The fun begins
It's now the first week of proper lectures. Which is a bit of a relief after the complete and utter waste of time that Outward Bound was last week. Given the aim of "getting to know your group" and a budget of who knows how much, I can't help but feel the exercise was a complete and utter failure. Getting tennis balls out of rope circles, while fun, is not my idea of a grand day out. How much better it would have been to just go out for a meal together and spend an afternoon talking.
Academically, last week consisted of an introduction to general management, which was given by an old professor of the type that everyone wishes they had as their grandfather - full of charisma and wisdom in a charming old man kind of way. For myself that combination is lethal - I spent the entire 5 hour session with a jaw dropped in amazement at just how good he was at making points of life changing importance while keeping you entertained with a finely interspersed repartee of jokes. The end result of it all is that I'm now not so sure I'm cut out to be a general manager. Which in some way is good - it's one less thing to think about when I finally start the process of narrowing down what it is I actually want to do yet.
Today the courses got rolling with full steam. For some reason MBA course names seem to have a penchant for being completely misleading. As an example "Prices Markets and Markets" means Microeconomics, "Uncerntainty, Data & Judgement" means Statistics. "Financial Markets and Valuation" seems to mean applying the NPV rule to anything that moves (for now at least).
And for anyone who has any doubts that an MBA is anything but capitalism in its purest and unadulterated sense, the pre-reading for the first day was set to Hayek and Friedman. In fact, the Finance professor's response to "What about externalities?" was "Well, they exist sometimes, but you can usually just ignore them". I'm sure Mr. Smith is very proud.
Academically, last week consisted of an introduction to general management, which was given by an old professor of the type that everyone wishes they had as their grandfather - full of charisma and wisdom in a charming old man kind of way. For myself that combination is lethal - I spent the entire 5 hour session with a jaw dropped in amazement at just how good he was at making points of life changing importance while keeping you entertained with a finely interspersed repartee of jokes. The end result of it all is that I'm now not so sure I'm cut out to be a general manager. Which in some way is good - it's one less thing to think about when I finally start the process of narrowing down what it is I actually want to do yet.
Today the courses got rolling with full steam. For some reason MBA course names seem to have a penchant for being completely misleading. As an example "Prices Markets and Markets" means Microeconomics, "Uncerntainty, Data & Judgement" means Statistics. "Financial Markets and Valuation" seems to mean applying the NPV rule to anything that moves (for now at least).
And for anyone who has any doubts that an MBA is anything but capitalism in its purest and unadulterated sense, the pre-reading for the first day was set to Hayek and Friedman. In fact, the Finance professor's response to "What about externalities?" was "Well, they exist sometimes, but you can usually just ignore them". I'm sure Mr. Smith is very proud.
posted by The Apprentice at 11:47 AM
1 Comments:
OK, when going into a wood, bring a knife (big, fixed blade possibloy). Cut a mark in every other tree, or thereabouts. Considering you are in France, it'd be pretty pathetic to be found dead by hypothermia, innit?
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