FULL TIME MBA

Stephen Haines, Class of 2008

Posted April 8, 2007

 

It has been a sad month in the life of my MBA experience.  After eight months of fighting a good fight and refusing to give in to student norms, I have conceded to the world of AIM.  That's correct; I am officially a 26-year old male who instant messages.  Half my friends say I need to check in my man card, while my other friends are welcoming me to the 21st century.  I'm not sure how I feel about instant messaging yet, but here are a few things we have been typing about recently.

Classes in the 4th module have started out well.  For me, this is the most exciting mod because I get to pick most of the classes I am taking.  My first class is an 8 am business strategy and development course.  Professor Croson was nice enough to invest in a 42 cup coffee maker (caffeine is a must that early) and we spend most of the 3 hours of class discussing case studies.  Part of me is worried that 1/3 of my grade is class participation, but it really encourages me to be prepared for class each morning.  I have even resorted to getting to campus at 6 am to review case details, which is something I would never have done in the past.  Also, we start each strategy class with a quiz over the weekly reading.  If you don't like your grade on the quiz, you don't have to turn the quiz in to the professor.  Your grade on the final will then have a larger weight on your overall grade, but you'll learn to appreciate professors that give you this kind of flexibility on your grade.  I have kept two quizzes and tossed one so far.

The other class I am enjoying so far is my portfolio selection and analysis class.  In three weeks, we have covered asset allocation strategies, equity evaluation techniques and two case studies.  This class really grooms you for the portfolio practicum elective in your second year, where a group of second year MBA students run a portfolio inside SMU's endowment.  Our professor is a recently retired portfolio manager at Putnam and State Street, so I know I am getting real world experience in the classroom.

Socially, things were great this past month!  St. Patrick's Day was one of the biggest parties of the year in Dallas and at SMU.  I'm still confused as to why I celebrate a holiday I know nothing about, but it was a great time.  A classmate ended up having 550 people out to his house for an afternoon of live music and adult beverages.  The band opened by saying we were there to celebrate "Life, liberty and the pursuit of happy hour."  I sometimes feel that way after a week of studying!  My only complaint about St. Patty's day was my green cup had a distinct flavor of ping pong.  I love graduate school!

I have been enjoying the live music scene in Dallas the last few months.  I took a date (actually she took me) to a Bob Schneider concert at the Granada Theatre.  If you haven't seen this guy, I highly recommend checking out his show when you're in Dallas.  My crude description would be somewhere between Jason Mraz putting on an alternative show at a Dave Matthews concert.  If that doesn't make sense, just go check out the concert.  If you are an incoming student and not from Dallas, check out the Granada Theatre.  A little lower-Greenville recreation is fun every now and then...

So my classmates and I are getting ready for our GLP trip to China; our flight leaves for Hong Kong on May 5th!  I am learning all kinds of fascinating words like ni hao (hello) and xie xie (thank you).  My first attempt to translate a sentence in class took me 15 minutes, and came out "If you park, don't walk, accidents cause people."  I'm thinking my translation was wrong, but I still have another month to improve my loquacious Chinese skills.

This month I decided to suck it up and join a Dallas softball league.  My team is terrible, but I highly recommend joining a league because it is more social than competitive.  After careful consideration, we named our team “El Pollo Loco.”  I have no idea why we thought that was funny.  In fact, the name will probably be the highlight of our season.  Two wins here we come!

 

Finally, there were a number of things I found funny this month that are starting to define my graduate experience (and realization that everyone in graduate school is a little quirky)...