July, 2009

Procrastination

Monday, July 27th, 2009

Teagen Densmore, TMMBA Student

Procrastination.

The sound of the word makes me cringe, it’s the monkey on my back that I don’t seem able to shake.

I’m a sufferer of procrastination…sometimes. Starting large and complicated projects/assignments/tasks with due dates attached is a personal puzzle.

Luckily, I like solving puzzles. Solving this particular puzzle is a goal I had in sight when I started the TMMBA program back in January because grad school involves lots of big projects with big, hairy due dates. Grad school also involves a lot of work. All nighters are not fun if you have to get up and go to work and school the next day…and the next day.

And to top it off, team members are counting on you.

Despite trying several different solutions to my procrastination puzzle, I have yet to hit upon one that works for me. Like any good puzzler, I’ve been learning and refining my strategy with each attempt–getting closer and closer to a solution that works.

I think my current solution (”Procrasti-Can 3.0″) might be gold, so I wanted to share it with you all.

Here, I’ll lay out what I’ve decided are the important clues that led me to this solution:

Clue 1:
No due date? No problem. I’ll happily chip away at the project in small chunks or all-nighters. On my own time, I love doing projects and I’m a very hard worker. In fact, I often have several personal projects (well, I did before grad school) going at one time. Aversion to work is not an issue (unless it’s Sunday morning, then I’m sleeping in).

Clue 2:
Big projects with due dates appear differently to me than big projects without due dates. Big projects with due dates feel like giant, inscalable walls, too big and complicated to approach in one bound. “You’ve got to be kidding me” is a phrase that comes to mind. Not exactly inspiring…not what you want to have running through your head mid-quarter when you have, like, five million big projects due.

Clue 3:
Many of you are probably thinking “Duh, just slice up the big, scary projects into smaller pieces”–the classic recipe for procrastinator success.

You are right and I’ve certainly tried it, but it still hasn’t worked for me. The mantra “I’ll just do a little bit now” was still too…ambiguous/unknown/unquantifiable, just like the giant project. It’s the only way, but my application was still off.

Solution:
So, what’s the secret ingredient that would make the classic recipe work for me? Structure.

Here’s my recipe for success:

    Procrasti-Can 3.0: “15 minutes a day”
    Everyday for each class, spend:
    *15 minutes on reading
    *15 minutes on the next small assignment that’s due
    *15 minutes on the next big assignment (i.e. project/paper/test) that’s due

This plan uses the classic “smaller pieces” solution, but also adds structure that limits the small pieces–thus preventing the pieces from morphing into big scary procrastinator nightmares.

Certainly, this is nothing new. I’m sure there is a whole shelf of books at Barnes and Noble on exactly what I’ve laid out here.

Why am I figuring this out now? Over the years, I’ve learned that many people can offer solutions to a problem, but you have to really understand the issue at hand before you can effectively choose and apply the right solution.

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Another Saturday almost done

Saturday, July 25th, 2009

Aaron Lykken, Program Manager

Ah, TMMBA Saturdays. As I begin this post I can’t help but to look longingly at the sunny weather outside my office window. The Summer quarter is now at about the half-way point and this is the 3rd of 5 Saturdays scheduled. During a typical quarter (10 weeks), students enrolled in the program attend 10 weekday evenings (6-930) and every other Saturday (8:30 AM – 4:30 PM). Today was a nice combination of Marketing and Negotiations, two very different disciplines. A lot of the students have a good time in these courses as they are very interactive. A couple examples of this is the product taste testing in Marketing (to show how advertising can create an image for the product) and in Negotiations, case/interactive scenarios where teams are assigned roles and backgrounds on simulated negotiations scenarios and they get to practice negotiating an agreement and using the tools they acquire in class. It’s always refreshing when Faculty take a different approach to teach material and I see it constantly throughout the program. The students work hard and take each of the deliverables seriously but they also have a good time as they learn together. One thing we like to remind students when they start the program, this is a different environment than the workplace where you have to worry about inter-office politics, what you say/challenge, etc. In the classroom, it’s okay to try new things, challenge each other and ideas, and think about things in a different way, that’s a big part about going back to school, so it’s wonderful to see the students engaged in the material being covered.

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Summer Quarter

Monday, July 20th, 2009

Aaron Lykken, Program Manager

I have always enjoyed Summer quarter in the TMMBA program. This feeling is probably the product of my enjoyment of Summer quarter as an undergrad student at the UW (best time to be on campus and in Seattle) combined with the timing of the quarter within TMMBA. By timing, I am referring to how Summer quarter begins after graduation (for the veteran cohort) in early June. Since I work primarily with the student body and faculty, this allows me an increased opportunity to connect with the newer cohort of students as my attention is no longer split across two groups.

Another fantastic reason for me to enjoy the Summer quarter is that I enjoy seeing the shift to more qualitative content. The first two quarters of the TMMBA program begins with many of the traditional core courses such as Accounting, Economics, Statistics, Finance, etc., which are mostly quantitative heavy courses. I find it a bit interesting to observe from the surface level how those with quantitatively focused degrees thrive early but then see them adjust and adapt to more qualitative content such as Negotiations, Leadership, and Marketing. The inverse happens for those with liberal arts focused backgrounds too, as they are forced to work heavily with numbers initially and then later welcome courses that make use of studies and theories instead of formulas. Either way, it is extremely important to have an understanding of how the various disciplines in business function so that one can see how they operate as a whole and affect one another. Regardless of the background of the student, they’re all here for the same purpose, to obtain a collection of business tools to help them make the next career/life move they desire; whether it’s a promotion, change of job function, breaking into a new industry, or even starting their own business.

So, while it surely is difficult to have to turn down sailing on Lake Washington or taking a hike in the Cascades in order to complete assignments and readings for classes, Class 9 certainly appears to have good momentum and spirit as they near the half-way point in the quarter. Perhaps they’re driven by the significant milestone in the program, September, which is the one large break in TMMBA (roughly a month long) and just as importantly, marks the half-way point for the program (3 quarters down, 3 more to go).

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Kindle DX

Monday, July 20th, 2009

Tracy Gojdics, Director

Students starting the program in 2010 will recieve their books and some course materials via a Kindle DX. New students will receive their Kindle’s during the Program Orientation Immersion December 4-6. This is a very exciting addition to the program and one that we think will benefit students. I recently announced this news to our current students and this is a bit of the feedback I received:

I can see it add value to us and we can have all our material (text books) in one place. Since it is digital, it is also very easy to look up information about a certain topic using keywords in a text book. There are many features that Kindle offers. I am a lot of people from Class 9 would love to have a Kindle.

I think this is an excellent idea and does fit very well into the TMMBA program. I will admit I’m quite jealous and now wish I was in class 10
P.S. I’m more than happy to stop receiving printed material if you want to give me a Kindle

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This is brilliant. We are all making best use of spare moments to keep up with reading for class – waiting for the bus, at lunch, at little league games… Unless I plan my reading very carefully, I end up carrying a duffle full of books everywhere. I’m calling it my fitness program.

Putting the reading material on a kindle is incredibly practical (in addition to being pretty darn cool.)

The TMMBA program is the absolute best use case for the kindle. I’m excited for future students…

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I would love it if we could introduce this as an option for Class 9 as well. I have always found the idea of lugging along heavy binders of paper not very appealing as well as not very environmentally friendly. Could we do something like make this available as an option, people who sign up would not receive printed version of the materials for the rest of the course? (I am even willing to pay something for the device since I have received 1/3 of the material as printouts). I realize this is more work for the program staff, but it would be totally awesome if we could do it.
The way I think about it, 3 years from now, if I want to look something we read/discussed in class, I am unlikely to go home and open up my large binder to locate the information.

————————
Wow, that’s great news and I am very jealous. This totally changes the game on whether to get paper copies or their electronic versions.
I was one of those of opposed getting the material only from ereserves as I felt that would ne too much hassle downloading the material one at a time and storing on the computer. Also since I archive all UW material on my home computer instead of the work one, I would still end up printing most of the material to read while commuting.
But having a Kindle DX changes all that. So even though you mention that this is for class 10 onwards, I got to ask if we could also get it in lieu of getting paper copies of books and materials.

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Summer Funancial Aid

Friday, July 17th, 2009

Hani Rachidi, TMMBA Student

So only read this posting if you are not a trust fund baby, work for a company with full tuition reimbursement, or are so well off you should be in the Executive MBA program. This post is about why financial aid for summer tuition is so much fun.

Firstly, you must realize that the academic calendar is like a fiscal calendar it ends with the spring quarter, roughly June. So that means you have to apply for Summer quarter onwards for the 2009-10 academic year. Okay, I realized this the first week of June, great, that means I technically have about one month to get my financial aid information completed to meet the Summer Quarter tuition deadline of Friday, July 10th. Plenty of time, oh ya summer fun and travel and financial aid no worries. I even had a month off of work and barely made the cutoff, in fact I missed it but was saved by the secret Monday, July 13th actual deadline….here’s the drama and why I termed it funancial aid.

1) I go to fafsa.gov and fill out all my information – 15mins to an hour depending on the amount of fabrication you want to submit. For me I don’t fabricate so it takes me longer to look up stuff about how much I cannot currently afford this $60K+ program

2) The UW funancial aid office receives my submitted fafsa form – felt like a week could have been less/more doesn’t matter when you call them you are on hold for at least 10 minutes every time if not 30 minutes so it feels like the experience is longer especially with the awkward moments of pause silence where you don’t know ifyou have lost cell phone coverage or somebody on the other line is playing a game on you or that you’ve listened to the background music so long that it numbs your sense of hearing so you hear nothing although there is something

3) UW informs me after I call them and proactively ask what’s up with aid that I need to prove that I’m a citizen and fill out a form and go visit the Social Security Administration – okay I like jumping hoops and wasting beautiful summer afternoons proving that I voted in the last few elections and that I am a citizen and oh wait you gave me financial aid the last two quarters, yes this is fun

4) Now after submitting the proof of citizenship I’m awarded aid another phone conversation with the UW Funancial Aid office confirms that yes I should be ready to go we are now around 1st week of July and my aid is awaiting my approval/acceptance of it

5) I accept the aid and it’s a couple of days before the cut off – so the story is over but wait i have to sign some electronic promissory note at some obscure website that is not posted in my UW funancial aid web page, so another converstaion with the UW funancial aid office i get a letter by letter read out of this 80 letter obscure website

6) I click through the website reading nothing because it takes 72 hours from the point of completing it to hit UW office of funancial aid, this takes about 20 minutes even with reading nothing and filling out a few pieces of personal info, there’s like 15 steps it feels like a weight loss program for typists my fingers were skinnier when i completed it my ring fell of my left ring finger it was weird, surreal, fun experience i felt like i became divorced from reality and married to the financial aid process in some weird literal, figurative way

7) Next I call the UW funancial aid office on deadline day July 10th, and ask did you get the money yet, this was after waiting 25 minutes on hold, the answer was no

8) It’s Monday, July 13th grace period day for tuition deadline, I call funancial aid UW and ask money present? the response was umm well you need to contact UW fiscal services on this issue we have seen a lot delays for aid funding not sure what’s wrong. So Fiscal Services pushes through the aid it was like sitting in some electronic funds gateway just like waiting for some manual intervention, no clue, stopped asking why is this happening to me and was just grateful at that point that I could incur tens of thousands of dollars of debt

Unfortunately this may be the story of people in debt all across our great country and why sometimes I feel like my older friends are right when they say save then spend. Then again, financial leverage, to a certain extent, is healthy just all the trouble to get there puts a bit of strain on your health.

I hope your experience is better than mine and that you are fortunate enough not to have had to read this blog, meaning don’t need financial aid.

Posted in Financial Aid & Fees, Student Advice | No Comments »

GMAT Anxiety

Thursday, July 9th, 2009

Tracy Gojdics, Director

I have been meeting with many applicants and prospective students lately to discuss their GMAT scores and want to share with you my thoughts on this test that causes folks a lot of anxiety…

- The GMAT is just one component of the application. When we say that the admissions process is a holistic process we mean it. The GMAT score does not tell an applicant’s whole story.

- We accept a students with a range of GMAT scores. Typically the average is around 630 for a class, but the range can be quite vast. Because we get to know most of the applicants and have had a conversation with them about their work history, aspirations and educational background, should a “low” (to quote applicants) GMAT doesn’t override what we know about you.

- Believe it or not there have been times when applicants with 700+ GMAT scores have not been offered admission. It comes down to fit, ability to contribute, motivation and interpersonal and team skills. Scoring high in these areas are what count.

Is there a “minimum” score required? It depends. If you are unsure of whether you should retake the GMAT please come see me or call me.

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