2^nd and 3^rd Semester: The Darker Side of the MBA and their students!

After our first semester, I was eager to get my results. We had a few tests, papers and exercises to complete during the semester but the bulk of our mark was built through the end of term exam and group project. The group project, along with a presentation in front of the class, always counted for about 50% of our marks.

We finally got our marks and the average of the class per assignments. I was completely shocked to discover that there were absolutely no difference among all group project (standard deviation was about 1% and we were 7 or 8 groups). Therefore, everybody was starting with the same mark (that worth at least 50% of the overall result).

I pointed this “anomaly” to our director. He answered that when you get to that level, it is normal that each team is about the same strength. I understand that we are now at a Master level with people with experience and all that. However, to take a hockey analogy, it’s not because your team is playing in the NHL that you automatically win 50% of your games. I’m sorry, but if I have to choose between Sydney Crosby and Guillaume Latendresse, I’m obviously picking Crosby even though they are playing in the same league!

So here’s my theory: No matter what you do as a team, you will just do fine! I kept working hard simply because I wanted to learn something out of it, because we ended with the average (and sometimes below!) all the time. On the other side, our group have the strongest marks individually (strange isn’t?).

As I wrote in two previous articles, we also encountered people that don’t want to work and hope to get a free ride on the MBA train. This is where I learned an important lesson; it is not necessary to bite every time someone is not doing their job, there are ways to accommodate the situation and get rid of the person in a proper manner. One of my colleague gave me 2 great examples as he took care of both situations (after I prematurely bite ).

So the MBA is not necessarily what it means. You can work hard and learn a lot. But you can also can count on the teamwork free ride and get it for “free”. Let just say that the 3 letters don’t impress me that much anymore

Don’t get me wrong, it is a great program with great teachers and you have the opportunity to learn a lot. However, not everybody take on this opportunity and still finish with a diploma.

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Excitement

The very first feeling that I got when I opened my admission letter was excitement. I was so happy to go back to school, eager to learn new stuff and to meet my classmates. At that time, I really wanted to become a manager (I don’t know anymore, but that will be discussed in another post!).

1st semester:

Waking up, stress and long nights

During my first weekend, I hit a wall and I think most people did. We were dragged from our regular job to school and its “obsession” for page to be read and page to be written.

I remember my first teacher (whose job was obviously to discourage a few people in order to make the class more fit for the rest) asked for a 6 to 10 pages paper by next weekend. So I write 10 pages thinking I was doing something good since it was the maximum pages permitted. It actually appeared that 10 pages was the minimum number of pages that he was expected!! I ended up with 75%. I can tell you that the second paper, I did a 23 pages paper plus annexes… and I got 95%.

This period was also rough for my family. We all had to adapt with our two young kids (Amy was only 1 month old when I started) and my job. This is why I didn’t sleep much the first three months, trying to bring everything together and hold it in one piece! I was working during the day, playing with my kids and spending time with my wife during the evening and at 10PM, I was starting my MBA work until midnight… or 1AM.

Luckily for me, I had decided to take a week of vacation before my end of term exams. This was one of the longest weeks I took since I had a lot to do in so little time!

The first semester was a great challenge but it was also very motivating. We built a strong team spirit (that has been one of our strongest points since the very beginning), we learned to accommodate each other and negotiate in order to keep piece among us. At the end of it, I just couldn’t wait to get my marks!!

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Are lawyers all the same?

The guy was good looking, charismatic, inspiring. He was a former lawyer now directing life insurance agents in the wealth management division of a big insurance company. Hey, that sounds like someone with a future!

During our very first lunch, we were saying how bad we wanted good marks (not because of the result itself but because we wanted to learn something out of it). He was with us all the way; “if it goes below my expectation, I will be screaming” he said. I guess we didn’t have the same kind of expectation

Since we had a law class and he was a former lawyer, we thought we were pretty smart to take this guy in our team. We named him team leader of this class. We had a paper and a presentation to make. So he built the presentation and gave us the slides with more information.

We didn’t feel that it was great but we thought we could still get a good result since we are pretty strong in our presentation. The problem is that he made law mistake in the presentation and we got nailed by the teacher. We felt so dumb; we let him prepare the whole thing, we didn’t double check and we went directly to the slaughter house with a big smile. Shame on us!

Then, he sent us the outline of the paper. It didn’t make sense at all so we decided not to follow it and bring back a completely different version. We sent him the paper so he can “add value” with his knowledge. When he sent it back saying he couldn’t print at work, the whole document was messed-up. Margins were all over the place and spelling and grammar mistakes had been added. This is the kind of value we got!

At that point, I bite and sent him a bad email about our marketing paper. I have the bad habit of shooting first and asking question later He came out with so many excuses that I retracted myself and apologize (hum… that wasn’t so smart after all!).

Final nail in the coffin; 15 minutes before we present our final marketing project, he asks questions about his own part. He didn’t read the whole paper and never prepared. I just couldn’t believe it!

Overall, he still finished the last session with us and got another one free in his pocket. 2 more to go and he will get his 3 letters (‘cause that is really the only thing he will get out of this program… besides enemies? Hehehe).

I learned a few things out of this experience:

- Don’t trust people on their background.

- Give them a chance but follow them closely and don’t take anything for granted.

- Think twice before biting.

- But if you bite, bite ‘till the end it bleeds!

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Marketing: A-

This is my worst mark in my MBA. While I still think that MBA Grades don’t matter much, I was still happy to get a row of A’s. I didn’t learn much about the class itself since I did my bachelor in marketing (I guess that my result is the product of my procrastination!). However, this helped us out kicking a new member out of our team. I still can believe that people can think to get their MBA without working! Anyway, this experience will be part of another post next week

Law: A

I questioned the utility of this class until mid term. We were discussing about our classes and their potential utility around a good coffee when one of my colleague brought out a good point: if you ever do commercial banking, you need to know those things because it can help your clients big time. I never thought of this, but most it is very important to know laws surrounding a business and if you are about to lend money to a commercial client, you both better know all the legal aspect of the project!

International Financial Services: A

This was a weird class. Our teacher was directly coming from Mars. I have no doubts that she was a brain and a half in her field and that she conducted researches on very complicated topics. However, she just couldn’t translate her knowledge into words. In fact, she was barely able to communicate to the class. I must say that it could be difficult to communicate when you are sitting in front of your computer, doing excel spread sheet or going on CNN.COM to get the latest FED video conference. I still learned a few stuff such as how credit default swap got us in the credit crunch and how to manage exchange risk through options, futures and money markets. This part was actually quite interesting since I make most of my company’s income in US and British Pounds. I can now protect my money through effective hedging strategies!

Overall, this was probably the session I liked the least. However, the next one seems very promising since we have a class on ethic, strategy and public relationship. In December, I will share a few posts on my MBA experience that I had so far. Let me know if you have any questions about those magic three letters

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Running the marathon surely need more than a boost of energy to make a sprint. This is what the MBA look like; a marathon for your brain and nervous system (due to the major lack of sleep!). So I am glad that I survived another trimester with good marks considering that I changed job and wrote my PFP exam.

Human Resources: A

What I definitely like about the MBA program is that most of your project has a real impact on your daily work. For example, I was working on the integration of new employee in the wealth management department of the bank. My manager gave me access to sufficient date so I can design a new process enabling the integration of financial consultant in their new team. I started from my own experience and enhanced it with the theory I learned in class. The process is about to be presented to my manager in a few weeks. I hope that it will be accepted and that my contribution will be more than a simple report!

Productivity and Processes: A

This is probably the most interesting class I ever had so far. It was very demanding since you have to design or improve an existing process where you work. Therefore, you need to spend time with each actor in the process and analyse the implication of each action. However, it was very rewarding to look at the final result. I also used the same project as the one in Human Resources so I can deliver a more complete project and save a lot of time.

Accounting: A

Yep, another triple A’s for my second trimester! I am quite happy to show steady marks considering my global situation! In this class, we worked financial statement in a different ways. We usually calculate ratios and analyze them. This time, we already had the ratio and all the financial notes. The purpose was to read between the lines and discover which kind of story numbers were telling without being explicit. It was like reading through the company’s mind and finding its deepest secrets. We did our paper on RIM and find out about their very interesting story about patents and licenses.

The summer trimester sounds very promising as well. We will improve our marketing knowledges, learn about financial laws and international financial services. Yet again, quite an interesting challenge!

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