First Week

Ok, so Week 1 started with almost every student in class fifteen minutes before 6pm. That indicates one of two things, either we as a cohort are really excited to get the ball rolling, or 620 traffic backs up something nasty around 5:30 and no one wanted to be late. Ok, so one classmate was late and I know she felt horrible about that first impression with the professor, but she'll impress him in the end.

All joking aside, there were great conversations while learning who our team mates will be for the first two semesters. It may not have been explained before, but we are a cohort of 20 students and are divided into 4 teams. Three of the 4 groups have 3 ladies and 2 men, with the remaining group having 3 men and 2 ladies.

I was very excited about the team I was placed on as I had already had good discussions with two of them prior to learning of the arrangement. Ironically, I was placed in a group with the student I disagreed with in week 0. I think that Dr. Ford may have observed the way we debated the hot topic of taxes and placed us together because of the way we engaged our problem. I already feel that my team has a great blend of experience and talent.

Class started with Professor Warren's Marketing Management class. We introduced ourselves, discussed the syllabus and then jumped into an intriguing question. Monday evening was the night before the much anticipated announcement of Apple joining forces with Verizon to introduce the iPhone 4 on the Verizon Wireless network. So, as most people may gather, I am a technophile, and I love considering the challenges that technology companies face. Technology companies do not have the luxury of time. Delaying a release of software for 3 months can cost a company dearly. Consider the phone I just got back in September, the Samsung Vibrant. This phone came out in the summer, maybe June or July. By October internet forums were talking about how slow T-Mobile was to update software for the phone. Seriously, the operating system was less than half a year old. The fueling force behind that is version 2.1 (nicknamed Eclair) which the phone was released with is already 2 versions behind Google's latest offering 2.3 (Gingerbread). Sorry about the tangent, but it sure illustrates that companies have a fanatical customer base, luckily only about 10% of people are early adopters.

Professor Warren led us while we attempted to prepare a SWOT analysis as a class. So, it seems easy to find Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats for such a high profile company, but it certainly became apparent that Strengths and Opportunities are difficult to differentiate between. The same goes for Weaknesses and Threats. More than once, I spoke out to voice a facet I didn't feel had been revealed, simply to realize that my concern boiled down to an issue that was listed already. Admittedly, it wasn't my finest hour, but I liked being a part of the brain trust. Everyone else in class seemed engaged with the problem as well. I will fill in details about future assignments as they get closer to my radar. I am not able to think about some of the upcoming projects yet for fear of my brain drowning.

Next we had Managerial Economics with Dr. Joselito Estrada. I want to be fair when I say this, but Dr. Estrada's class topic is nowhere near as exciting as Professor Warren's by any stretch of the imagination. Also, considering that Dr. Estrada gets our minds at 8:10pm in the evening after our 8 or 9 hour day of work and prior class. The odds were completely stacked against our Economics professor. That said, I was interested the entire class. Yeah, I saw people losing some steam during class, but by no fault of the teacher. This class will not be focused on the mathematical calculations of economic textbooks, but instead deciphering what the values would mean, and getting comfortable with the lingo.

I've got to end this post, it's long-winded, but the best question of the evening came from Travis when he asked if the content from this discussion was covered on the test, what would that question look like. Here is where you would assume I took good notes, right? Yeah, I had already put my notepad up. That's what I learned on Monday, don't pack up until you are sure it's over.  Tchau!