Riz’s Rotman Blog

It’s a little scary to think that I’m half-way through Q1. We actually have covered a lot of material already and it’s only been 2.5 weeks since class started.

I’ve kind of gotten a workflow figured out. I try to do most of the readings/work for the week on the weekend and during the week I focus on the classes/tutorials/info sessions/workshops/group work. There really is a lot to do but I haven’t fallen flat, yet. I’ve even managed to get a little partying in.

I’ve also started to look at summer job opportunities.

Nothing else to really report. I do have a cold—that is somewhat noteworthy, right?

Until next time.

It’s true. I’m studying for my Managerial Economics quiz and I keep making silly mistakes when solving equations linear equations with only 2 unknowns. Back in the day I was solving circuits with a crazy number of capacitors without using imaginary numbers. Yeah, that’s right!

I’m hoping it’s just fatigue.

As promised, here’s a little more general experience stuff:

Participation marks - I’m not a huge fan of these. Why? For a few reasons:

1. I’m not use to them. I’m use to being in class, and absorbing all I can and taking time to try and think about the content and only ask questions after thinking about the problem and trying to work it out myself. This format puts me in rapid fire format (see #2)
2. The participation marks seem to encourage everyone (including myself) to just blurt out the first thing that comes to mind whenever the proff says anything—even if it’s the dumbest thing in the world. Maybe I’m asking a lot but I get really annoyed when half a class is spent on people asking the same question (just phrased differently) in an attempt to squeeze a few marks. I know, I’m exaggerating but that’s what it feel like sometimes.
3. Related to number two, I get annoyed when I have a really good point and someone snipes it out from under me.
4. There is a trade-off between taking notes and being engaged in class. If we’re being tested on this material, I like to write it down. If I’m writing down what is said then I’m not thinking at the same “speed” as others who are answering and find it very difficult to keep up with the rest of the class.

I’m sure I’ll eventually get with this whole participate in class thing.
More later. Now I’m going to finish studying for the quiz and go to bed. Tomorrow is the “profac” (professional faculty) party—here’s hoping for a good time!

Week one of classes for this quarter are officially done. I’m going to reiterate my eariler statement—I’m surprised by the amount of work. I do think I’ve gotten a little better with time management this week and am starting to learn what I need and don’t need to read.

First (as promised) is my impression of the pre-courses. What everyone says is true: if you have a basic understanding of anything taught in the pre-courses, you don’t need to take them. The information is covered again in the actual course. That being said, I found that I did get some real value from the courses since they gave me a little bit of a leg up this week and allowed me to settle into the swing of things rather than to worry as much about learning totally new material.

Second, my thoughts on the courses:

• Statistics for Managers
  This course seems more about learning how to convert management questions to stats questions and how to design an studies than stats courses I’ve taken in the past. I’m not quite sure where it’s going but it’s mostly new information to me. The ideas so far haven’t been that difficult. The project for the course is going to be a pain in the @$$ (more about it in a later post).
• Managerial Economics
  Having taken a 100 level econ course in my undergrad, this course has been a review so far. The one difference I have noticed is that there is a focus on maximizing firm profits (duh!) unlike the 100 level econ course I took. The one thing to note is that this is the only course that we don’t get lecture notes online.
• Financial Accounting
  There isn’t much to say about this course. We are just learning about the major financial statements: how things are categorized, recorded, and some of the rules we should be aware of when reading financial statements. One overriding theme has been been (as mentioned earlier) don’t cook the books. Another major theme (so far) is that a Balance sheet really isn’t worth the paper it’s written on if your trying to gain a real understanding of what a firm and its assets are worth—watch out for GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Practices) changes in a few years.
• Foundations of Integrative thinking
  This is mostly a psychology course so far and I’m really enjoying it despite its “soft” nature. It really shows you how people are manipulated and how we all make bad judgments all the time. The point is to try and keep us from making bad decisions by showing us how we make decisions and what external factors can inversely effect our thinking. I’ll admit it; I’ve fallen into a decision trap just about each time the professor has proposed a question with some sort of trick to it. SHAME!
• Managing People in Organizations
  By far the “softest” course in my opinion. It does provide a lot of interesting information but coming from a quantitative background I’m having a little trouble making the adjustment to being all “touchy-feely.” This one has an exam. Eeep.

I’ve spent wayyy to much time on this post so I’ll skip the rest and post more thoughts at some other point. Enjoy your weekend, I’ll be reading.

The first day is now over—I got to schoool around 8:45am and left around 9:00pm*. A lot for the first day. I’m pretty sure that I just have to get into the swing of things. I’m not using my time effectively and have to get use to this whole “readings” thing which we never had in engineering.

I don’t really have much else to say… The classes seem to have some potential to be very interesting.

I better go to bed now. I have to be up at 6:00am to go to the gym. Night!

*This wasn’t all work and classes. I did take an hour for lunch and another 2 hours for dinner/socializing with my project group.

As I mentioned in the previous post, I already have a bunch of readings to do. I’ve finished the readings for Financial Accounting and noticed one predominant theme—don’t cook the books.

We were given several articles to read; all of the articles focus on management trying to “manage earnings” or, more accurately, “cook the books.”  The interesting thing is that there are actually some legal ways to skew the numbers to smooth out earnings but in most cases, cooking is very illegal.

I’m just curious if this focus on ethics in accounting and management is more of a new development (post enron/worldcom). Anyone know?

Well, that was tiring.

I’m not going to say much because if I go into details this post will be pages long and I don’t have the time to write it up.

The orientation camp was really fun. The 2nd years did a great job of organizing and running the event. It  was really obvious that it required a lot of work—if any 2nd years are reading, the first years really do appreciate it.

Dean Martin gave a few talks during the week:

- He seems very, very, very smart.
- He seems very friendly.
- He firmly believes in the Integrative Thinking program at Rotman.
- My class will have the largest number of mandatory Integrative Thinking courses.

Classes start on Monday and we’ve already been assigned readings. It begins…

P.S. I went to the costume party as Steve Jobs and a lot of people guessed that I was Gates! Ick. I have to try to look cooler next time.