Week 1 - The Intensive Week

Wow - what a week. Some highlights:

* Meeting all my new classmates.
Finding out what they do and what they are like was a fantastic experience. There were a lot of different backgrounds, reasons for doing the course and what they wanted to get out of it. It's amazing how many people want to change careers and are using the MBA as their foothold.

Also, seeing what everyone looks like at 3:30am is an eye-opener. Even more interesting is seeing everyone at breakfast at 8:00am the next morning - well, almost everyone. :)

* Groupwork
Everyone cringes when they have to work in groups. There are usually challenges with different goals, energy levels, motivations and contribution levels. However, it was great to work with some people who were just as motivated as I was. I'm sure I'll be writing more posts on group work in the future.

* Case study method
There is a lot of controversy in the MBA-sphere about the relative merits of teaching by case studies. Harvard Business School famously uses only cases as instructional examples. At the U of C, there will be a mix of textbooks, readings and case studies. In this first week, we were presented a number of cases, each one more complex than the last. We spent time evaluating the case ourselves before meeting with our groups where we came up with recommendations. It was interesting to see what we came up with versus what other groups came up with versus what our instructor recommends.

While I enjoyed the case studies, they provided a lot of real-world problems, I wouldn't want to be using the cases as the only study method alone.

* Food
The food was very good. Breakfast, lunch and dinner were provided and there were some tasty meals. I will have to work hard to make sure I don't acquire the "Freshman 15".

* Time and energy
One of the most useful parts of the week was a panel session during lunch with some of the recent graduates from the program. It was fascinating to get their insight into how to be successful with the MBA program. They really emphasized how much work there is to do and that time management is the key to being successful. They also mentioned how important it is to ensure that your family understands what is required. 20 hours per week outside of class and work time is a very large investment, but they all agreed that that was realistic.

We have started to receive some of our course outlines, which means that once I am finished the report that I'm currently working on, I can start getting ahead on the reading. I have a feeling that every little bit will help.