Two things I will never forget about MBA

No matter what I take away from my MBA degree there are two things that I will never ever forget. These are: DeBeers and Boston Chicken.
These two case studies have drained so much out of me, that I barely have enough energy to finish my other courses. Funnily, I do have some time to blog about them. I will describe in a little detail about both these cases.

First up, DeBeers.

We are using the DeBeers case in our Skills for Leadership class. What I literally take from these classes is that we are being taught how to think. Really, they teach us how to think. On the firth thought, it seems funny how can you make one think by teaching, but I have discovered this course is effective and makes you look at the same problem from different perspectives. So, the case is about how DeBeers (South African Diamond Company) is trying to battle the AIDS/HIV problem in South Africa. Primarily, DeBeers focus is to tackle the problem for its workers itself and if there are funds available, then extend the cure to the community too. This is a problem of sustainability for the company as they are trying to do this all by themselves with the South African government providing no help (note that this case dates back to 2003-2006 and the South African government does have various AIDS/HIV plans in place now). So that is the whole DeBeers case. We have to study the sustainability of their AIDS/HIV program in these lights and try to solve the problem using three different thinking procedures (analytical, critical and strategic).

Next up, Boston Chicken (aka Boston Market).

Now, the Boston Chicken case is being used for our accounting course. We have been given Boston Chicken's financial information from 1994 and we have to make a judgment on whether to invest in Boston Chicken or not. So the first thing to do is look how the company is doing currently. It was a surprise to find out that the company went under in 1998 and was bought by McDonalds in 1999. Now it becomes very difficult to do an analysis after knowing what will actually happen to the company in just 5 years after this investment has to be made. It is made even worse when the case does not provide you enough information to make the investment call. I wont divulge the answer to this case yet because it is still not due for another 2 days. But what I have experienced while doing this case is so influential that I have to mention about it. It really made my accounting concepts really clear and gave me an insight into the financial analysis part of accounting.

What Reading Week?

Reading week was one adventure that I will never forget. I don\' really mean that it was an adventure like climbing a mountain or going bungee jumping. By adventure I mean there were so many high and lows through out the week. When my reading week started (October 27) I was ecstatic that I will relax and catch up with everyone. You must be wondering why does the reading week start on a Tuesday. It's weird, but that's how it was. At least I had it, so no complains on that. So, getting back to how I dreamt what my reading week will be like and how I was proven wrong.

I had so much planned out for the week and had plans to meet up with so many people. Leave alone meeting those people, I didn't even get spare time to give them a call to tell them of my situation. I talked to a few when I remembered and others, I apologize here.

I started off my Monday by taking a break. I relaxed in the evening, given that I was finished with 2 courses for the semester. I couldn't be happier. So I rewarded myself by not doing anything Monday night. o Tuesday, I started working lightly on the three major items that were due the next week. I still took it easy. I thought it is a full week away, I should be able to cover it. By Tuesday evening, I had part of my ECON covered (for which I have a mid term the coming Tuesday). By Wednesday morning, it started to hit me how much I have to cover for the week. I started scrambling to complete as much as I could and as soon as I could. Two projects due on Monday, each worth almost 50% of my course mark. One of them (IS) I had it well covered because my group had started work on it long ago and we were in a pretty good situation to finish it off well. But the other course (OMIS/quants) I was in a very bad shape. I still left it to the end to work on it with my team mates.

Coming to Thursday morning, I was still working on the ECON, trying to cover as much as I could. I knew the weekend would be when I would get most of my OMIS done and I was supposed to do write ups for IS course as well. Friday and Saturday, I worked myself off to finish most of ECON. And finally by Saturday morning, I was able to start working on OMIS assignment and found out why the others had been freaking out about it. What they had been doing for the past one week, my group was supposed to finish in 3 days. I started doing everything for that assignment. I covered a major part of it and now I am in a situation that I should have it covered.

My other assignment for IS, I got it a little easy because I was chosen not to present. That is a load off, to not practice my part of the presentation. I will just handle the Q&A. I think I have a good enough grasp to tackle that.

And with that, I ended my reading week. Where did my 6 days go by? So much was planned and came down to a nothing. I was able to give myself mini breaks by hanging out with friends. I was physically there, but mentally I was still thinking about the load of work that I had pending.

Now, its 9 pm and I have a good grasp of the OMIS assignment. I should be finished with it in another couple of hours. And then I can move on to ECON to prepare for its mid term that is on Tuesday. Wish me luck!

P.S. On my photography news, I haven't been able to work on anything lately. But I am hoping to get my studio equipment tomorrow! I had planned for a photo shoot this week, but that obviously didn't happen. Hoping I can do that next weekend. In other news, my website (http://www.rohitnarula.com) is almost complete and should be up and running in the next week. Check it out and leave me some comments if you like :)

Till next time, take care all!!