Thoughts on my first quarter

My first quarter which was the spring quarter of 2006 was a good learning experience. I had taken two subjects; Macroeconomics and Management. Both were quite interesting in their own ways. Macroecon was shedding light on how the world's economy, especially the US economy operates. It talks about inflation, interest rates, GDP etc...These are all the terms that you hear in your everyday life. This course helped me understand these terms in depth and how they affect our economy. For e.g. what the Fed does to control inflation..(this is a hot topic today because of rising inflations). The Management subject is treated by some folks as a "general" theory that usually is "known" to all. Well, if you look at the course, it is "General" stuff that is supposed to be known to all "managers" but in reality that is not true. I have not had a management background and this has helped me immensely. The prof Holly Schroth conducted some interesting case studies that got the whole class involved. Towards the end of the quarter there was a day long workshop called the Silicon Valley Technology workshop (SVT) that was meant to be chaotic and simulate the real world company atmosphere. Although I must say this one was more chaotic than is usual in any workplace. Each student is assigned a role ranging from the company's president to the Manager and handed over a bunch of emails. Everyone is suposed to sift through the emails (in printed form) and identify the goals to be accomplished and carry them through out the day. The idea is that the president should raise to the chaotic occasion, set goals and prioritize items and the VP's should communicate these goals down the chain etc... Oh boy! can you imagine the chaos and the struggle for power ? It is a fun exercise and also helps you understand your strength and weaknesses. in conclusion my first quarter was an interesting experience and I really enjoy doing my MBA! Drop me a line if you have any thoughts..

Want to do MBA but don't like GMAT ?

If you answer 'yes' to this question, then you are not alone. A lot of people that I have spoken to have the same feeling especially people who are already working but want to pursue higher education. After defering my plans for about two years I finally gathered the courage to sitdown and prepare for my GMAT. GMAT as you may know is mostly objective, except for the two essays. I blew my first attempt and scored only 530. This score could only get me a seat in San Francisco State University (SFSU) or Sanjose State University (SJSU). I was not happy with my score and I believed that if I was going to invest a lot of time and money in an MBA programme then it might as well be the best possible programme that could yield a higher ROI. So I decided to take it again after a month and wooo I scored 670. I didn't expect this honestly ; but there was something significantly different that I did during my second preparation. I spent about three months preparing before my first atempt. I must say that I had been out of college for 10 years when I attempted my GMAT. So I had to brush up a lot and in GMAT time is of essence. I didnot go for any classes because they were expensive and I didnot believe much in them. So I bought the Kaplan GMAT book with CD ROM and the Official Guide for GMAT. The editions have changed since then. In preparing for my first attempt I went through the Kaplan book and solved all the exercises. I even timed myself while solving the problems in the book. I then took the two or three tests from the Official guide. This gave me enough confidence but I didnot do a good job in training myself to manage the time well. My plan was to divide the test into two halfs and time it accordingly. During my actual test I blew on the timing. I was too slow and had the tendency to keep trying although in my subconciousness I knew that I had to move on. As a result I had to guess a lot of the questions towards the end for lack of time. For my second round I used the Kaplan CD and took the tests. WoW! What a wonderful resource and how stupid of me to have ignored this in the first place. There were about seven or eight actual exams that was a simulation of the real exam. Towards the end of the exam it gives you some statistics and you can analyze your weakness and improve on them. It was cool. The questions on the Kaplan CD are much tougher and lengthier (in the maths section) than the actual GMAT tests. I also adopted a different method of timing. I divided the section into three parts instead of two. This gave me a quicker feedback. I knew exactly how many questions I should have completed in the first interval, in the second and in the third. If I was lagging behind then I knew it much sooner. This preparation and the timing technique really helped me. I couldn't believe when I really saw my score on the screen. With a score of 670 my hopes of getting into a top Business school was once again revived. I joined Santa Clara in the Spring of 2006.

Do you have any stories on how you made the move to take GMAT finally ? Share with us ...

I thought I would put a tree of the required and waivable courses on the web so that I can share with you all on my progress. After the first quarter ( I am yet to receive grades for 1 subject) I have completed two courses meaning 6 units of work out of the required 70 units. Here's a graph of the courses and its dependencies. The rectangles with brown borders indicates the courses I have completed. Blue boxes means they have no pre-requisites.

My list of courses

I have decided to blog my experience of doing an MBA at the Santa Clara University. I am in my second quarter and I am taking a break during this summer as I have a trip planned to India. Doing a part time MBA is an amazing experience. My classes start at about 7:00pm and goes on for an hour and fifteen minutes. At half past eight a second class begins and goes on till about 9:45.pm. I personaly enjoy the busy schedule although I should admit that it gets too busy sometimes managing two kids, a work life and school assignments and group works.