One Down

I feel the cold hand of impending exams clutching at the back of my neck.
I have just finished the first exam- it was OB, it was open book and it was easy. Now that OB is done- I can go back to being a total asshole.

I have seven more exams, and 2 assignments. For the assignments- me and a partner are dissecting the Annual Report of Amazon (the online biblio-retailer).

We're also under pressure to select our courses for next semester. I've selected Strategic Marketing, Negotiations, and Business Ethics.

Although- strategic marketing is a late entry- there are a number of taxation, accounting and finance electives, and a glaring lack of marketing electives next semester, so people complained. It was- as the administrator explained a matter of finding someone to teach it.

Now- they have the elective, they have someone to teach it, and they even have the time- and all the marketing-interested students were all ready to sign up... but now all of us don't want to sign up after all. I'm not going to say why- just because this blog is an open resources accessible to anyone, and it's not in my opinion constructive to voice it here now, but suffice to say- we are almost unanimous in our apprehension of the course after being given a little more information.

So- now that I have possible one more elective available, maybe I'll take Small Business management and Entrepreneurship. Maybe I'll take Project Management and Business Planning (apparently it's a very useful and informative course and quite easy).

Or maybe I'll go the administrator, and deal with the issue head on. Tell him that I realize the trouble he's gone to, inform him of my apprehension of the course, and see if there's some way we can find a solution.

I am thoroughly enamoured with Business Ethics though, despite the fact that it's on weekend to allow Part Time MBA's to participate. (It's Friday night and Saturday morning in the second half of the semester). It just means I'll have to visit my German sister in the first half of the semester and during the break.

And as far as negotiation goes- I've done some negotiation training. I read and applied the famous book Getting to Yes, and found an immediate improvement in the places where I used it. Negotiation skills are not just business skills- it's life skills, and like OB, it's probably going to be one of the courses that teaches me more about myself and equips me with both hard skills and soft skills to make me more effective in life in general. That's my goal here in the MBA. It's not just picking up business skills- it's making myself more effective, gaining confidence, learn how to learn from my mistakes better.

That, and learn how to not crawl into the corner, crying and shaking, curling up into a ball when someone asks me to draw up a campaign or departmental budget...