Nadia, one of the great people from the program services office*, is leaving Rotman for other opportunities. She was one of the first people from PSO that I met and she was the one who organized the Taste of the MBA.
A huge loss for Rotman and she’ll be missed. Good Luck Nadia.
*PSO does everything at Roman except the recruiting (at least from my point of view). Very important and great people.
I got invited by RIM to see a talk by Roger Martin (yes, the Dean of Rotman) on his new book the Opposable Mind. So I threw on my suit and headed over to the Royal York.
Before the talk, I had a chance to speak to the Dean for a few minutes, and this further confirmed my earlier assessment that he’s super smart… super-duper smart. (certainly smarter than someone who uses terms like “super-duper”)
The talk was a pretty good overview of the book and the key ideas. I’m a lot more excited now to take his course. I also bought the book and am going to try and give it a read during the christmas break. I wanted to start reading it now but I have an exam on Thursday and should really start getting my notes together etc.
A picture from the talk (kind of blurry and small, sorry):
I got some questions. Here are the answers 
Housing: 1. What are the best zones to live in Toronto and study in Rotman (in terms of price & location)? Do you live near the university?
Toronto is very much a big patch work of good and bad areas. It’s pretty easy to figure out where not to live. Anywhere close to UofT is generally good. Some parts south-east of Yonge and Bloor can get a little sketchy.
I personally don’t live near the university. I’ve chosen to live in the Yonge and Eglinton area, a little bit away from the normal action of the school.
The best I can say is ask me about a specific area and I’ll give my input but it’s hard to do a brain dump of all the area’s in Toronto. Probably best to live on the subway line though.
2. Is it possible to live in a suburb and use a car to travel everyday? Is this a good option?
It’s possible and I know a few (very few) people who do it. The MBA is quite a hectic life and even I have problems occasionally where I live. If traveling takes more than 45 minutes, I’d say you’re going to run into big trouble. You have to also remember that you’re likely going to participate in things outside of normal class and living far away can put a strain on your quality of life.
Each person is different though and you’ll personally have to weigh the trade-offs. Here are somethings I’d consider:
3. What is the average price for a 1-2 bedrooms apartments?
I have no idea of a catch-all price, it varies greatly. Toronto is pretty competitive and there are many sites online that will give you an idea of prices.
MBA: 1. After more than one year in the Rotman MBA, what would you recommend to a new student? What’s the best preparation before starting the MBA?
If you’ve been accepted, you’re obviously pretty smart so don’t worry too much. I did the pre-courses and that’s about it. I’ ve written a few posts about them and I think they cover my thoughts pretty well. Other than that, have some fun before the program starts.
2. Are you happy with your decision of attending the Rotman MBA?
Yes. I think the choice of Rotman was a good one for me. Of course I have no other frame of reference (I haven’t done another MBA program) so it’s an extremely biased opinion. There are somethings that I maybe don’ t like (outlined in a few posts and in the next question).
3. What would you do different if you were able to?
Any other questions are welcome.
It’s raining hard today and I had an 8:30. It took me almost an hour to get to school because the subway was packed. I had to wait for 3 trains, then my train just randomly stopped at Summerhill for 10 minutes, and Bloor station was a mess. Picture of a packed subway car and the people waiting for an empty enough train to get to work:
In addition, have to get my butt in gear for school. Only 2.5 more weeks left… tired and pooped right now. I’m taking a star-trek+french fries+ketchup break and then it’s time to get to work…. mmmmm, ketchup.
This is an issue I’ve been having recently… Rotman books all the breakout rooms for some event and leaves the students who have ACTUAL MEETINGS AND WORK TO DO no where to work. Given the tight timeline on assignments and the co-ordination issues of setting up a meeting with 6 busy people, it would be useful to not have to worry about having a room to work in. Picture for tomorrow’s room availability:
This is an issue that has been brought up many times and it looks like there is no real viable solution. I’m sure just about every other b-school has the same problem as well.
In conclusion: I know that events are important but at least leave us a few places to work–don’t just mass book everything.
I just bought my November metropass and they’ve raised the price by $10. That’s another $120 out of my pocket each year and another reason to just drive everyday. There are a few things that bother me about this:
1. Given global warming and our love for Al Gore, shouldn’t we be making it more convenient and cheaper to take public transit? This means *not* closing subway lines, *not* addressing cost issues with fare increases and maybe even introducing something like an oyster card from the London tube system.
2. Many other cities are able to offer monthly passes in the $30 area, why can’t Toronto structure the TTC’s finances and operations like these cities (I’d link to examples but I’m on the subway right now)? $110 a month is a lot! Even if you factor in the tax deductibility.
A world class city needs world class public transit which includes more subway lines and affordable fares.
Comments?
Den, a perspective Rotman student, asked some questions on the last post. They are good questions and probably of general interest so I decided to give my answers their own post.
First, thanks for the compliment Den. It’s easy to be “the best” when you’re probably the only source. 
Now the questions:
Are there many people from non-tech/non-finance background (that’s me) at the school?
Well the vast majority of people at the school have an Engineering, Science, Math, or Commerce background. That being said, there are many people who don’t have these backgrounds and do very well in many courses that us Engineers have difficulty with. They showed us a pie chart at the Taste of the MBA, I believe my class is 20-25% non engineering, science, math, and commerce (but I can’t remember for sure). The Rotman site has a breakdown for this years class:
|
Business/Commerce |
45 |
17% |
| Economics
|
25 | 9.4%
|
| Engineering
|
107 | 40.5%
|
| Humanities
|
8 | 3.0%
|
| Life Sciences
|
15 |
5.6% |
| Math/Computer Sc.
|
24 | 9.0%
|
| Other
|
9 | 3.4%
|
| Physical Sciences | 8 | 3.0% |
| Social Sciences | 15 | 5. |
Is student involvement encouraged/supported? I was thinking of organizing a club if I got accepted, but I am not sure if that is a part of the culture at Rotman.
Student involvement is strongly encouraged supported. I remember getting an e-mail back before I started school (after I started this blog) from a second year who was encouraging me to join an initiative to start a new Rotman student newsletter. That, unfortunately, fell through but it’s just one of the examples of the types of things you can do. Other examples are: starting your own club, running for student government, helping the school with initiatives, or just participating in all the conferences and competitions. With respect to starting your own club, that is definitely a possibility. I believe (and don’t quote me on this) that we’ve had 3 or 4 new clubs created since I started at Rotman.
The biggest issue that I will bring up (and I believe it is a theme in quite a few of my posts) is that people are really busy (especially in first year). This becomes a problem when you’re trying to build clubs which requires a lot of involvement. Students love the clubs but when it comes to execution, many pick sleep over heavy involvement in clubs. This is just an observation of mine and it may or may not be a trend you see across the MBA schools.
Regardless, I encourage you to try different things and if building a club interests you, go for it!
The adcom are not very responsive to my emails so it is very hard to communicate with them. Was the situation similar when you applied?
By adcom I’m assuming that you are referring to the admissions people. I didn’t e-mail them very much but I did find that occasionally it took a few tries before I got a response. I’m not sure why. This isn’t a trend I see inside Rotman though. I usually get responses to my e-mails in minutes and at most hours. Consequently, I’d guess that the admissions people are just swapped with e-mails or there is a process in place for responding to e-mails and perhaps the process needs some retooling.
Thanks for the questions. As I’ve said before, if anyone has any questions please send me an e-mail or post a comment. It makes coming up for content for this blog a lot easier. To me all this information is internalized somewhere in my brain and it’s hard to pick it out unless someone asks.
Cheers.
I’ve recently found myself thinking back to my last year of high school. It was University acceptance time and I was getting nervous. My two safety schools had already given my my acceptance but the School I really wanted to go to still hadn’t made up their mind.
My guidance counselor had me in for one of our regular meetings and I shared with her my fear of not getting in. She paused and looked at me. A small smile developed and she said:
Riz, don’t worry. No matter which student comes in here, with whatever aspiration, for whatever school, they all come back and tell me that they couldn’t be happier. It didn’t matter if they get into their first choice school or not.
I walked out of there thinking “crazy lady!” Lucky for me I didn’t have to put that theory to the test; I got into Queen’s, did really well, met lots of wonderful people, and had the time of my life.
The reason I’ve started thinking about high school again is it’s that time of year at Rotman: Second years are all freaking out to get into Investment Banking and Consulting and first years are worried that their marks won’t be high enough to get into Investment Banking or Consulting. I’ve found myself telling everyone not to worry too much about it, that they should just do their best, and repeating some version of what my guidance counselor told me. Quite often I get the “you’re crazy” look.
Over my life I’ve had many triumphs and failures. As I look back, I don’t think I would have been much happier if I had turned my failures into triumphs: Got the girl, didn’t get the girl; got the A, got a not-so-A-mark; scored the goal, scored on my own net; got the job, got a big “you’re a loser buddy.” It hasn’t really mattered to me as far as how happy I feel today… at least that’s the best that I can tell.
My “first year buddy” recently called me on this thinking and I remembered Dan Gilbert’s TED talk. I love TED talks and Dan’s is one of my favorite. You can buy his argument or not (there are some people in the comments section who don’t buy it) but it’s a talk to watch.
Don’t worry be happy now Do doot do do do do do do do do doot do , doo do do do do
The orientation camp is over and I think it went pretty well. The events I ran went off without a hitch. Today (Monday) I’m still yawning at 10am—oh so tiring.
Glad to have met so many of you first years, please feel free to fire me an e-mail, post a comment, or harass me in person if you need anything. I’ll post photos in the next week or so but my laptop is on the frits right now so I can’t download any pictures off my camera. Also, a huge shout-out to the PSO people at the Casino night. Thanks for coming out.
I have today off and am trying to use it effectively. The to do list is:
I have decided (again this year) to avoid most info sessions. I’m still not sure if I’m shooting myself in the foot but: there are so many to go to, I don’t like fighting with my classmates for “air time” with the recruiters, and I’m not sure how effective I’ll be at saying “something that catches the recruiters attention” rather than “something that turns them off.” For example, I was told by the recruiter from RIM that asking about the NTP case is a way to get short listed into the “doesn’t get it” or “is asking canned questions” pile. She also says she remembers only “a coupple” of names out of hundreds. It’s hard to stand out in such a talented crowd that I think I’d rather just play video games. Counter arguments?
In other news, I found out that the school used one of my blog postings at the taste of the MBA. This is both wonderful and scary at the same time.
p.s. I’m thinking of giving a first year access to post their experiences on my blog. This will allow you (the reader) to see all the changes that Rotman has made between the last two years. The school is really great at listening to feedback and continuingly improving the program; I think it’s important to show this. Anyone have any thoughts on this? Any first year student interested in using my blog as a platform to share your experiences? Why?
