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.

Scores and Background

Scores and Background

I scheduled the GMAT around college football season as I knew I would never actually study with my beloved Gators distracting me. I took the test on September 5th. I didn’t know what to expect in terms of results, practice tests ended with scores ranging from 450 (eek) to 550 (ok). Since I studied for this exam more than I had prepared for any standardize test before, I was going to do my best. So my score was…

…we will get there.

Everyone Has a GPA Excuse:
Firstly, I was all over the place in college, before settling on a Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration. Boy ‘o boy did my GPA suffer for my lack of a clearly defined path. I took engineering courses and accounting courses and science courses… the list goes on and on. Undergrad ended with a relatively poor GPA, I never cared much, until I realized how much easier the graduate school application process would have been if my GPA had been better.

Score: 2.96/4.0.
Completely Useless Percentage (CUP): 74.00%

Lesson learned from GPA: GPA is important for more than just obtaining your first job out of college.

LSAT: The No Other Current Options Test
You should know, I have always been pretty schizophrenic when it comes to my career choices. While I was in college I wanted to be a Chiropractor, a testament to my healthy lifestyle, but I am horrible in the sciences (and honestly, unsure about the field). Next, I assumed, as many college juniors do, lawyer-ing (made up word, but I like it) would be the path for me… took the LSAT, didn’t enjoy any aspect of the preparation, and didn’t perform nearly as well as my GPA demanded I do to get into, well… any school really.

Score: 148/180.
CUP: 82.22%

Lesson learned from LSAT: don’t take LSAT if you aren’t sure you want to go to law school.

Real Life Out of Necessity:
My first job out of college was a job (that’s all, not a career by any means). I got a 9-5-er as a Sales Manager with a very reputable Hotel Company. The job was perfect for everyone, they paid me very little since it was a first job out of college, and I approached it as… well… a first job out of college. My boss’s all jumped ship when the hotel sale was announced and a less productive co-worker was promoted over me. She made my life hell until I left. Worked there for 2.5 years.

Spent six months as a Restaurant Manager. Highly not recommended.

I was offered a job in Atlanta from former bosses and the previous hotel management company. Left Hotel Company for good for current consulting job, been here for 14 months.

Score: 4.5 years of work experience

Lesson learned from Real Life: Do your job, see if you want a career in that field, if not, look for next job, don't burn bridges, and never be out of work.

GRE:
I took the GRE as a possible out from job one. Did decently, but not nearly well enough (again, as my GPA demanded) to land in a decent school in any type of graduate program. Alas, out of necessity, I focused on my career.

Score: 1070/1600
CUP: 66.88%
Analytical Writing: 4.5/6.0
CUP: 75.00%

Lesson learned from GRE: my score was competitive for many programs… however, my GPA was a load of poo. Real lesson learned: if your GPA isn’t very good, then you better get a REALLY REALLY good score on your GRE.

GMAT: My Last Possible Option for More Education
The night of September 4, rather than cramming for the test (which I know wouldn’t help me) I spent the evening drinking beer with my beautiful girlfriend (more on her later). I woke up at 6:00 AM with a massive headache and, soon to be, hangover. It was a struggle, but goodness I did pretty well.

Score: 610/800.
CUP: 76.25%
Analytical Writing: 5.5/6.0
CUP 91.67%

So, if you are keeping score at home I have now taken all three major, non-medical, graduate admissions exams.

Lesson learned from GMAT: A pretty good score and some work experience is really the only way around a poor GPA.

Hopefully I get into a program.