I can think of lots of things to do on a long holiday weekend.. writing an 8 page paper on Integrative Thinking is not one of them. I've been trying to write this Reflection paper for most of today, and it's been a painful process. I haven't been able to focus, and I am not even close to being done. I am blaming it on the long weekend. I have no motivation to study.
This lack of motivation brings up two salient points: (I wish I could count use of Integrative Thinking vocabulary towards my paper!)
Am I in a virtuous cycle? I am trying to finish up early, and have started overloading on courses. Do I lack motivation because I am overloading or am I overloading the courses because I see my motivation levels rapidly declining in the future months?
Second Salient point: I noticed the newbies.. the 3YR11 students. Their faces are so fresh and eager... They seem to embody me last summer.. all full of excitement and possibility. There are times that I wish for last summer back, and there are times that I am so exhausted that I can't wait for all of it to be over. I still feel excitement but it is more about the opportunities post MBA, rather than getting into grad school.
I want to freeze frame some of these moments, replay some of them, and fast forward the bad ones(Stats class!). Because for all my complaining, it is all happening too fast...
Back to the paper...so what's my motivation? Going out for the rest of the weekend..
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Tottering along....
Finished the bidding for courses this evening, and it was a daunting task. I put in my bids, and then tried to go back a screen to check what section it was, or read the description one last time, only to find out that all my selections disappeared. Aaah! This happened three times. You think I would have learned the first time around. I tried to be all strategic about bidding – I really did try. But in the end the whole figuring out what was the average bid points, and how many people balloted threw me all off and after those times that my screen selections blanked out.. I just started to randomly allocate points....fingers crossed that it worked!
The days seem to be flying by. We had our Finance midterm last week. I finished the FIT practicum and I have one more paper to write for that course that’s due at the end of this week. Our strategy midterm is due this week, and we had to analyze Coors’ strategy... back in 1985!! It’s very hard to look at the data and “pretend” that Coors is a premium beer....and that they aren't called Molson Coors now. This is the problem with doing cases from 20 years ago.. We have current information (esp on beer!) but are forced to stay in a time vortex... why can’t we examine cases that are current? The FIT practicum was better in that respect where we had to analyze Yahoo!‘s current strategy.
More and more work to follow.....Strategy presentation, and group writeup, strategy Final, Finance assignment, and Finance Final.. nearly there. Just six more weeks.
I have started to realize the value of a two or three year program instead of a one year program. Way back when I was contemplating MBA school, I was leaning towards a one year program. I had thought that the faster I get it over with, the better. However, my thinking has changed.. A year just passes by so quickly, and there is no time to take in what you are learning and solidify concepts, and just think about your career. In a two year program, you are given the opportunity in the first year to sit back and watch a bit if you like, before you dive into a field, or an opportunity. You get to analyze what you are learning instead of just ploughing through the material. You get to take more electives, and build your knowledge. I think this is the biggest advantage. It might take a bit longer, but isn’t it better to have no regrets or less of them anyway?
The days seem to be flying by. We had our Finance midterm last week. I finished the FIT practicum and I have one more paper to write for that course that’s due at the end of this week. Our strategy midterm is due this week, and we had to analyze Coors’ strategy... back in 1985!! It’s very hard to look at the data and “pretend” that Coors is a premium beer....and that they aren't called Molson Coors now. This is the problem with doing cases from 20 years ago.. We have current information (esp on beer!) but are forced to stay in a time vortex... why can’t we examine cases that are current? The FIT practicum was better in that respect where we had to analyze Yahoo!‘s current strategy.
More and more work to follow.....Strategy presentation, and group writeup, strategy Final, Finance assignment, and Finance Final.. nearly there. Just six more weeks.
I have started to realize the value of a two or three year program instead of a one year program. Way back when I was contemplating MBA school, I was leaning towards a one year program. I had thought that the faster I get it over with, the better. However, my thinking has changed.. A year just passes by so quickly, and there is no time to take in what you are learning and solidify concepts, and just think about your career. In a two year program, you are given the opportunity in the first year to sit back and watch a bit if you like, before you dive into a field, or an opportunity. You get to analyze what you are learning instead of just ploughing through the material. You get to take more electives, and build your knowledge. I think this is the biggest advantage. It might take a bit longer, but isn’t it better to have no regrets or less of them anyway?
Monday, June 9, 2008
Looking over your shoulder
We had to analyze Yahoo! Canada strategy in our FIT practicum. It’s been quite fascinating reading all of the articles, and understanding the whole new media landscape. Our task is to define a strategy for Yahoo! Canada in the Web 2.0 environment.
I stumbled upon an interesting piece of journalism in one of the articles “Then, on Aug. 19, 2004, Google went public. According to some former Yahoos, that was a turning point for the company's culture as well. Yahoo became a company obsessed with Google rather than one looking to make the next leap on the Net. "Yahoo became super-paranoid," says one former search manager. "We switched from charting our own course to looking over our shoulder."
That last line struck a chord with me on a personal level. It’s so easy to constantly compare and look over your shoulder. It’s so easy to just take one little peak isn’t it? It appeals to our insecurities. We feel the need to look back and see who’s catching up to us, who will overtake us. We also have the tendency to look around and assess the competition constantly.
We also look over our shoulder at the past and assess what we did wrong and examine our mistakes and all the paths we did not take, and examine the ones we have taken.
My biggest takeaway is to stop looking over my shoulder, and focus on the road ahead. The past is behind me, and the competition? Well, they will always be there, but are they relevant to my goals?
I stumbled upon an interesting piece of journalism in one of the articles “Then, on Aug. 19, 2004, Google went public. According to some former Yahoos, that was a turning point for the company's culture as well. Yahoo became a company obsessed with Google rather than one looking to make the next leap on the Net. "Yahoo became super-paranoid," says one former search manager. "We switched from charting our own course to looking over our shoulder."
That last line struck a chord with me on a personal level. It’s so easy to constantly compare and look over your shoulder. It’s so easy to just take one little peak isn’t it? It appeals to our insecurities. We feel the need to look back and see who’s catching up to us, who will overtake us. We also have the tendency to look around and assess the competition constantly.
We also look over our shoulder at the past and assess what we did wrong and examine our mistakes and all the paths we did not take, and examine the ones we have taken.
My biggest takeaway is to stop looking over my shoulder, and focus on the road ahead. The past is behind me, and the competition? Well, they will always be there, but are they relevant to my goals?
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