Burton Simmons’s “Adventures in Business School”

One thing that really sucks about the first year at Willamette (I won’t go into the comprehensive list) is that all the classes are core classes. Since there are roughly 55 people in their first year of the program, they shove us all in a room for 5 hours a day (Monday through Thursday) and talk at us for huge blocks of time. The problem is this room is a nightmare.

First, the seats are are attached to the tables via swing-arms, which makes getting in and out rather awkward. Secondly, they have minimal back support which makes them painful to sit in for as long as we’re expected to. Finally, with 10 minute breaks between classes (we have one 20 minute break on Tuesdays and Thursdays) I spend a huge chunk of my day sitting down typing on my laptop. This starts to really, really hurt after a while.

So imagine - if you will - my absolute frustration when the rest of the class votes to have an bonus Finance class immediately after our normal Finance class (which goes from 11:10 to 12:30 Mondays and Fridays.) The majority of people want to have a class immediately at 12:30 for another hour and half. So the net result is that I will be sitting still (with no significant opportunity to move or eat lunch) from 8:00 AM until 2:00 PM.

To be honest, I’ve gained about 15 pounds since starting this program. There’s a variety of reasons for it, to be honest. One is that I barely have a kitchen in my apartment so cooking isn’t very effective. But the biggest problem I see is that my life has become VERY sedentary in this program. I spend several hours a night doing readings for class. More time doing homework. And even more time sitting still in this goddamn room. When do I have an opportunity to move? When do I have the chance to get some exercise, which is very helpful in health, well-being, and clear thinking?

It’s frustrating.

Edit:  Please see the following OSHA recommended ergonomic seating positions.  I’m guess that having to look up, then down for my laptop, then up, then down again while I sit hunched over in these miserable seats for hours and hours with no breaks to walk around doesn’t meet their recommendations.

One of the big projects we have to work on this semester is the background research for our Ethics in Business award that Willamette gives out each year.  My group is looking at a restaurant in Portland that - tragically - I can’t actually afford to eat at.  This project looks interesting; we have to interview the owners of the business, employees, suppliers… we have to try to get as much information as possible in order for the award board to make the best decision possible.  It’s going to be a lot of work…

If you recall, I have a rather nice MacBook Pro but have had a few issues with it in the past.  Over the break I got a new power adapter to fix an issue I had with my old one but just a couple days ago I was hit with another problem:  My battery wasn’t charging.  And, unlike last time this was happening, the laptop worked fine off AC power (before the adapter overheated and stopped, temporarily) but the batter would discharge and not charge again.

After talking to the folks at AppleCare, I  physically took my laptop up to the nearest Apple Retail Store and talked to one of the geniuses there.  It turns out that the issue was with the battery itself and - thanks to my warranty - I was issued a new battery.  Problem solved.

Now what’s interesting (and quite delightful about this) is that your average lithium-ion battery has a useful life of about 300 cycles (a full charge/discharge cycle.)  In the 5 months that I’ve had my laptop, I’ve used 90 cycles already!  (Using a laptop 10 hours a day, 7 days a week will do that.)  So I was quite pleased at getting a replacement.

Twice in the last two weeks I’ve been used iMovie (and iDVD) with great success.

The first time was for our Salvation Army presentation. We videotaped the presentation (as was the requirement) so it could be viewed by the faculty later.  Instead of just handing them a VHS tape (we used an old university camera) I took the tape to the video lab on campus and imported it into iMovie on my computer.  From there, I added some chapter markings, exported it to iDVD, created a professional-looking menu (complete with a slide-show and all our presentation material included on the disc) and turned it in.  Everyone loved that.

The second was  for a presentation this morning in for our HR class.  We were tasked simply with “a presentation of our PaCE group.”  The only suggestion we were given was to be creative.  So we came up with the idea of a promotional video, our team leader wrote the script, and I went to work narrating it, editing it, and putting together a kick-ass video that left jaws dropped when my classmates saw it.

I really enjoy using iMovie.  While few other applications can fill a hard drive so quickly, it’s a fun, powerful, easy-to-use program!

This morning we’re talking about business ethics in class. I realized that in today’s terms, the question isn’t “Is this right or wrong?”, it’s “Can I get sued for this?”.

I’d like to thank all the lawyers for that.

As evidence that no group is free from drama, my pace group (12 people) has recently experienced a bit of upset-ed-ness.

It seems our project leader (aka elected leader) (aka “fearless leader”) accidentally sent out an email to the whole group that contained - as an attachment - a discussion between her and another group memeber regarding performance issues with some team members. This, of course, did not go over well.

Fortunately for me, I wasn’t mentioned in this email. I’ve also had the experience that our fearless leader has had, wherein I emailed my boss what I meant to email my friend - and it was about my boss. I know how terrible that can be. I still have confidence because our fearless leader is an otherwise effective administrator, but it’s still unwanted (though accidental) drama.

Fun times.

The other day we had the Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Economic Development Sandy Baruah come speak to us. As a former Atkinson alumnus, he was in town for something or other and was offered the opportunity to speak to us.

So he did, and the big thing I took away from his talk (and I’m paraphrasing) is this:

“A manager MUST be able to distinguish between to the good and the best.”

That is to say, as he explained, that most people in a situation can come up with a good idea; it’s not hard. But coming up with the best idea, the most efficient use of resources or the most helpful decision… THAT is what a manager must be able to do.

Well, now that we’ve “done calculus” (in about 5 weeks) in Quantitative Analysis it’s time to move on to a form of Linear Algebra. Make no mistake, Linear Algebra is NOT as easy as it sounds!

Back in College 1.0 I took Linear Algebra since I needed a bunch of upper-division math classes. I didn’t pass. So I took it again. I didn’t pass. I went for “lucky number 3″… and still didn’t pass. (I ended up giving up and taking something else.)

So I’m slightly worried. I mean, I know I’m smart and good at math, but apparently I just “don’t get” linear algebra. We’ll see. I guess I’ll have to pay attention this time.

Grad school is, as I’ve become fond of saying, twenty-six hours worth of work in a twenty-four hour day. With an intense Monday through Thursday 8 AM-to-midnight schedule, I’m finding that I’m having two problems.

The first problem is keeping up with the workload. I have seven or eight different syllabi to look at to see if I have anything due. That’s a process in and of itself. Then there’s the matter of doing all the work. Reading and processing hundreds of pages per week while responding concisely and trying to have a presence in the classroom and trying to “network” is exhausting… which leads to the second problem.

I’m having trouble relaxing. By Thursday night I’m just beat. I’m tense, tired, and worn down because I know it’s just going to get worse from here. I’m constantly trying to evolve my work strategies but I’m just not able to relax. I gave up pretty much all my hobbies (except blogging, of course) before coming to school. I don’t have much money so I can’t even go out to dinner or something of that nature. I can read… except I do so much of that for school that my “rate of absorption” is pretty low by the end of the week.

I guess I need to figure out not only how to work, but how to play. We’ll see.

The above headline flashed past my screen while looking at my gmail account. Intruiged, I clicked on it. You should, too.

I think the overwhelming consensus is that there’s a variety of opinions on the topic by those respected in the business world. I saw several unconditional “no” answers, though… and not many unconditional “yes” ones. What does that say? AM I DOING THE RIGHT THING?