Friday, October 21, 2005
The Good, the Bad, and the Students
Another week has gone and finally it is Friday and can rest my weary head by.... writing more!
Organizational Behavior I - This course is split in two and Friday a week ago we had our final exam for part I, focusing on the organizational behavior of companies as a whole. The actual class itself was good, involved lots of cases and the "learning out to think" style of learning rather than rote memorization. However, the final exam we took, well, I'll just say it was NOT an MBA level test (and I'm not saying it was too hard). So as a result, there has been a shit storm of mass emails going around school to discuss it. It didn't encompass the spirit of the course we had been taking over the last 6 or so weeks. Anyway, we now have a new teacher for the second half of this class.
Organizational Behavior II - The newly arrived professor for part II comes from Canada and is going to give our accounting professor a run for his money as the best professor here so far. This section of OB is more about individuals and groups than the organization as a whole. He seems to be one of those professors that is great, friendly, and approachable but also highly demanding of his students, which is probably the best kind. Only problem is that he's Canadian :p
Financial Accounting - We had the midterm for this class on Tuesday and of course the part I knew the worse, building cash flow statements, is the biggest part of the test! D'oh!
Elections - We finally had student elections this week and boy was it a surprise. The int'l students didn't have much expectations for high representation since we only make up 20% of the class (same as last year that only had one int'l on the committee), including the first ever int't Class President at CEIBS. However, in a huge upset, int'l students took nearly half the positions! First meeting should interesting.
Chinese F1 Grand Prix - I would be hard to say the track was IN Shanghai, since it was a good hour (free!) shuttle ride out there but alas, technically it is. The facility, although already falling apart a bit and is only 2 years old and only has 3 events a year, is quite impressive. I finally got to compare the Montreal Grand Prix to something else, and well, overall Montreal pretty much wins hands down, if only for the way F1 transforms Montreal for a weekend. Since Shanghai is so big, when F1 comes to town its more like a medium size event while in Montreal it is THE event for the weekend. The constructors championship came down to this, the last race of the year, between Renault's Alonso and Fisichella and Mclaren's Raikonnenn and Montoya separated only by 2 points. However, Renault was all but guaranteed the championship when Montoya's car was damaged by a loose drain cover on the track (see falling apart note above). The vendors selling fake merchandise and binoculars were everywhere and sometimes separated by the official vendors by a fence and 20 feet. Another plus, the food and drinks were *cheap* for an international sporting event. For what you'd pay for one hot dog at Yankee Stadium, you could get a hot dog, hamburger, and two Fosters. Not bad!
Innovation Challenge - We finished the innovation challenge paper just in time on Monday afternoon. A little stressful, especially since it was the accounting exam couldn't be ignored, but I think it came out great. Ok, our idea was great, if our actual paper is up to snuff remains to be seen. But unfortunately, I cannot reveal our task since we signed an NDA and our work is now all property of the sponsor of our question, Hilton. If we make Top 10 out of 150 or something groups, we go to Arizona and compete for 1st place and US$20,000!
I'll post some more various pictures once I can figure out why my website is refusing to let me login.
Organizational Behavior I - This course is split in two and Friday a week ago we had our final exam for part I, focusing on the organizational behavior of companies as a whole. The actual class itself was good, involved lots of cases and the "learning out to think" style of learning rather than rote memorization. However, the final exam we took, well, I'll just say it was NOT an MBA level test (and I'm not saying it was too hard). So as a result, there has been a shit storm of mass emails going around school to discuss it. It didn't encompass the spirit of the course we had been taking over the last 6 or so weeks. Anyway, we now have a new teacher for the second half of this class.
Organizational Behavior II - The newly arrived professor for part II comes from Canada and is going to give our accounting professor a run for his money as the best professor here so far. This section of OB is more about individuals and groups than the organization as a whole. He seems to be one of those professors that is great, friendly, and approachable but also highly demanding of his students, which is probably the best kind. Only problem is that he's Canadian :p
Financial Accounting - We had the midterm for this class on Tuesday and of course the part I knew the worse, building cash flow statements, is the biggest part of the test! D'oh!
Elections - We finally had student elections this week and boy was it a surprise. The int'l students didn't have much expectations for high representation since we only make up 20% of the class (same as last year that only had one int'l on the committee), including the first ever int't Class President at CEIBS. However, in a huge upset, int'l students took nearly half the positions! First meeting should interesting.
Chinese F1 Grand Prix - I would be hard to say the track was IN Shanghai, since it was a good hour (free!) shuttle ride out there but alas, technically it is. The facility, although already falling apart a bit and is only 2 years old and only has 3 events a year, is quite impressive. I finally got to compare the Montreal Grand Prix to something else, and well, overall Montreal pretty much wins hands down, if only for the way F1 transforms Montreal for a weekend. Since Shanghai is so big, when F1 comes to town its more like a medium size event while in Montreal it is THE event for the weekend. The constructors championship came down to this, the last race of the year, between Renault's Alonso and Fisichella and Mclaren's Raikonnenn and Montoya separated only by 2 points. However, Renault was all but guaranteed the championship when Montoya's car was damaged by a loose drain cover on the track (see falling apart note above). The vendors selling fake merchandise and binoculars were everywhere and sometimes separated by the official vendors by a fence and 20 feet. Another plus, the food and drinks were *cheap* for an international sporting event. For what you'd pay for one hot dog at Yankee Stadium, you could get a hot dog, hamburger, and two Fosters. Not bad!
Innovation Challenge - We finished the innovation challenge paper just in time on Monday afternoon. A little stressful, especially since it was the accounting exam couldn't be ignored, but I think it came out great. Ok, our idea was great, if our actual paper is up to snuff remains to be seen. But unfortunately, I cannot reveal our task since we signed an NDA and our work is now all property of the sponsor of our question, Hilton. If we make Top 10 out of 150 or something groups, we go to Arizona and compete for 1st place and US$20,000!
I'll post some more various pictures once I can figure out why my website is refusing to let me login.
