Takeaways from my first semester of my MBA

Tomorrow is my last exam for the second qtr of classes which also means the end of my 1^st semester of MBA life! So for people who might be considering an MBA (or anyone else for that matter) here are the key things I found for managing (for the 1^st 4 months anyways) MBA school thus far:

-Make time for things besides school- Given the insane workload, it would be VERY easy to spend all day and all night doing homework. However by the same token, if you just focus on school school school, you WILL get burned out. To prevent this, for me anyways, this meant taking an hour out of my day to go to the gym and get a workout in. I can’t tell you how good it felt to get away from academia for a bit and blow off some steam with some weights. It also let me come back to school-related work with renewed vigor. So be it the gym, playing some hockey, getting some Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 in, whatever…Taking a break helps!

-Prioritize your projects schedule- Because we had some many things coming at us every day, I found it really useful to create a “to-dos” list with associated due dates on my computer. That way I had a visual list of what I needed to do for when and therefore could plan my time every day accordingly.

-Participate in class- This is super beneficial for 2 reasons:

1. You get EASY marks in class for raising your hand and saying something. (sometimes a lot of marks at that!)

2. If by chance you need to ask your prof a favour, he/she will actually know who you are therefore be more inclined to help you out.

-Communication skills are EXTREMELY IMPORTANT!!!!!!!!- I really can’t stress this enough. Good communication skills makes so many things for you and your peers 1,000,000 times easier. I’ll leave it at that. Please be a good communicator. Thank you. :-)

-Network, network, network- I spoke about this in an earlier blog post but it’s worth mentioning again. Get to know as many people as you can in the industry you want to work in.

-Be nice to everyone- You never know when you’ll need to make a big business deal with one of the other future executives in your class. ;-)

-The Rotman MBA education is as rewarding as it is challenging- As you guys know, I busted my butt pretty hard this semester and despite lots of drama and stress, I’m really happy I have soaked up as much as I could. Yay for learning!

And with that, I am off to get 1 more exam done, then off to Punta Cana (thank you mom) until school starts up again in January. Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy New Year and see you in 2012!!

Case Analysis Super Weekend of Total Craziness!!!

One component of our Strategy Class is a case study and presentation that is worth 40% of our grade in the class. It was probably the most challenging but also the most fun grade I have ever worked for in my life! Here’s what we were faced with:

-Friday evening our strategy prof revealed the company we would be doing our case study on. However, he gave us no other information (i.e. not even the problem we were tasked to solve).

-Saturday at 6pm all 265 of us would be randomly assigned to groups of 5-6 people and we’d be given the problem which we would have to solve and present to CEOs and executives including those of Cineplex, what our recommended solution is.

-Sunday at 11pm our presentation slides were due to the prof

-Monday at 8:30 we found out what time we would be presenting at some point between 9am-12:45pm that day

-Finalists announced at 1:15pm

-Final presentations 2pm-3pm

Crazy eh?? I’ll run you through what the experience was like for me:

-Friday night we found out the case was on Cineplex and it would be dealing with an issue they are faced with right now. i.e. was brought up as a “hot button” that needs resolving in their board of directors meeting just one week prior. I love the business side of the entertainment industry and am quite familiar with it so I was pretty excited not only because it was an industry I liked but because I was so familiar with it, I wouldn’t have to do as much research as some other people who don’t know “the business”.

-Some people went NUTS on doing all sorts of crazy research that evening. But I figured without guidance on what problem I needed to solve, what research could I do??

-The prof suggested only that we read the Cineplex annual report’s management discussion and analysis and understand what portions of their business come from where, etc. He also suggested that we go see a movie at a Cineplex. (great research method!)

Friday Night Post-Announcement

-I went home, read some of the MD&A. I also figured that since the rest of the weekend would be so stressful, I’d unwind with some beers with some friends.

Saturday

Morning- Finished reading MD&A and did some brief reading on the history of Cineplex, AMC, Empire (the main chains here in Canada) and Netflix, just in case.

Afternoon-Took prof up on his advice and went to see A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas at the Cineplex Scotiabank Theatre. WHAT A FUNNY MOVIE!!!!!

-Also did some research at the theatre…what amenities do they have these days, how is the theatre laid out, pricing, etc

Saturday 6pm:

-We get our groups, problem to solve and a giant stack of reports about the movie industry, Cineplex and its competitors.

-My group: I was already friends with one of the people in my group which was cool and the others I knew of but didn’t really know. They all turned out being pretty cool people as well and also smart and strong communicators (communication skills= VERY important!!!). I am happy I got a chance to meet and work with these new people!!

Saturday 7-10:30pm: We divide up all of the reports amongst the group and read them

Saturday 10:30-2:30am (yes, 2:30am): We discuss all of our readings and research to begin formulating insights on how to solve the problem we were faced

Sunday

-Slept for 4.5 hours last night

9am-10:30: Meet back at school and used the insights from the previous night to develop our strategic recommendations

10:30am-11pm: Developed powerpoint presentation with our recommendation and insights/analysis supporting our recommendations

11pm: Presentation was handed in. No changes allowed to it beyond this point!

11pm-12:30am: Figured out who will say what in our presentation. Our presentation was to be 15 minutes long. We also prepared for the questions we’d probably be asked by the judges and prepped our answers to said questions.

Monday

-Slept for 5 hours last night

7am-8:30am- Met back at school and practice presentation.

8:30am- We find out we are presenting at 11:15

8:30am-10:00amWe practice a bit more

10:15ish- A teammate falls asleep in the middle of our meeting. Hilarity ensues.

10:20-11:00am- Chill out to calm the pre-presentation nerves

11:15- GAME TIME!!

1:15- We found out we didn’t make it to the finals. BUT if the team that beat us wins the whole thing, we get one of the highest grades in the class! So there is still hope

1:30- Meet our judges and find out we had the best marketing ideas. The only reason we didn’t win was because the other team had better financials. If only we had an accountant in our group! Oh well…A learning experience for next time.

2pm-until now- Catch up on sleep

I am still dead tired but I learned a ton this weekend. VERY valuable learning experience and I had a blast at the same time!! But no time for any more rest or reflection for now because exams start in a week!