Week 39: Electives - Block A (con't)

Week 39 has ended and so has Block A, the first block of electives. It has been snowing quite a bit this week. Feels like at least 2 feet has fallen in the past couple of days.

The Marketing course is over. Most people seem to have liked it. It was nicknamed "story time" since the professor liked to share his learnings with the students through stories.

The Strategic Leadership course is over. It was pretty good, but most of us felt a lot of the topics covered would have benefited all and should have been covered in some of our career planning sessions earlier in the year. The course was nicknamed "group hug" since the instructor like to frequently reference the "good" feeling of hugs.

The Financing New Ventures course is over. Everyone I talked to seemed to have a different opinion, but overall people liked it. The biggest comment was that the course was an interesting split between structured and unstructured delivery. The course required a structured curriculum, but the guest lecturer who delivered it was a very unstructured teacher. Mainly because he was a VC from industry and not a professor from the halls of academia.

The Corporate Valuation course is over. Everyone found this course to be extremely demanding, but we all agree we learned more than a ton. Last night almost everyone was working in their groups well past midnight to complete the final case. There was even a few individuals who did not sleep at all and still made it to class at 8 AM. As if that wasn't enough, we still have a review session tomorrow and a test on Sunday morning. Looks like those of us in this course will not be letting loose this weekend.

The school has also picked the team to attend the UCLA case competition. Queen's placed in this competition last year and is returning again this year at the beginning of April. To ensure a solid team is ready, the faculty hand picked the team.

The class is still planning several fun events coming up. Fit-to-lead is going to be taking a bunch of us curling on Sunday (yes, this is during Superbowl, but you can't have everything). Furthermore, there was a winter BBQ at the Dutch exchange students' place last night, a social gathering at another classmates pad tonight and likely an "I'm done Corporate Valuations" gathering on Sunday. This might seem excessive to those on the outside, but really it is about getting together with some of our colleagues who are leaving us for exchanges next week. In particular our Social Coordinator is headed to Mannheim and I'm sure everyone will miss her.

Next week we are starting Block B of the electives. There is some work and reading to be completed, but it all seems very reasonable after the workload that Corporate Valuations required.

Week 38: Electives - Block A (con't)

Week 38 has ended. Winter is still in full swing, but it did warm up for a few days. However the temperature has dropped again.

All the courses are in full swing. As we are all discovering some are more work than others. The finance course on corporate valuations is more than a lot of work. This week saw us put in some very serious hours with a lot of people working on their team assignments until 2 AM to hand them in at 8 AM on Friday. I definitely know CAPM, DCF, Consultant's, FSASVM and many other valuation methods better than I ever thought possible after completing this assignment.

The Marketing course seems to have a lot of reading, but almost all the learning takes place in class. I'm not in the course, but from what I hear most people are enjoying it and the work load in fairly low when compared to the finance course.

The Strategic Leadership course is the other elective I'm taking. It is pretty good, but there is a fair bit of reading if you want to stay ahead of it. In addition we have had to do some self reflective assignments which aren't necessarily difficult, but I have always found these types of exercises challenging and therefore have had to invest significant time.

The Financing New Ventures course started with a bang, from what I have heard, but since the drop date it hasn't been as engaging. Apparently the instructor for this course is also teaching the cohort of students from the "Cornell-Queen's MBA" program and therefore hasn't been able to properly prepare material for the students taking this class in the "Full-time MBA" program. I haven't been able to confirm it, but some of the students mentioned that earlier in the program they were told the "Cornell-Queen's MBA" program gets priority for professors and resources because the school is trying to ensure the quality perception of the students graduating from that particular program. The end result is that other course for other programs suffer. I will have to keep asking around to see if this continues.

The class is still keeping up with point fours. This week we hit up the outdoor skating rink at Victoria park. Those of us with skates brought them and everyone else when and rented skates. A lot of people came out and I was very surprised to see how many "first time skaters" were out! We also had some sticks and pucks around to get a shinny game going. To day one of our classmates has secured his parents house just outside of Kingston for a day of skating and tobogganing. Should be a blast even if the temperature has dropped.

Overall people are finding the course load not as heavy as the first part of the program, unless they are the small minority of us who decided to take the finance course. Also, people who have not secured a job are starting to get a little concerned. I know a few people who are starting to consider if they should be taking up their former employer's offer to return if they have one, despite the fact they entered the program specifically to make a change. With the economy on a downturn who knows where we will all end up working. All is not lost though, there is still several months until we graduate.

Week 37: Electives - Block A

Week 37 is ending and we are seeing the end of our first week back in classes. Kingston has taken a turn for the colder as temperatures have been dropping to -25 C (-13 F). I'm guessing the exchanges students, all 21 of them, that have joined us are finding the temperature a little surprising.

The electives that are currently being offered in this first block are:

• Corporate Valuation & Mergers and Acquisitions
• Marketing Strategy
• Financing of New Ventures
• Strategic Leadership

I'm currently in Corporate Valuation & Mergers and Acquisitions (taught by Bill Cannon) and Strategic Leadership (taught by Tina Dacin). Both are good courses. The Corporate Valuation & Mergers and Acquisitions course is quite a bit of work, but I am learning a lot. The Strategic Leadership course is a little more relaxed, but there is still reading that needs to be completed.

From what I have heard the Marketing Strategy course taught by Ken Wong is pretty good. People are enjoying it and the work required isn't too demanding. The same is true of the Financing of New Ventures course taught by Elspeth Murray.

The exchange students seem to be friendly and settling in nicely. Not all of them are from other MBA programs and therefore are only taking certain select courses. I'm sure they all had a blast at this weeks point four which was at a local bowling alley.

In addition, I have heard that some of our classmates have had some interesting adventures already. One in particular had to vacate the dormitory they were living in when a fire was started in the parkade.

Overall the work load is considerably less compared to the pace prior to Christmas. A lot of people are looking forward to taking some of their free time to look for work. In addition everyone seems happier and more relaxed.

Week 36: Holiday Break and the John Molson International Case Competition

Week 36 has ended and I find myself in Montreal representing Queen's at the John Molson International Case Competition. It has been an interesting week filled with ups and downs, but overall a very valuable experience.

The cases are written for the competition and therefore some of them need a little additional work before they could be published. However, since they are not published there is no way the people competing could have seen them before and this ensures a level and fair playing field. The judges are different for every round and come from the business community of Montreal with a few special representatives from abroad. Although the rubric for judging is standard it is ultimately up to the panel of judges to interpret it and therefore results can vary significantly. Although our team did not make it to the semi-finals to compete, I do believe that we had a very strong team and the training Queen's has given us to date allowed us to be excellent competitors. I firmly believe we had a team that given different circumstances could have been finalists.

It has been very interesting to meet all the different schools at the competition and to represent Queen's on such a public forum. There is too much to discuss in this posting, so I will write a more indepth posting at a later date.

Classes start again this Monday. We have an additional 21 students joining our ranks from international schools. In addition we will be missing several of our classmates that have departed to study aboard. Friday was a special "orientation" for these new students to help them integrate to our team-based learning style and our social culture.

Furthermore, there is already studying that needs to be completed for Monday's classes! From the looks of the electives I have chosen, the workload will be demanding. Time to dive back in and roll up my sleeves to get back to work!

Finally, there is unofficial information circulating that applications for next year's program are way up and the school is ahead of filling the positions available compared with previous years. This will make it tougher for late applicant's compared with previous years.

Week 35: Holiday Break (con't)

Week 35 ends and Canada finds itself in a deep freeze! The West Coast is shaking off from huge dumps of snow. I'm back in Calgary visiting friends before catching my flight back to Kingston and the temperature is -24 C, -32 C with windchill (i.e. -11 F & -26 F respectively), which is pretty representative of the prairies in general. Ontario and Quebec find themselves hovering around 0 C in the south and a little colder in the north, which probably means the roads are skating rinks. Finally eastern Canada, in particular Halifax, finds itself warmer at - 10 C (14 F), but with tons of snow. I only hope the people headed to Halifax for the MBA Games this year are able to make it. From the looks of it they may not be able to. I wonder what some of my classmates from warmer climes are thinking at this moment. (Aside: Here is the link to the video introducing Queen's to the other schools and the video for a CSR event)

No more grades have been posted. We are still waiting on 3 more courses to be posted.

I feel like I have had a long enough break that I am ready to get back to work to finishing this degree. 4 more months to go and I need to find a job in an economy that isn't exactly rosy. Classes resume in a week from Monday so I had better make the most of the time I have left.