I hope you all enjoy the Finding Nemo reference in the title of this post. I think I can speak for most of us in saying that that is how we felt trying to get through the final week before break.
My team and I decided to meet early Monday morning to put the final touches on our Finance case and debrief after some feedback from our professor on our first IDP deliverable. Surprisingly, we were quite productive for a short meeting (we can get a little chatty and easily digress). After the meeting, we made our way to Finance to discuss the case and get our midterms back. It was an interesting case discussion, as many of the calculations were based on assumptions, so most teams had different results. Unfortunately, I did not do as well as I hoped on the midterm, but I did get positive feedback on my effort from our professor. Following class, a couple of the other students reps and I had a quick follow up meeting with the Director of Student Services to debrief about the feedback we had given him in last week's meeting. It was nice to touch base and get some advice for moving forward. A friend and I then grabbed lunch at Panera Bread and did a couple errands before attacking this week's Ops case.
Tuesday morning we got a little break from our traditional Supply Chain class with a guest speaker from Kiva Systems. If you don't know what they do, they use automation technology to simplify operations in warehouses to pick and fill orders using robots - pretty cool! After class and a quick lunch my team and I headed over to Hayden Hall to meet with our Strategy professor to clarify some questions we had on our IDP project. Unluckily, he was sick and we did not get our questions answered. We then attempted a group study session for our Ops midterm, but quickly called it a day to study individually. With spring break only days away, it took all my energy to focus on making sense of everything we've covered until this point. Yet again, I called it an early night and set my alarm early enough to review my notes in the morning.
After some last minute review, the midterm did not seem so bad. I just hope I did not easily confuse similar concepts. After the midterm (it was only an hour of our two hour class), we discussed the case on mass customization. It was good because it incorporated a lot of the calculations we have been doing, but unfortunately I did most of them wrong. Luckily, I was able to keep up as we rushed through to finish before the end of the class. In Finance, we went through the process of valuing companies and stocks and it relates to our IDP project. After class, my stats team met to start our second case. With all the work we had, our professor was nice enough to push the due date back from the beginning of class on Thursday to Friday afternoon. We were able to complete the calculations and a good portion of the write-up before a team member and I headed off to our second Brazil/Argentina meeting. During the meeting we received an updated itinerary, our roommate confirmation, and our assigned teams. The professor talked a little bit more about flight information, urging us to book as soon as possible. Also, one of our peers shared his experience of getting his Brazilian Visa so we don't have to make multiple trips to the consulate. After a long couple of weeks, this meeting was a great way to get everyone excited again! Following the meeting, a couple friends and I had a leisurely dinner at The Cheesecake Factory. Happy Leap Day!
I give our professors props for being able to hold our attention during classes on Thursday (our final day before spring break!). In Stats we revisited last week's introduction to hypothesis testing, complete with an exercise with M&M's. Candy is always a great way to grab the attention of over-tired grad students. We also got our midterms back, and I must say, I am much more satisfied (and relieved!) with this result compared to Finance. We kept the energy going (the little we have left) in Strategy with a case discussion on the old vs. new global wine market and ended the class with a competition experiment. As it turns out, most of us fell victim to the concept of prisoner's dilemma and game theory. After class and a quick lunch, my stats team met once again to finish our case write-up. It took two hours and every ounce of focus we had left to complete it, hit print, and hand it in to our professor so we did not have to come to campus on Friday. A friend and I celebrated the end of the week with some Coldstone ice cream, despite the fact it was snowing and raining. Though the ice cream alleviated some of the stress of the last few weeks, I had a headache and felt completely run down by the time I got home. It was a wonderful feeling to be able to crawl into bed to watch movies, absolutely guilt-free.
The wonderful feeling continued into Friday morning when I woke up at 11am with not a single thing on my to-do list. Fabulous!
We are officially halfway through the semester. Happy spring break!
My team and I decided to meet early Monday morning to put the final touches on our Finance case and debrief after some feedback from our professor on our first IDP deliverable. Surprisingly, we were quite productive for a short meeting (we can get a little chatty and easily digress). After the meeting, we made our way to Finance to discuss the case and get our midterms back. It was an interesting case discussion, as many of the calculations were based on assumptions, so most teams had different results. Unfortunately, I did not do as well as I hoped on the midterm, but I did get positive feedback on my effort from our professor. Following class, a couple of the other students reps and I had a quick follow up meeting with the Director of Student Services to debrief about the feedback we had given him in last week's meeting. It was nice to touch base and get some advice for moving forward. A friend and I then grabbed lunch at Panera Bread and did a couple errands before attacking this week's Ops case.
Tuesday morning we got a little break from our traditional Supply Chain class with a guest speaker from Kiva Systems. If you don't know what they do, they use automation technology to simplify operations in warehouses to pick and fill orders using robots - pretty cool! After class and a quick lunch my team and I headed over to Hayden Hall to meet with our Strategy professor to clarify some questions we had on our IDP project. Unluckily, he was sick and we did not get our questions answered. We then attempted a group study session for our Ops midterm, but quickly called it a day to study individually. With spring break only days away, it took all my energy to focus on making sense of everything we've covered until this point. Yet again, I called it an early night and set my alarm early enough to review my notes in the morning.
After some last minute review, the midterm did not seem so bad. I just hope I did not easily confuse similar concepts. After the midterm (it was only an hour of our two hour class), we discussed the case on mass customization. It was good because it incorporated a lot of the calculations we have been doing, but unfortunately I did most of them wrong. Luckily, I was able to keep up as we rushed through to finish before the end of the class. In Finance, we went through the process of valuing companies and stocks and it relates to our IDP project. After class, my stats team met to start our second case. With all the work we had, our professor was nice enough to push the due date back from the beginning of class on Thursday to Friday afternoon. We were able to complete the calculations and a good portion of the write-up before a team member and I headed off to our second Brazil/Argentina meeting. During the meeting we received an updated itinerary, our roommate confirmation, and our assigned teams. The professor talked a little bit more about flight information, urging us to book as soon as possible. Also, one of our peers shared his experience of getting his Brazilian Visa so we don't have to make multiple trips to the consulate. After a long couple of weeks, this meeting was a great way to get everyone excited again! Following the meeting, a couple friends and I had a leisurely dinner at The Cheesecake Factory. Happy Leap Day!
I give our professors props for being able to hold our attention during classes on Thursday (our final day before spring break!). In Stats we revisited last week's introduction to hypothesis testing, complete with an exercise with M&M's. Candy is always a great way to grab the attention of over-tired grad students. We also got our midterms back, and I must say, I am much more satisfied (and relieved!) with this result compared to Finance. We kept the energy going (the little we have left) in Strategy with a case discussion on the old vs. new global wine market and ended the class with a competition experiment. As it turns out, most of us fell victim to the concept of prisoner's dilemma and game theory. After class and a quick lunch, my stats team met once again to finish our case write-up. It took two hours and every ounce of focus we had left to complete it, hit print, and hand it in to our professor so we did not have to come to campus on Friday. A friend and I celebrated the end of the week with some Coldstone ice cream, despite the fact it was snowing and raining. Though the ice cream alleviated some of the stress of the last few weeks, I had a headache and felt completely run down by the time I got home. It was a wonderful feeling to be able to crawl into bed to watch movies, absolutely guilt-free.
The wonderful feeling continued into Friday morning when I woke up at 11am with not a single thing on my to-do list. Fabulous!
We are officially halfway through the semester. Happy spring break!
*The views expressed in this blog are not necessarily those of Northeastern University, its staff, faculty or affiliates and are solely the opinion of Keri Deming
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