Riz’s Rotman Blog

I just wanted to make sure I posted a disclaimer (like all the ads on TV): Results not Typical. That is, I seem to be one of the few who find that there isn’t much work at school. Many others are running around like chickens with their heads cut off.

With respect to my free time, I want to point out that I am doing a lot of other stuff… I’m not just sitting in my boxers all day playing video games… although it  sounds like a lot of fun.

I might be in London (England) for the bulk of May. Just an FYI. 

When I was finishing off my undergrad degree I ended up with only 4 courses in my last year. This left me with a considerable amount of free time since I was accustom to taking 12 to 16 courses a year. At the time I decided to start working full-time and I found myself a good job to keep me busy.

By the time school came to an end it wasn’t a very noteworthy event for me because I felt like I had finished school a year a go. I didn’t end up going to convocation and my degree is still rolled up in the tube they mailed to me. I just didn’t care anymore since I’d gotten on with my life.

I’m in the same position again at the end of my MBA. This semester’s workload is considerably less than any previous semester in my life (that last semester of my undergrad excluded). Consequently I’ve taken on a lot of projects in my free time. I’m also out of town most of the week. This also means I don’t have much Rotman related material to share.

So that’s that… Please leave a comment if you have any questions or ideas of things I should cover. I’ll try to keep posting what I can until the end of school but I wouldn’t hold my breath.

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:

• Get my laptop fixed. I think it’s a hardware problem so I’m off to the Apple Store.
• Get a good start on job applications. Yes RIM is sending me an offer but I don’t know the details of it yet and I haven’t decided on if I’m willing to live (”full-time”) in Waterloo.
• Clean my apartment. It is a mess since I haven’t unpacked from my move back from Waterloo.
• Do some of the required reading for the first week of class.

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?

Classes are over for Q3. Earlier this week we did a “simulation” assignment in Strategy. Basically, it’s a computer program that simulates the job of trying to sell the idea of Six Sigma to an organization. You have various tactics you can apply and you have to try and get the executives/top management on board. It was kind of fun to do and once you figure out the underlying algorithm it becomes easy to predict what to do and how to sell your idea in the organization—I guess that’s the learning point; learn the “algorithm” of the organization then you can sell you idea… So gather information!

Studying always sucks but at least this quarter we have a break in the middle of exams rather than 4 or 5 exams back-to-back-to-back-to…

Interesting tidbit: When I start getting bored in class I start to doodle on my notes. This is great in two ways:

1. It’s entertaining to look at. Apparently boredom yields creativity.
2. I know when I stopped paying attention in class and know that I have to read the book for this section.

I recently interviewed for a job with RIM. It sounds like a really cool job but they are hiring from schools all across North-America and competition sounds stiff. I’ll let you know what happens.

After exams I’m heading for a little vacation (as shown on my personal blog). It should be a good time and I’ll snap lots of pictures to post. After the trip I have to start up the job search again…

Anyways, enough procrastination… on to watching star-trek.

This is the second time I’ve gotten a cold since Q1 started. I’m attributing the colds to toll my body has taken due to the life-style change.

Related to the colds: I’ve started to become a total germaphobe. I’m constantly washing my hands (which isn’t a bad idea) but I actually catch my thinking about how much bacteria is on everything I touch—the subway especially. The move from a small town to the big city it turning me into a crazy person.

I’ve been drinking lots of OJ in hopes of kicking this cold—I really don’t need it during exams.

Today was my 2nd last day of work. Today I exchanged goodbyes with the senior architect—someone who’ve I’ve worked very closely with for the last 10 months.

Everyday for the last week I’ve felt like I’ve deconstructing the life I’ve built in Kingston these last 6 years. Each evening I feel like a few more bricks of my life have been removed and nothing is being built to replace it. It is unbelievably saddening.

I’ve already said goodbye to many of my friends, now many of my coworkers, soon my entire life will disappear and all that will remain is a van full of furniture and my ambitions for the future.

There is no real point to this post. I just felt that it is important to note how difficult it is to tear down the life you’ve built in order to start something totally new. I know many other students have it worse—some are moving around the world, to a country where no one speaks their native language—but I imagine that the experience of departing is similar.

Saturday will be the last day that I call Kingston ‘home.’

I just “finished” the online finance course. I say “finished” because I fast-forwarded through most of it. Here are my impressions:

1. If you know nothing about markets, interest, math, or excel, there is value in taking the course.
2. The professor did a very good job of presenting the material.
3. The course has a lot of info about things that we are obviously going to learn in the core finance course and (I feel) should not have been tested material in the initial “tests” we were given to determine if we should take the finance pre-course.
4. I would have learned just as much and been a lot happier with a list of topics, a quick set of formulas, and a link to a free excel tutorial. Basically, for me, I just needed a refresher on some of the concepts I had forgotten since my undergrad math/stats course.
5. Thankfully this was an online course, I was able to fast-forward through most of the things I already knew.

I’ll have a better idea of the value of this course once I actually start the program. I’ll post my impressions then.

Right now I hope that the other two (non-online) pre-courses will provide me with more. Just to save you upper-years some time: I know, I know… you told me so.

P.S. I move to Toronto in a week!

Rotman is offering the Finance pre-course in an online format this year. I examined my calendar and realized that if I took the online version, I’d virtually have an extra week off–Done!

The one disappointing thing is that the cost of the online course is the same as the IRL (in real life) course. Using the Internet should result in the school incurring much lower costs than the IRL course. I know they are just trying to make $$ but why not look at how much $ you’re making off the IRL course and then calculate the finance course cost using a formula like 1.3*IRL profit + online cost. The school will still be making more money from the people taking the online course and encouraging people to take the online course since it’s probably cheaper.

Maybe I’m just looking at this the wrong way. That and I’m just looking to save some money.

I’ll let you know how it goes. I plan on taking the course on/around next weekend.

I haven’t posted in a while but not much has happened until now.

I’ve applied and been approved for the Scotiabank Interest-Subsidized loan. All I have to do (I’m told) is fill out some remaining paperwork. This should provide enough money for me to make it through my first year without any major issues.

The process was rather painless–fill out some online forms, get an e-mail saying you’ve been approved.

The pre-course registration is coming up very soon. The school has made some self-assessment tests available to help us decide if we need to take a pre-course. The tests are a little ridiculous. Does Rotman honestly expect more than 30% of the class to be able to answer the following questions:

1. What is the primary output of the financial accounting activities in an organization? Be specific.
2. Identify and discuss the reasons why net income will usually be different from net cash flow.
3. From the following information, prepare balance sheets for Demo Corp. as of December 31, 2004, and as of January 31, 2005, and a statement of income for the month ended January 31, 2005. Use either T-accounts or journal entries to show how the statements are compiled….

The questions above are all from the accounting test but the finance test was almost as bad. I found most of the quantitative test easy—only because my background is in science/math. I have the distinct feeling that this is just a big money grab (each pre-course costs $100). The questions they are asking are things I would hope to learn about while earning my MBA, not things I would expect people to know before they start their MBA.

Regardless, I’m not going to risk it—I’ll just shell out the $300 and take all three of the courses (some of the quantitative questions were getting a little tricky). If I find that this ends up being a big money grab (i.e. they re-teach all of this during the actual courses), I will complain (loudly) on this blog.

Stay tuned.

I probably would have gotten to go to JavaOne this year. I guess this is what I get for letting work know in advance that I’m leaving.

(using Java conventions, shouldn’t it be called javaOne? :))