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.