Wharton MBA for Executives

We just concluded session #4!  I think most of us in the class have gotten the hang of things now.  I still look forward to class weekends (hopefully that won’t change).  At least for me, I’ve realized a few things:

1) There is always going to be more econ/accounting problems to do, econ/accounting textbook chapters to read, and management articles to read.  It’s like a never-ending cycle of trying to get some studying done only to realize that there’s more you haven’t done…and then another session comes around and you find yourself further and further behind.  If someone actually does all of the textbook reading, all of the practice problems, and reads all of the optional reading….that person is a FREAK!

2) All of our fellow classmates are cool.  Everyone is supportive and collaborative.  I haven’t seen any competitive nature come out of anyone yet so that’s been nice.  Everyone in my group is great…I’ve asked a lot of questions and have received a lot of help.  I think since we’re all in the executive program, we’ve outgrown any juvenile attitudes regarding competition within the class.

3) Social events are fun.  I think with the partying that we did last session, we took things a little slow this time.  Most students also had their families here so it wasn’t really the type of weekend to go out and celebrate (like when we finished our first set of midterms).

4) Studying is hard and the students are smart.  No matter how hard I study, there is going to be someone out there in our class that does better than me.  We got our econ midterms back and at least one person scored a perfect 25/25.  That’s impressive.  In accounting a few students did really well (127, 128, and 129 out of 130) but AFAIK, they all had prior accounting experience.  It’s still impressive though.

5) Juggling school, work, and family is going to be tough and I’m probably going to suck at all 3.  It’s 10:48PM right now and I’m supposed to put my son to bed.  I tried about an hour ago but after 30 minutes, he wouldn’t actually sleep so I gave up and he followed me out of the room.

Anyway, this session was great because we didn’t have anything due and we celebrated the 4th of July.  Most people brought families for our indoor 4th of July BBQ.  The school did a great job with hiring a face painter, setting up a movie screen and popcorn, 2 nintendo Wiis (with rock band and wii sports) in the lecture halls, and plenty of wine and beer.  It was a great event and nice to see all of the kids.  There were certainly a lot of kids!

John Paul’s management lecture was great because it was about Nummi where he has had a lot of personal experience.  I grew up in Detroit in the 80s (I was there as an Asian during the Vincent Chin incident) and the automotive industry was such a part of the city that our discussion and lecture brought back a lot of childhood memories.  I remember one neighbor who’s father was a UAW worker working at a Chrylser factory.  Everyone I knew drove an American car because you did what you had to do to support the economy.  When we were in the market to buy a new car, we went to a Toyota dealership in 1982 and the lady there was telling us how highly rated the Toyota automobiles were.  The reliability ratings were so much higher than our old 1977 Ford LTD II and higher than the 1982 Chevy Citation that we were planning to buy.  In the end, we ended up buying the Chevy Citation hatchback anyway.  We never actually considered the Toyota because you just didn’t do that living in Detroit.   My dad did consulting work at all of the major auto companies as well as Delphi, etc.  I find the management lectures to be the most interesting among our classes but I think there’s always a lack of time for discussion.  It seems like we always run out of time when the discussion is getting good.

On Saturday, a group of us headed out to watch the Giants beat up the Dodgers at AT&T park.  It’s an awesome ballpark and the game was great.  The Giants came from behind to win it 5-2!

Overall, the class has really come together.  I have made a lot of friends and can easily see myself forming close bonds to last a lifetime.  There are still a handful of students that I haven’t spoken to but I’m sure I’ll have the opportunity as time progresses.

Next session is a 3 day session so we have all 3 classes.  We also have another accounting midterm so that’s just brutal.  It seems like we just had an accounting midterm…because we just did last session!   I have a lot of catching up to do in accounting these next 1.5 weeks.  We also have a paper due and my group has our management skit to do so I’ll be really busy.  I’ll end up really behind in Econ but I’ll cross that bridge when I get there.

Oh well, it’s time to put the kid to bed and try to get him to sleep     again.