Week 1 Overview
CCMBA week 1 went very well. At times exciting, at times a bit overwhelming, but always something new and interesting. Classes ended on Friday and none too soon. I think everyone was ready for a break.
My overall impression of MBA school is quite positive and also quite different from my undergrad experience. Engineering school was almost entirely about learning detailed methods and building increasingly complicated skillsets. Even in grad school, the topics always focused on understanding and working with increasing complex systems. MBA school is quite the opposite. The focus is looking at large complicated systems of people and numbers and reducing them to their simplest terms. Looking at the most successful business concepts, this makes a lot of sense. The trick is simplifying down to the correct systems and assumptions and then making good decisions based on the available info. This may seem quite intuitive, but it really takes some practice. Its also a great deal of fun to openly discuss these issues in an open forum of peers.
Another impression from Fuqua is the collaboration. In "real-life" almost all of your professional interactions are with people with similar backgrounds from whom you want something or who want something from you. The resulting communication is narrowly focused on exchanging the minimum information necessary. Fuqua is different. Here you have 120 people from different backgrounds in a dynamic situation and on a completely equal playing field. After a few days the ideas and conversations are remarkably open and head in new and interesting directions. You typically don't exchange ideas like this in your everyday personal life. I can see why this is so valuable.
Probably the most interesting experience of wk1 was the team Cast Study prep. Learning to work with a new team of people whom you've only known for 4 days on a complicated tasks that you're unfamiliar with is a big challenge. Overall, I think team 7 did pretty well. We bumped into each other a little along the way, but we did get the ball over the goal line. The best part was our team de-brief where i think we did a great job at discussing our performance and areas for improvement during the distance. Overall, we'll do fine with a little bit more planning, prep, and coordination. I suppose time will tell...
Friday evening was catch-up time for me. I decided to finish begin my individual case study and get caught up before the real work begins. Also, there's the class service project on Sat AM that I needed to get some sleep for. Unfortunately, I didn't go out with the crowd so i missed all the fun in Chapel Hill. Then again, I did get some sleep.
My overall impression of MBA school is quite positive and also quite different from my undergrad experience. Engineering school was almost entirely about learning detailed methods and building increasingly complicated skillsets. Even in grad school, the topics always focused on understanding and working with increasing complex systems. MBA school is quite the opposite. The focus is looking at large complicated systems of people and numbers and reducing them to their simplest terms. Looking at the most successful business concepts, this makes a lot of sense. The trick is simplifying down to the correct systems and assumptions and then making good decisions based on the available info. This may seem quite intuitive, but it really takes some practice. Its also a great deal of fun to openly discuss these issues in an open forum of peers.
Another impression from Fuqua is the collaboration. In "real-life" almost all of your professional interactions are with people with similar backgrounds from whom you want something or who want something from you. The resulting communication is narrowly focused on exchanging the minimum information necessary. Fuqua is different. Here you have 120 people from different backgrounds in a dynamic situation and on a completely equal playing field. After a few days the ideas and conversations are remarkably open and head in new and interesting directions. You typically don't exchange ideas like this in your everyday personal life. I can see why this is so valuable.
Probably the most interesting experience of wk1 was the team Cast Study prep. Learning to work with a new team of people whom you've only known for 4 days on a complicated tasks that you're unfamiliar with is a big challenge. Overall, I think team 7 did pretty well. We bumped into each other a little along the way, but we did get the ball over the goal line. The best part was our team de-brief where i think we did a great job at discussing our performance and areas for improvement during the distance. Overall, we'll do fine with a little bit more planning, prep, and coordination. I suppose time will tell...
Friday evening was catch-up time for me. I decided to finish begin my individual case study and get caught up before the real work begins. Also, there's the class service project on Sat AM that I needed to get some sleep for. Unfortunately, I didn't go out with the crowd so i missed all the fun in Chapel Hill. Then again, I did get some sleep.
posted by Sprokitt at 5:13 PM
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