Week 25: Finance Strategy, Managing IT, Negotiations&Conflict Management, International Business and Strategic Implementation (Module 6 cont.)

Week 25 is over and the weather is definitely getting colder. Those members of the class that are used to warmer climates are already sporting winter coats. What are they going to do when winter actually arrives?

Campus is busy, but quite. The undergrads are busy studying for their mid-terms. They have also made it very hard to schedule meeting rooms less than a week in advance as they too are working on various group assignments. The libraries are full as well, which makes me all the more thankful we have our team rooms. At least we have some space to work in.

Business Week came to campus and did a photo shoot with various hand-picked students. This is a good sign since it means Queen's likely ranked very well again! We all have our fingers crossed hoping for the number 1 spot! We should know in a couple of weeks.

We had a guest speaker on Tuesday evening. Bill Bamber, Queen's MBA'94 alum and co-author of the just released book, "Bear Trap: The Fall of Bear Stearns and the Panic of 2008" gave a talk on his first-hand witness to the carnage on Wall Street. It was quite interesting.

We also had another guest speaker on Thursday at noon. Thalia Kingsford, Senior Investment Advisor - Vice President, with BMO Nesbitt Burns Inc. in Calgary, Alberta came to talk to the "women in business" club, but everyone was invited. Very interesting woman who shared her experience and advice with us.

A number of internal case competitions were run during the few days we didn't have class this week. Teams for the Tata CSR and Financial Executives International Canada (FEI) competitions have been selected. Also, the team from Queen's that submitted an online case for the Thunderbird case competition was selected as one of the top ten entrants. That team is going to Phoenix, Arizona to participate in the final round and could win $25,000!

My team for the FEI was the team selected to represent Queen's at the competition on Nov. 7th & 8th held at the Rotman School of Management. Most case competitions are 3 hours of frantic work followed by a presentation to a panel of judges. The FEI case is a 24 hour case, which means it is going to be a lot of work. One good thing about these competitions is that they want the entrants resumes, so you know the sponsors will probably look them over!

A lot of prospective students are starting to visit the class. I had the privilege of joining some of them for lunch today. I know I was in their shoes this time last year, but that seems like eons ago. If the information I have found is correct, business schools will see a bumper crop of applications this year since the economy is taking a turn for the worse.

Grad photos were also this week. Weird to be taking grad photos when there is still a lot left to cover. It just serves as another reminder of how quickly the time is passing. By November I have to select the specialization courses I want to take. We also have to "apply to graduate" for spring 2009 in November!

People who have accepted international exchanges are in the process of finalizing flights and other paperwork required. They need to have all this completed to ensure their position is held.

A lot of people have had second round interviews with various consulting firms and banks. Some people have even had offers. Some have accepted and others have declined. On campus recruiting has come to a close and there are currently no more info sessions. I have been lucky enough to receive an invitation to interview for a job I applied for with Imperial Oil on Monday. It took them quite a while to get back to me, but I am excited about the opportunity nonetheless.

The work load has been picking up steadily over the week. We are now under the gun again to complete various team projects as well as a mountain of reading while preparing for quizzes and writing individual essays. Time management has become key to balancing homework, class, case competition teams, interviews, home-life and many other activities.

Class has been interesting. Lots covered and all of it interesting. Managing IT has been the strangest because it has pretty much reversed who speaks in class. People who rarely ever spoke are now involved in the class discussion more than ever. It probably helps that a lot of the class comes from an IT background. There were a couple of inventive individuals who came up with an "odds" table for who speaks during class. They place wagers on who will speak out in class as a way of adding an element of excitement to their day. I imagine this change might have them re-writing their "odds" table.

All is not lost though! We are still finding time to have fun. The hockey, ultimate frisbee, soccer and waterpolo teams all played this week. This weeks point four was at the Tir Nan Og for karaoke and if it doesn't rain the class will be going paintballing tomorrow afternoon! (Note: it did end up raining so we didn't go paintballing. It rained hard. The fallen leaves have this way of clogging the drainage inlets, so there were parts of streets that were flooded all over town. Also, it rained pretty much the entire day. I'm not used to that from where I come from. Kind of depressing/annoying since you get the grey skies and you get soaked.)

Well, another blog entry completed. Now back to the Finance Strategy assignment...