Week 8: Financial Accounting, Organizational Behaviour, Management Accounting and Canoeing (Module 3 con't)

Week 8 has come to a close. More Financial Accounting, Organizational Behaviour, Microeconomics, and Management Accounting. All the courses are in full swing. The work required before the class combined with all the assignment work is definitely keeping me busy...all the time. This weekend is going to be packed with lots of work.

We were going to go on a class field trip to a local Kingston business for our Management Accounting class to do a "live" case study next Monday. However, it was a sky-diving business and a few of the students decided to make use of the opportunity; they got some people, including the professor, to sign-up to go sky-diving the day of the trip. Since the school cannot be associated with such a high-risk activity, the field trip had to be cancelled. Now the rest of the class doesn't get a field trip and they still have to find their own transportation to the sky-diving location. Doesn't really seem fair to the rest of the class, but I guess there will be other opportunities for field trips.

Friday we had our first of four "speechcraft" sessions, which is an introductory course to "toastmasters". About half the class has signed-up for these sessions and I really think they are going to help us become better public speakers, which should help given the amount of presenting we are likely going to be doing.

This week's "point four" tried to incorporate a non-drinking activity, "movie in the square", to include those members of the class that don't drink. Unfortunately almost no one showed up and the people who did were people who participate regularly regardless of the venue. Hopefully we are able to find a way to get everyone coming out since it is always a welcome break, especially since the weekends seem to be filling up with homework.

Next week the class has organized a trip to Ottawa for Canada Day! That should be AWESOME. Spending Canada Day in Ottawa was on my list of things I had to do while in Kingston for this year.

Week 7: Financial Accounting, Organizational Behaviour, Management Accounting and Canoeing (Module 3 con't)

Week 7 has come to a close. Just got back from a perfect afternoon of canoeing! Paddling around a beautiful lake with nothing but the sounds of nature is exactly what I needed after this week.

The week started with a half day off on Monday morning, which I had to use to take care of some business at the bank and to do some additional reading for courses. At noon we had a presentation on the international exchange options that are available for Module 9, the module after December, if people want go on one. There are a lot of really good schools and they cover pretty much every continent.

We also had a couple of very long days since we had to stay for an additional 3 hour session with Doug Reid in the evening on Monday and Tuesday until 9:30 PM. The 2 sessions were on how to complete business case studies and they definitely helped me understand this particular method of teaching much better. To top it off Dr. Reid was excellent.

We had our first couple of classes for MBA852 Organizational Behaviour. The course is taught by professor Jana Raver and focuses mainly on human resources. Dr. Raver is interesting and the material seems intriguing, but there is a ton of reading. The course is supposed to cover human resources management, organizational effectiveness, designing high-quality jobs, recruiting and hiring, managing employee engagement and withdrawal, employee stress and well-being, employee motivation and compensation, performance management, employee development and learning organizations, and strategic alignment for HR and organizational culture.

Similarly we had our first couple of classes for MBA812 Management Accounting. The course is taught by professor Clinton Free. Dr. Free is from Australia and was definitely able to get on the students good side when he launched into an unexpected 10 minute presentation on Australia at the beginning of the first class. So far the course seems to be okay, but I'm waiting to see how the next few lectures go before I decided if I like it or not. The course is supposed to cover cost fundamentals, cost-volume profit analysis, costing systems, activity-based costing, budgeting, variance analysis, decision-making with relevant costs, management control systems, capital budgeting, financial modeling, performance measurements, balanced scorecards, financial performance appraisal, transferring pricing, pricing and target costing, management accounting for entrepreneurs, and ethics.

This week also contained our first class of MBA801 Microeconomics with professor Bo Pazderka. As the name of the course suggest we will be learning about all the details surrounding microeconomics.

Furthermore we had more MBA811 Financial Accounting with John Moore. It is interesting, but the main assignment, an analysis and comparison of 2 annual reports, is looking like it is going to take more than a little work.

In addition I had my second appointment with the Business Career Center to work on my online resume. I think I have managed to narrow some stuff down, but it is tough. Nobody wants to shut doors on opportunities, but I am quickly realizing some of the career options just aren't a good fit.

This week's point four gathering went well. It also doubled as a fund raising event to help the 2 teams from our class heading to Montebello, Quebec this weekend to participate in an adventure race. The funds are going to support cancer research and the teams should have a blast as they complete 8 hours of hiking, canoeing, and biking.

Finally, we had the afternoon on Firday off and, for those of us that signed up, we went canoeing. The canoeing trip I just returned from was the perfect activity for an afternoon where one is recovering from "socializing" too much the evening before at the point four gathering. I am feeling rejuvenated as a result and should be able to dive into an intense weekend of assignments and readings.

Week 6: New Venture Tour, Career Stuff, Financial Accounting (Module 3)

The week started off with each group doing a full day of touring 3 of the 13 businesses selected by the school. All were new ventures that were started and are currently in Kingston. This was arranged by both the business school and KEDCO. Every team was given the use of a rented van for the day to drive around Kingston. Each team spent approximately 2 hours at each company learning about the business and collecting information for the competition that evening. The competition was to give the best "pitch". Each team created a 90 second "pitch" and selected an individual to deliver it in front of a panel of judges. The judges then selected a winner and awarded a trophy and prize which was a gift certificate for a team dinner at Chez Piggy.

The companies my team was selected to tour were B-KIN, Transformix, and Tri-Art. All were really interesting and I definitely learned a lot. We were also exposed to the many benefits of starting a business in Kingston. There are several grants or awards available to help start businesses here and the city is close to several major markets while offering the lifestyle of a smaller community. Perhaps some of this years grads will chose to stay and start up companies? One grad did a few years ago and started JetDirect.

This week also included a lot of career related events. Tuesday afternoon we had a panel of Queen's alumni from a variety of industries who had graduated in the last few years to discuss their companies. Friday morning was working on getting the current class to really breakdown their previous experience to try to recognize all the skills and abilities that they could put on their resumes for the online resume the Business Career Center is helping us create. Friday afternoon was dedicated to "dressing for success". The owner from Sir Gawain's clothing in Kingston spoke to the men about what to wear, how to construct a wardrobe, how to shave, how to pack for business trips, etc. Overall a lot of very good information was given on resumes, careers, job hunting, and business dress/etiquette.

In addition, we launched into MBA811 Financial Accounting. This course is based on similar material to the financial accounting workbook that was distributed with the pre-study material. The professor, John Moore, is an absolute blast. His quirky sense of humour and quick wit keeps the class entertained as he runs us through the basics of balance sheets, income statements, and cash flow statements. These topics could be dangerously boring, but with the use of the "Q-T sheet" and an excellent professor this course has quickly become quite popular with the class.

Finally, the fun is still going strong. Last night's "point four" was at "MyBar" for a little karaoke.

Week 5: Acquisition & Analysis of Information for Management, Global Environment of Business and lots of reading (Module 2 con't)

It's the end of week five and that brings module 2 to an end. A tough few weeks, but we have completed the entire intro statistics curriculum for undergraduate business students in 3 weeks and a basic introduction to microeconomics. This week saw us write finals in both subjects.

This weekend everyone is either taking it easy or heading "home" if "home" is close enough.

Also, we had a guest speaker who addressed business ventures as they related to his particular situation. What was rather interesting was he sold his business quite a few years ago after growing it and has been retired since he was 38.

After our final test today we had an additional presentation to get us ready for Monday when we will tour Kingston and visit several of the ventures that have started up here. Should be interesting to see and I'm guessing I will learn a lot too.

I would write more, but I am just beat at from this last week. Hopefully a little R'n'R this weekend will get me ready for Module 3 which starts on Wednesday next week.