Pre-Study: MBAS 860 Acquisitions and Analysis of Information for Management (a.k.a. Statistics)

Received some more pre-study material from Queen's regarding preparation for a Module 2 course called MBAS 860: Acquisition and Analysis of Information for Management. This will will be background for a subsequent course called MBAS 861: Business Decision Models and for other Finance and Accounting courses.

The material is in a letter from Jeff McGill, the instructor, and encourages students to prepare for the course by reviewing some basic statistics and statistical functions of Microsoft Excel so they get the most out of the course. A link to an Excel tutorial spreadsheet is provided and students new to, or experienced with, Excel are encouraged to work through it to either familiarise themselves with Excel, or to have a refresher while gaining a stronger understanding of what will be expected.

The letter also explicitly states that, "the course will emphasize the application of statistical techniques in the following areas:"

1. use of descriptive statistics to explore data;
2. elements of probability (including Normal, Binomial, Uniform, and Exponential distributions);
3. statistical inference: estimation of means and proportions, Hypothesis Testing on means and proportions;
4. models of association: correlation, and simple and multiple regression models;
5. time-series analysis and forecasting.

It goes on:

This is an extensive agenda for a single course; however, our interest will be in the use of these techniques to model and solve business decision problem rather than on theoretical development. The course text is not available for this mailing, but if you have access to text materials from a previous statistics course that you have taken or can obtain such materials from friends or colleagues, we encourage you to spend time reviewing the ‘basics’ in items 1), 2) and 3), above. We will cover these items in class, but we will move quickly! A relatively inexpensive alternative is the following 'outline’ text that contains many solved problems: Kazmier, Leonard J. SCHAUM'S OUTLINE OF BUSINESS STATISTICS, McGraw-Hill, New York, NY (latest edition). This book is available in most campus bookstores, or can be ordered online. [Warning: Schaum's Easy Outline of Business Statistics is not adequate.] The more preparation you can do ahead of time, the better. If you are concerned about your preparation for quantitative analysis in your MBA program, we can also recommend an online quantitative analysis preparation package offered by Harvard Publishing. The price for this course with an academic discount is approximately $65.00 . Here are some instructions from Harvard regarding logging in to the site.

Please register at http://elearninghome.hbsp.org/. Click on the ‘Sign up here link’ under New Users and fill out all required information to be properly associated with the Queen’s account.

Organization ID#: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Organization Name: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

New User Information: HE

Once you are registered, it may take up to 2 business days for you to have access to the course. If you experience technical difficulties, please e-mail techhelp@hbsp.harvard.edu, or call (800) 810-8858.

I will definitely be pulling out my old engineering statistics textbook and looking over these topics, but I don't think I need to try to complete the extra Harvard course since being an engineer I have a fairly good grounding in Excel, math, and statistics. Besides, I don't have the time. Between packing, doing the other pre-study material, working, and meeting up with family/friends one last time I am finding ALL of my time is taken up.

Pre-Study: MBAS 850 Leadership, MBAS 876 The Role of the General Manager and MBAS 811 Financial Accounting

I have had the pre-study material for few weeks and although setting up the web portal and completing online personality tests are fun, the real work has been doing the prep material for MBAS 850 Leadership, MBAS 876 The Role of the General Manager and MBAS 811 Financial Accounting.

MBA 850: Leadership

Letter from Peter R. Richardson welcoming us and explaining that MBA 850 Leadership is one of a quite a few courses on "the role of the general manager". Although it sounds as though he will be involved with us in this aspect, MBA 850 will be taught by Bill Blake. He refers to the selected reading that have been sent.

MBAS 876: The Role of the General Manager

Course outline from Professor Peter Richardson. He refers specifically to a few of the selected readings while outlining the course and discussing the topic at some length. This outline goes on to specify the first assignment and it's due date of May 14th! I haven't even started and I feel behind, but it is exciting that this is ACTUALLY happening!

The selected reading that were sent for both of these courses are:

• The Manager's Job: Folklore and Fact (by Henry Mintzberg. Published by Hardvard Business Review ("HBR"))
• What Leaders Really Do (by John P. Kotter. Published by HBR)
• Blue Ocean Strategy (by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne. Published by HBR)
• Strategy as Revolution (by Gary Hamel. Published by HBR)

MBAS 811: Financial Accounting

A brief memo detailing "preparing of the first accounting course" and the "Finance and Accounting Workbook: 6th edition" from Queen's Executive Development Centre were sent. The memo, from Professor John Moore, discusses how to use the workbook and the specific chapters that should be focused on. At the moment I am about half way through the workbook and plan to complete all of it. After my discussions with the candidates I chose to have lunch with during my interview trip, one of their two suggestions of what they would do differently was to, "complete all the prep material in advance." The other suggestion was show up a week in advance of classes to get settled since the program starts off at an aggressive pace right from day one.

The workbook is excellent since it starts with the assumption that the reader knows absolutely nothing about accounting. Although parts of the first chapter are obvious to the point of being boring, I know that it is covering everything I need to know so that the professor can assume all the students have this basic knowledge level and can build off of it.

One criticismI have is that there are quite a few obvious typo's that simply reading the workbook, prior to publishing, would have found. It doesn't affect the clarity of the information or my ability to understand it, but it is annoying. Someone should suggest they have a graduate English student read it and circle all the items that could be fixed. That way it would be someone totally unfamiliar with the text and the mistakes would stick out!

The later chapters quickly become more interesting as tools, techniques and more complicated topics are introduced. My biggest struggle so far has been adapting to the "accounting speak" given my engineering background. Being an engineer I expect a certain type of logic, but the wording of certain accounting actions sometimes seems to contradict this logic. I'm sure it is just a matter of getting a better understanding of accounting and the language used to describe it so that I can correctly interpret the various transactions in the practice quizzes.

Enough! Back to the books!

Correspondence: Pre-study material arrived from Queen's

Today I received a package from Queen's. It wasn't exactly a surprise since I had been sent a notice by FedEx that it was enroute. Contained within were the much anticipated pre-study materials.

Items included:

1. Memo outlining payment of fees and a copy of my registration that has my student number. (This was the only document with my student number)
2. Memo from the registar concerning my student ID card. I am required to complete the form and mail it back with a "passport" style photo in the pre-paid envelope included.
3. Sessional dates showing all the start and finish dates of the upcoming classes I will be taking as well as the very few days I will have off.
4. Estimate of living expenses for the next year.
5. Memo from the Career Manager outlining several assignments to be completed through the "web portal". Appears to be self administered personality testing, brain dominance testing, and career direction assignments. This will probably play a big part in the selection of teams we are being place in as well as assisting the Career Centre to get a better understanding of where the students may want to try to find employment. It also requires students to create an on-line resume through the "web portal".
6. Perp material for the Finance and Accouting class including a very thick workbook.
7. Prep material from one of the professors comprised mainly of "selected" readings. Basically, from what I can tell at a glance, just copies of articles or other material they want us to read.
8. Off-campus housing website info and info concerning University residenses and accomodations. (See comment on this by a current student. They are recommending this residence http://www.science44co-op.com/ and say the meal plan is great!)
9. Info on food service plan, which is manditory for residence.
10. Guide to some Kingston activities.
11. Guide on relocating to Kingston and a map showing approximate walking times for the area immediately surrounding the University to assist with selecting potential accomodations.

The introductory letter was signed off by the Associate Director who is looking forward to welcoming the incoming MBA students at 9 AM on Monday May 5th with a continental breakfast in the atrium of Goodes Hall!

Correspondence: more from Queen's

More on my phone conversation from Lori Garnier, the MBA Associate Director at Queen's, who called today in response to my e-mail regarding the status of scholarships, laptop requirements, and the study package.

I have already discussed the scholarship information here.

The only information I confirmed was that the laptop had to have a current windows operating system and that it could be either Windows XP or Vista. I didn't have the presence of mind to inquire about other software that may be included. The webpage for Queen's School of Business Commerce Program students laptop/notebook requirements states that MS Office 2007 professional will be provided to students once they are on campus. I don't know if that applies to MBA students, but I have written to Lori to ask and will post the answer should I get one. I'm sure the packages to be sent to the students will contain this information.

The packages containing the study material to be completed prior to starting the program should be sent near the end of February. These packages will contain login information for the online resources and materials Queen's is assembling.

Furthermore, it looks like approximately 30 students have been confirmed for the upcoming program. Apparently this is inline with admissions from previous years. There is still ongoing admissions and they expect to fill the class up this year.

Finally, the percentage of placements for the current students is ahead of where they have been in previous years. This is encouraging since it looks like I am leaving the work place while the economy slows. If companies are hiring MBAs now when things are looking like they are slowing down, then it is likely they will be hiring MBAs when it picks-up again, which will hopefully be when I'm graduating.