If Robespierre were to ascend from hell and seek out today’s guillotine fodder, he might start with a list of those with three incriminating initials beside their names: MBA. The Masters of Business Administration, that swollen class of jargon-spewing, value-destroying financiers and consultants have done more than any other group of people to create the economic misery we find ourselves in.
Harvard’s Masters of the Apocalypse
There’s a lot of validity to this article, and perhaps the naturally occurring grad-school process of divorcing theory from reality is more harmful in the business world than in other disciplines. But I promise, I do not find it awesome to destroy value.
Though my motto is indeed “Mediocre But Arrogant”.
I hope all of you can watch this blue whale show for me, as I’ll be on the road:
Kingdom of the Blue Whale | National Geographic
I like the site, and particularly can’t get over the hypnotizing tail animation on the homepage.
Whales: as always, mad cool.
There’s a been a rash of new Comcast ads in the past few days, featuring a bunch of people in three-quarter view singing a really strange and monotonic rhyme about Comcast and all the ninjas and explosions it offers. But that’s funny, because when I think “Comcast”, I don’t think “funky and hip” so much as “they care more about customer satisfaction at The Wiener’s Circle.”
Check this review I wrote for Yelp D.C. for a good example:
I haven’t had the same bad experience with customer service; the people on the phones are mostly friendly. I do, however, rate this place only one star for its ridiculous service plans.
Here’s the best: if you call to cancel your service say, three weeks from the date you call, they turn your Internet service off IMMEDIATELY. I had to schedule a pickup the day before moving, which was, yes, three weeks from the date I called. Next thing I know, my Internet stops working. I call them up and they tell me it’s company policy that as soon as you request a service stop, they turn your modem off no matter how far out the actual end date may be. So I had to cancel that end of service, call again today (the day before we move out of town) and find out they don’t have a tech to come out today, so now we have to drive to the ass-end of NE and drop off the stuff ourselves.
Buy from RCN, whatever you do!
There you have it. Comcast: Truth in advertising is a bad idea.
The government is finally about to start buying up the garbage assets that all the big banks are holding. From the WSJ, still owned by the same people who brought you When Animals Attack:
‘Bad Bank’ Funding Plan Starts to Get Fleshed Out
This one is going to be a public-private partnership, wherein the government will pony up a lot of the capital ($500 bil to $1 trizillion) and private investors will pick up the rest. Ideally I assume this would make a portfolio of 2,000 distressed credit-card receivables cheaper than current prices, such that someone out there would still be able to collect on enough of them to make it worthwhile.
I think this is what needed to happen all along, and for all the correct arguments about moral hazard — I met enough arrogant bankers in New York to know that they completely disregarded the idea of consequence long before this debacle — the Republican preference to let the national ship sink for the sake of principle is callous and stupid. I don’t know about you, but if I was just some working-class Detroit guy chillin’ homeless and broke in the event of a complete financial crash, I wouldn’t be telling myself, “Dude, I really showed those bankers.”
And as for tax increases to fund the spending, there’s always the Chinese and Japanese, who will keep lending us money as long as we buy their stuff and maintain a favorable exchange rate for their exports. That fact worries me more than the rest of this, but hey, one thing at a time here!
After 21 weeks and nine courses, my MBA class is finished with the Ross core curriculum first-year class set. These are the wide-ranging classes we all have to take before branching out in our second year into electives. There are a few slots for electives in the first year too, but most of the time is spent on dropping core bid-nass knowledge so we can all be well-rounded corporate leadaz of tomorrow.
So I’m turning tables up in this and giving each core class a grade, all using the non-lettered and happily-impossible-for-GPA-calculation Ross scoring system. (Excellent > Good > Pass > Low Pass > Fail). All you potential Ross School of Badass hustlaz can read up here for the info. This takes into account my background, which is that of a non-business dude, so people with financial or accounting experience probably had a much different set of opinions. I won’t be going into detail on the particular profs for each; I save that for my UMich course evaluations. I’ll also warn you that the particular makeup of your section will determine a lot of your class experience; fortunately, Section Six represents to the fullest.
And finally, if anyone stumbles on this and dislikes it, remember that grades don’t matter at Ross anyway. (A truly awesome fact during recruiting!)
FALL A
ACC 502: Principles of Financial Accounting
Grading the Course: Pass
I think this grade had a lot to do with my professor, who was a super cool and chilled out guy but used a Socratic teaching method that took a lot of adjustment before we really got things. There’s some room for debate in accounting, but this class is based around reading and creating balance sheets and income statements, so it could have used a little more how and a little less why.
BE 502: Applied Microeconomics
Grading the Course: Pass
Again, nice professor, but the course material is exactly the same as an undergraduate microeconomics course. I don’t know why this is a 500-level graduate class. Still, it was a useful refresher, and I sucked at undergraduate econ. (My grade in this may or may not have been much of an improvement.)
STRATEGY 502: Corporate Strategy
Grading the Course: Excellent
There were plenty of times I hated this course, like when the professor called on me two times in one class and twice rebuked me with, “So it’s exactly the opposite of what Patrick said.” But I give it an excellent because this is a good hard-assed course that makes you back up your opinions with solid business thinking. Both professors love to cold call and get in your face on your answer, often reacting dismissively, but that just makes it more of a challenge. So this one is good. It’s also good for identifying the gunners in your section, because they can’t resist the sound of their own voice.
OMS 502: Applied Business Statistics
Grading the Course: Good
A lot like the statistics class you took in undergrad, but extremely well-organized with two very likeable professors. Seriously, the handouts, quizzes and material were perfectly structured. The final, however, was a total brain-melter. We got sucker-punched by that one.
FALL B
FIN 502: Financial Management
Grading the Course: Excellent
This was a weird grade: while our prof for this class was pretty bad, the material was really interesting and useful. I think I may have gotten more out of this class than any of the others, and that was even with The Count. (Long story.) Good stuff for a non-numbers man like myself.
MKT 503: Marketing Management
Grading the Course: Good
Marketing seems like a gooey subject, but this class is all about a structured approach to the topic. It does a good job of it, too: we do have a marketing-school reputation to maintain. I gave it a good because it’s still tough to put a structure on a subjective thing, but I did like the approach.
MO 503: Human Behavior and Organization
Grading the Course: Low Pass
I had to give it the dreaded LP. This was by far the least-favorite course across the MBA 1 class. Every day brought new complaints about this one from my classmates, and we in fact bonded over it. The gist of my complaint: It’s a good idea to teach future managers how to handle difficult interpersonal situations, but it would be a much better approach to teach us tactics for handling those situations instead of creating “awareness” that situations exist. Frankly, we all know that already.
WINTER A
ACC 552: Managerial Accounting
Grading the Course: Good
I had a tough time grasping a lot of the concepts here, but plenty of people have pointed out how useful it is. And I agree: the big point here is cost allocation, and that’s certainly going to drive a lot of management decisions. Hopefully I can get things straight by the time I have to use it.
OMS 552: Operations Management
Grading the Course: Good
I liked this course a lot, and Ross is apparently ranked No. 1 for operations instruction. (That being production efficiency and such.) While the course is really cool and both profs are great, I wonder how much I will use process flow and design. I hope I do, though tech and media are a little less obvious in their need for ops calculations and explorations.
So there you go, readaz: your guide to the Ross core curriculum. The worst part of being done is that I won’t get to take classes anymore where all of my section is in attendance. Bummer.
Come this May I’ll be able to grade MAP as well, but I’m working on that one.
Peace!
