Week 40: Electives - Block B

Week 40 has seen us start the next block of electives, Block B. The weather remains cold, but we have had a few "warmer" days. In addition Kinston has "feb fest" on, which is the city's winter festival with a wide variety of activities to take in (ice sculpting, figure skating, old-timers hockey game, etc.).

Although Strategic Leadership ended in Block A, most of us are still finishing our interviews to write our papers. My colleague found a particularly interesting person right here in Kingston to interview thanks to an article in the local paper. James Hultquist-Morrissey purchased "Zoom" airlines and plans to turn it around. He was a pretty interesting person to meet. The paper is due by the middle of next week and then this course will be done. It is nice to have the extra time, but it has added to the work load of all the new courses.

Risk Management is being taught by Louis Gagnon who is one of Queen's more popular professors with the media as of late. He specializes in derivatives, credit swaps and other forms of financial risk management, which is what the course is about, and given the current economic crisis these topics have been of interest in the media. Everyone is liking the course a lot, but there is quite a bit of work if you don't understand what is being taught since you need to spend extra time studying. From what my sources tell me this course has been a deeper look at the topics covered in the Financial Strategy course in the core of the program.

Global Strategy is being taught by Doug Reid and it is challenging. His teaching style is a little more toward the Socratic method where he helps facilitate a discussion and the works to pull the content out of the students. The professor expects a lot of readings to be completed for each session and you need to have them done to ensure you can follow the topic of discussion. In addition, this is also my first class with a large number of our new exchange students and I am finding their unique perspectives very interesting and educational.

It is also my understanding that the two project courses, New Venture Project and Consulting Project, are also underway. These courses are a little more "self directed" and have students work on an idea they have once the professor running the course approves it. I have also heard of a few students submitting their business plans for their new ventures to competitions. If they win they will have some seed money to see if they can grow these ideas into viable businesses. Some of them seem like they are really strong ideas with good business plans to back them up. Last year a student was able to win several of these competitions and use the money to continue moving her idea of starting a caviar farm closer to reality (see this news story for more information).

Fun stuff going on...this week a large group from the class went skiing at Tremblant for a few days. The point four this week was at "the Ale house" and was a joint venture with the grad student society for a valentine's day themed party. (Aside: There has been a lot of talk about the class leaving the AMS and joining The Society of Graduate and Professional Students.) Last Sunday's "learn-to-curl" outing was so popular there are plans to return next weekend. There are also a couple of networking events this week where our full-time class has had the opportunity to meet the Cornell-Queen's MBA students.

The search for full-time employment has been ramping up for everyone. A lot of us are feeling a bit under the gun with graduation just over 3 months away. The current economic condition is not helping, but there are still people getting interviews and finding jobs. However, our numbers are definitely down from pervious years.

I had a conversation with the director of our program and spots for next years class are filling up fast! 64 spots are filled compared with 32 at this time last year! There has been some talk about how to accommodate more students (ie 2 classes of 50 students), but who knows what the administration will decided. I do know that they will not let anything compromise the quality, which is good for the students, but it puts the administration in difficult situation. I think expanding the program to that size would be ideal. It would still be small enough that everyone would know each other, but the increased size would allow Queen's to attract speakers and employers that require a larger audience before they will come a school. Only time will tell what they decide. (Update: article from The Star (Toronto) on rising MBA applications in general)

(My apologizes to the visiting student whom I talked to on Friday. I did try to find you afterwards, but you disappeared. If you have any other questions please e-mail me and I would be happy to answer them to the best of my ability.)