find people unemployed to be humerus anymore.

I would have spent more time with Murphree, but the reality is that he literally sleeps all day. While I would love to wake him up to play with me, it would be a bad choice because I really, deep down, thought I would return to employment sooner rather than later. His sleepy attitude will serve him well when he is guarding the house all by himself.

A Proposal

In February I was faced with a challenge. I was let go from my job February 24 and I had a choice to continue with my plans to ask my girlfriend to marry me (as I already had the ring) or to postpone the inevitable until I got a job.

Instead of accepting the role of victim of my own circumstances I decided to continue with the proposal as I already planned. This is a big leap of faith as not only was I just let go, I had to have faith that she would want to marry a man that was bringing nothing monetary to the table.

I convinced her to go on a walk with me to Piedmont Park, and it was there that I dropped to a knee and told her she made me the happiest man in the world and I asked her through my own tears of emotion to marry me. She said yes.

I am uncertain if the following four months were the best times of our lives or the absolute worst; we struggled financially and emotionally at times. But I know that if we could get through this period with the same love we had for each other when it started then we can get through any challenge that will be presented to us. I am the luckiest man in the world as my fiance and I have faced a challenge and persevered.

Begining of a New Era

It has been a while since my last post. I believe that I can justify this period of inactivity due to the fact that this blog is about balancing a professional life a personal life and the Evening MBA without losing my mind.

In February I was the victim of the economy. There was a time when I thought people who work hard everyday were not the people who are cut when the money gets tight in a company. Turns out I was actually incorrect in that original thought. Economic choices that executives make are fueled by the bottom line. I took a very negative view of the world of business based on this experience. Since I was not employed I viewed the world from that perspective, the perspective of sending resumes into cyberspace and not hearing anything except auto rejections.

The only thing I knew for a fact was I have worked for a very large international corporation and a rudy-poo little mom and pop shop. If ever I had the chance to begin working for a large corporation I would jump at the opportunity due to the innate problems with the politics of small companies.

Over the next couple days I will explain what I did during my unemployment.

Utility and the Lottery

This passage is taken almost exactly from the professor's lecture.

Logically, it makes no sense at all to play the lottery. You spend $1
to buy a ticket, and the chance of winning is so low it really is a
waste if money. But the downside (wasting a dollar) is defined and
relatively negligible.

So why do we play if the logical choice, based on statistics us that
we are wasting money? Because the choice to buy a lottery ticket is
made with our hearts, not our heads. Although the downside of the
lottery is defined as, at most, losing $1, the upside has unlimited
potential (what ever the total jackpot is for the date of the drawing).

So, the utility of playing the lottery, better thought of as "risk and
reward" is very small risk ($1), and very high reward.

But what if we changed the game? What if we had everyone write thier
name, address and phone number on the back of every ticket. We played
the lottery like normal and everyone with the winning numbers split
the prize (just like the current system). THEN we put all the other
tickets into a huge roll cage and drew one ticket.

The night after the lottery winner was chosen, whoevers name was
written on the back, the government hunted down and put in front of a
firing squad to be killed, in network TV.

Do you think that would change peoples view of the $1 lottery ticket
purchase?not the upside is the jackpot an the downside is the loss of
$1 AND the small chance your name will be drawn and you will be killed.

I bet the risk and reward would be viewed very differently by those
who chose to play the lottery. This defines Utility.

First Project Eyeopening Results

I see no reason to lie about my first project. It wasn’t pretty…

I described the project here and I came into the room with some decent confidence about my income statement and my journal entries. I left the room feeling pretty good about the journal entries and the T-Accounts. Here is the big problem, my Income Statement had the correct net income amount... not really a problem unless... (as in my case) I was all over the place to get to that number, just random coincidence, I guess.

Anyway, we went over the entire project in class, which took a while with so many people petitioning the professor to justify the way they labeled their accounts. When she specifically mentioned that the account names weren’t really that important as long as they were consistent from transaction to transaction. Though she was adamant that Inventory was not Supplies, as Inventory was directly involved in the creation of the final product, so I feel like that is important to remember.

All in all, it was an eye opening project, slapping me in the face with how much more information I need to learn before the first test next week. I don’t feel great about it at all. Thankfully we went over the project in class and got a chance to make changes prior to turning it in, pretty much ensuring a very good grade.

Sometimes doing a project, like this, and going over it in class to correct it definitely helps in learning and retention.

Financial Accounting First Project

So, this weekend was the first real test for me when it comes to the evening MBA program really grabbing at my time.

The first project is due today in Financial Accounting.  It is a Harvard Case Study, called the Chemalite, Inc Company.  We read a company description of the significant operating events that happened over the course of a year.

We are to do the Accrual Accounting journal entries for each transaction. Then do a "T-Account" for the Cash based transactions.  Finally, based on the information we have, we are to make an Income Statement and a Balance Sheet for the first year start-up company, Chemalite, Inc..

All in all, not incredibly difficult, just time consuming.  I feel I have a pretty good grasp on the dual journal entry concept, the T-Account creation, and the formation of an Income Statement.  I admittedly struggled with the creation of the Balance Sheet.  We will go over the project in class and then  turn it in.  It accounts for 15% of the final grade in Financial Accounting.  Lindsay was very supportive as I spent a solid hour and a half to two hours completing the Statement and T-Account portion of the project, as accurately as I could.  It too me an additional hour making the journal entries, I was pleased with the completion of the project and my beautiful girlfriends patience.

I will follow up tomorrow on how close to accurate my project turned out.