Week 27: Finance Strategy, Managing IT, Negotiations&Conflict Management, International Business and Strategic Implementation (Module 6 cont.)

Week 27 has ended and I find myself sequestered in a small meeting room awaiting my turn to present at the "Best in class" FEI invitational case competition. This year the "live" case company is Pacific & Western Credit Corp. As I write this post we are practicing a few more times before our allotted "semi-final" presentation time slot. I will post a separate entry on the competition. I will say that to avoid bias based on school name, we are not allowed to refer to our school. Therefore we are "Team Da Vinci" as the theme this year is great thinkers.

Classes have been in full swing this week. There were a two major assignments due, one in Strategy and one Finance Strategy. The Strategy assignment was a 40% individual paper where each student was expected to apply course concepts to a case and focus on a strategic plan as well as an implementation plan. The Finance Strategy assignment was a 20% team assignment based on the "Marriott" case. Each team had to calculate the WACC for the company, but a lot of assumptions was required.

Although we are away from class, things are still rolling on. There is a 75% attendance requirement for all courses in this particular program. Luckily all of my teammates and myself are above this requirement even with the time we were missing to participate in this case competition. The classes are being taped with the professors miked, but I doubt I will find the time to watch 9 hours of lectures. In addition the Financial Strategy quiz weighting was moved to the final since the policy of the professor was not to allow make up exams.

Finally, the other course are proceeding as planned. Nothing unusual there as the workload continues to ramp-up.