Florida MBA Blog

Should You Get an Online MBA?

2010-02-07T21:31:00.000-08:00

This is a question I think a lot of you may be asking yourselves. There are certainly advantages of doing the MBA online.

For one, you can do an online MBA program from the comfort of your own home even if the school you are using is thousands of miles away. You are no longer constrained by geography as you might be with a more traditional program. You could get your degree from a school in the US, even if you live in Europe.
It takes away a lot of, but not all of, the time constraints of traditional classroom work. Although for most online programs, you will have regular some meeting times, there are opportunities to work at your own pace, watching lectures and such when they are most convenient to you. This time-shifting can be a real boon. You can still see your family, you can still work a job.
You get to live where you already live. There is no on-campus housing or any of the craziness that goes with it. Big cost saving here too.

Now, as with all things, there are tradeoffs.

No, or limited, classroom time. Some people need this time to really get away from their lives and focus on the material. It's really easy to get distracted with TV, facebook, the kids, the spouse, the mail, the phone, the dog, the whatever. There are a ton of distractions out there and a classroom setting is essential for some.
Somewhat limited access to others. I know the internet is a great place and the technology has come a long way, but you don't make the same connections over email and chat like you do in a real classroom setting.
Somewhat limited access to professors. Yes there are resources for asking questions, but does it really equal the classroom setting where your peers can ask follow-up similar questions and a great discussion can ensue? Can your professor give you the one-on-one attention like he/she can give in a more intimate classroom setting?
Possibly more money. The online only program at my school was more expensive than the professional program I attended. This didn't make sense to me, but yeah. All costs factored in, you might be spending less, or you might actually be spending more.
Industry respect? The internet is gaining more and more acceptance everyday in all walks of life, but I don't think it's quite there yet with respect to how employers view online degrees. It might take some explaining that it's the same degree as the classroom guys got. And it's all about which school you go to. Make sure it's got a name that people have heard of.

So should you get an online MBA. Only you can decide that. I considered the option when I chose my program. I decided that I had too many distractions at home at the time and that I needed to get away to class in order to be really able to focus. Additionally, I felt there was a lot of value in being able to talk to my peers on breaks and have access to the professor directly.

The MBA, almost two years later.

2010-02-04T05:51:00.000-08:00

I graduated in the P2MBAS08 class, which means it was spring of 2008 when I got my MBA. Although it's not quite two years since I graduated, it has been more than two years since I last updated this blog. It's about time for an update.

Well, a lot has happened to me in the last two years. Soon after graduation, my personal life took a nice dive. I got divorced and had my house foreclosed. Not good there. Yes, even awesome MBA's can manage their money poorly. We were overextended on the house and our money problems caused a split in our marriage. Them's the breaks.

Since then, I've gotten my life back on track. I'm living well below my means and have a great new girlfriend. So, personal life is going great!

What happened in my professional life with the big, fancy MBA?

Well, not a lot to report there. Like most of my MBA cohort, I stayed at my job. My intention with the MBA was to get another job but after graduation, my employer gave me a giant raise. The giant raise was, as they say, the golden handcuffs. I've stayed here ever since.

Looking at it financially, with my new raise, the MBA gets an ROI of 3 years. Pretty awesome. The loan won't be paid off by then but that's when my newly adjusted income will catch up with the tuition I sunk in. Nothing to shake a stick at.

Besides the financial bonuses, the MBA has paid off in other ways. I'm much more familiar with the inner workings and inner motivations of the different departments within my company. Our contract with NASA is up for rebid, with the award coming out any day now. I got to see the rebid process happen and I'm a lot more in-tune with all the inner struggles involved in the rebid since I'm armed with my MBA knowledge.

I am really happy that I got my degree. It didn't result in my instantly landing a C-Level job or anything like that. I didn't expect it to. That was more of a ten year plan, anyway. What it did do was get me into a higher strata that will have huge long term career benefits that I am only just now tasting.

Now that my personal struggles are mostly handled, I am getting my life back on track. I'm saving money, soon to start investing. I've got a plan now that I didn't have while the divorce was happening. I'm optimistic about the future.

Management, Entrepreneurship and your MBA

2007-12-02T18:56:00.000-08:00

I can't believe it has been more than a full year since my last post. It's gone incredibly quickly. In terms of my degree, since we are graduating in April I am pretty much 5 months away.

We have taken some very interesting classes over the last year. One of them, Business Law, really inspired me. The teacher was so great and I found the material so interesting that I momentarily considered selling my soul to go become a lawyer. That was just a brief lapse in judgment though. :)

Now that I have another year experience under my belt and another year of business school, I am finally feeling that I have some perspective on the business world. Of course, you can never really be an expert in it until you've put 30 years in, but I'm now beginning to see just how much skill and hard work it would take to run a business successfully. From what I'm seeing, the biggest part is your management team.

As far as I can tell, and again I'm not expert, your management team is really the singly most important thing in business. As I see it, there should be a course called "Picking the right management team". The crux of it is that an A+ management team can take a C- idea and be successful, when a C management team can screw up even an A+ idea.

And everyone knows it.

If you were thinking about starting a business, the most important choice is your team. Investors know it. A rock solid management team makes all of the difference in getting funding. There is no question that you have to have a good idea and a good plan, but it's so critical to everything that your managers are great and know their stuff.

This semester we are taking two classes, 'Entrepreneurship' and 'Venture Finance'. These are great classes but it's becoming clearer and clearer that you have no chance of success in going the startup route without some great contacts. You need to enlist some great managers, you need to enlist some great advisers and you need to enlist some investors that are compatible with your plan. It's not something that you can go at alone.

Even short of the entrepreneurship route, in established businesses it's still important that your team be top notch. You can't do everything by yourself, the better your top level managers are, the better your chances of success.

So what has this great perspective gained me? Well, I know I need to step up my game in terms of networking. It's truly not what you know but who you know. It's an ancient saying but it's so right. Team building is a people skill and it's something that takes a lot of work. So get started.

Wherefore art thou?

2006-11-12T07:04:00.000-08:00

It's now November, I haven't given any love to my blog since April. I guess I'm not such a hot-shot blogger like I thought I was going to be. The post prior had been a long time coming too. I really am bad at this.

Anyway, what has happened in the meantime?

Well, my first term classes (managerial accounting, economics, and professional writing) gave way to my second term classes. These classes were Finance, Marketing and Speech. They went well for me. Our Marketing prof was really great and was awesome to listen to. Finance was a tough one, but it had to happen. You can't get an MBA without learning about the CAPM. Speech is a two term course for us, meaning that we are taking it again this term.

In fact, it has been so long since I last posted that it is already the middle of the third term.

Our third term classes are Statistics, Production/Ops management, and Speech. They are interesting classes but trend towards the boring. The stats class is kind of a review for a lot of us from undergrad statistics. I took stats 1 & 2 as an undergrad CS major, so it's not so terrible for me. I pity those who never took stats though. We are learning to do all of the arithmetic parts mechanically using excel.... so it's not so much the math that they are teaching, but the interpretation. This is nice.

In ops we played a game demonstrating the bullwhip effect. It was pretty cool... it was called the "beer distribution game". Basically, you had teams that represented the supply chain from production to retail of pallets of beer. The retailer would place orders and the distributor would take the orders and fulfill them, placing orders to their wholesaler who would do the same to the manufacturer. Everyone would pay penalties for backorders or excess inventory... it was an interesting demonstration of the bullwhip problem. Hopefully we learned something there. :)

The third month

2006-04-10T14:40:00.000-07:00

I haven't written here in a while. In fact, I never posted about month two... but month three has come and gone. We are already mostly done with this semester; only two classes left. It's pretty amazing.

With that said, my courses are going pretty well. They are a little difficult, but nothing I can't manage. I enjoy the diversion of studying so it's a good get-away to come to class.

My classmates are real pros and I am learning a lot. I'm very glad I took the plunge and tried this.

On Group Work - 2

2006-03-10T08:02:00.000-08:00

We have our second class weekend tomorrow. I'm really looking forward to it. I will blog it when I get a chance.

Since my last post I have worked quite a bit more with my group. I am very pleased with the results. The conferencing system that UF uses is Centra. It has it's limitations, I wish the application sharing portion allowed colaborative editing of document, but that application sharing tool really saved our bacon. We were able to discuss and prepare our case spreadsheet all online from across the state. The process worked out really well.
I'm very pleased with my group too. They are SMART and they are motivated. In the past I haven't been too thrilled with group work because my groups tended to be slackers. But that was undergrad. These people (me included) are paying pretty good money to be here and they want the best out of the experience.

UF MBA Centra

On Group Work

2006-02-28T10:49:00.000-08:00

Since our MBA class is only one weekend per month, most of our learning will happen out of the classroom. The approach for making this happen is to give us assignments. It looks like most of our assignments during this program will be group projects.
Our group has two projects for this month. One is for accounting and the other for econ. The first is straightforward but may be difficult, the other seems easy and not much work but may prove to be more difficult than it should be.
With accounting we have some problems to do on a case study. It's not too difficult and we should get it pretty easily.
With econ, all we have to do is come up with two topic options for a term project. That's it, come up with two possible topics. It will be about 4 sentences worth of work, should be easy right? Yes, it should be. But somehow, that is turning into something that is not so easy. It's not because our group is having problems, in fact, we all agree pretty easily and we all know what's going on... it's just that it is an important decision and we haven't come up with a really good idea yet. This is also complicated by the fact that we are not in face-to-face range. We are teleconferencing and all of that. It's not easy to align schedules so that everyone is able to meet telephonically. We are moving it a little bit toward non-synchronous communication channels like e-mail but that has it's weaknesses too.
All in all, it's part of the learning experience to work in these groups and I think it will work out well but one major lesson is that there is nothing like a face-to-face meeting.

After Action Debrief

2006-02-13T14:15:00.000-08:00

Today is the Monday after my first MBA weekend. For those of you who haven't been reading, I'm in the University of Florida Professional MBA program. My last post was about the first day of orientation. I won't go over that again. The second day of orientation was a team building exercise called the Ropes and Challenges course. It was a pretty fun day with the group despite the rain and cold. We were split into 5 teams of 10 and did several fun activities. It was a good chance to get to know each other and I'm glad I had the opportunity to do it.
The real classes came on Sunday. And when they came, they came with a fury. I felt like the instructors had a firehose of knowledge and we were there with wet paper bags trying to catch it all.
We are taking three classes: Accounting, Business Writing and Economics. They promise to be a lot of work, especially Accounting. I felt like i was well prepared by the book that they had sent ahead of time, but I know that if I'm not very vigilant with keeping up the class can very quickly pass me by. They are, afterall, cramming a whole month of instruction into one weekend.
We have two assignments due for accounting, one is an individual assignment to take a set of transactions and make a balance sheet, income statement and statement of cash flows, the other is a group project case study. Hopefully it's not too bad.
For Business Writing we have one assignment: to rewrite one of our company's memos to be better stated and more effective.
And for econ we have an easy (but deceptively so) assignment: determine topics for our team's term project. Should be easy, right? Well, not so much... see, you have to actually pick something that will give you a good final project... and that could turn out to be a lot of work in itself.
Besides those assignments, of course, there is reading to do for all three classes. Hopefully, i can make the time.
I'm really looking forward to next month. Hopefully, it goes well in the meantime...

The First Day

2006-02-10T17:33:00.000-08:00

So it's finally come and past. Today was the first day of my MBA program at the University of Florida. I am now a card-carrying Florida Gator.

I woke up this morning at 3:30am and was out of the house by 4:00. Google maps quoted the travel time as 3.5 hours. So, naturally, I left 4 hours ahead of time to allow for unforseen events and to give myself a small amount of time to check out the location ahead of time. Well, it only took 2.5 hours at that time in the morning... so I had a LONG time to wait for orientation to begin.

People slowly filled the room and before too long the Director of the MBA programs opened up the festivities with a nice inspirational speech welcoming us to the University and to the MBA brotherhood. He was a very good speaker and I got a lot out of his speech.

After came the Director of Admissions. He had a presentation that told us a little about our fellow students including numbers and statistics. Good info there.

Then came the Director of student services. He spoke for a long time about the nuts and bolts of the program and all the specifics of what we would be doing and what to expect of our time here. Very informative and answered all my questions and some I didn't even know I had.

We broke for a catered luncheon. Some very fine fare that really beat out expectations.

We returned to the MBA classroom to set up our laptops for UF network access and the associated applications that go along with that. It was pretty easy (well, for me being an IT geek) but I did have some trouble with my laptop since our network at work has some restriction on it, there was some difficulty getting it to mesh with the UF netowork. I got most of it resolved, but there is one app that I can't get to work, I'll have to use it from home.

They let us go after that to return a few hours later to have a reception with drinks and hors d'ouvres. It was a nice opportunity to meet all our fellow classmates. I tried to get around to everyone, but sadly, did not. Everyone I did talk to was very nice, very smart and pretty advanced in their field. I think I will have some challenges keeping up with them.

All in all it was a great experience. Tomorrow we do a team building exercise called the Ropes and Challenges course. It's suppossed to be a blast, I'm looking forward to it.

The thing with Admissions Consultants

2006-02-08T16:44:00.000-08:00

There's a piece over at the Boston Globe about admissions consultants. Some of whom have blogged about the issue.

Now, personally, I find the practice unsavory. That is not to say that the people doing the practicioning are themselves unsavory. In fact, they dispense freely some high quality information out to the internet by posting to blogs and internet forums. They raise the caliber of all MBAs in this manner. For that I applaud them. They (well, at least some of them) exude professionalism and the quality you would expect from well paid consultants.

But the thing with admissions consultants is that by taking money for their services they are making it an issue of wealth. Just like any other consultant in the business world they expect to be well paid for their time and effort. And the better the service the more they are paid. As much as three grand in some cases. Now, between application fees, GMAT prep, GMAT fee, travel and other expenses it's already expensive to apply for business school. This is out-of-pocket expense too... some people just can't afford it. I know *I* wouldn't shell out 3 clams for someone to proofread my essays. That's what your friends and family are for. Admittedly, my school wasn't as selective as Wharton but still... if you are the quality of student that such schools are after you should definetly be able to write an essay that will get you in. You should be educated and articulate and have the quality of something good to say. You should be able to do it all on your own and, doing it on your own, you should be able to get by on your own merits. You should be admitted based on the quality of your character, not by how expensive of a consultant you can hire.

The fallacy that paid admissions consultants perpetuate is that you *need* them. Please, everyone out there in blog-land, you do not need to pay anyone to have a winning essay or to awe the committee in your interview. All it takes is a little creativity, a little hard work, 4 or 5 drafts and 3 or 4 of your friends and family to help you. Yes, the consultants will help you to tailor your essay to the school you are applying but it's nothing you can't do on your own. Yes, they may know a few things that your brother-in-law won't be able to tell you but if you do your homework, all this knowledge is available on the internet. They give it out on the net as part of their marketing tactic.

Seriously, people do it alone all the time, if you are good enough that you think you can get in at a place like Harvard, you BETTER be good enough to write your own essay. But that's just my two cents.

Soft Skills

2006-02-07T07:55:00.000-08:00

From Anil Bhat's BusinessWeek Blog: An MBA needs street smarts

Anil is a good blogger and I enjoy reading what he has to say. In the referenced blog post he asserts that MBA's should have a certain amount of 'street smarts' and goes on to point to negotiation as an important skill for MBAs. This brings me to what I am blogging about: soft skills.

Soft skills are those that are more people oriented than analytical. They are more art than science. They are sometimes called people skills and I suck at them.

Give me a math problem and I can get the right answer, give me a science project and I can prove my results. Give me a person and ask me the best way to approach him for a deal.... and I'll give you a blank stare. I'm not so good with breaking the ice or keeping in touch... I don't do good with small talk or shooting the breeze. I'm not what you would call approachable.

That's not to say I'm mean. People who get to know me say I'm nice and kind and all of that jazz. I just have a hard time in the getting-to-know-you department.

I know there isn't going to be a class on how to schmooze prospective clients or on how to weasel your way in to a meeting with somebody important.... but I'm definately hoping that somewhere in my program I'm made more able and confident in my people skills.

Super Bowl XL's Also-Ran Ads

2006-02-06T09:14:00.000-08:00

David Kiley has an article in Businessweek: Super Bowl XL's Also-Ran Ads that pretty much sums up how I felt about the super-bowl ads this year: lame.

Now, I'm not a marketing guy or anything (although I may turn into one in my MBA future) but I *KNOW* that were I the ad exec in charge of some of these spots I would have done better with my outrageously overpriced super-bowl ad. At minimum, I would have excercised my veto power on some of the spots.

Anyway... classes start this Friday, I'm getting excited. I... JUST... CAN'T.. .WAIT..

Business News

2006-01-23T15:47:00.000-08:00

So since I'm soon to be such a hot shot business type, I've taken to reading the business news. I tune into Google News - Business news service. I find the news somewhat interesting. Sometimes it's a little repetitive reading about who bought who for how many million shares or who is laying off how many employees. Mostly, however, there are good stories that have at least some redeeming value.

That said, I don't know if I've got what it would take to read the news sections and actually come up with an investment strategy. I guess I figure if the news has already hit a major outlet the 'real' hard-core investors have already known about it for weeks and done all the action on the stock that will happen. By the time it gets to me it's aleready too late to do anything with it. Maybe I should try to see if I can turn a profit with some play money and see if I can make myself confident enough to spend my own real money on it... or worse, someday, someone else's money.

PS, yes, I know that people who are playing with other people's money do really intensive research into the stocks they are considering and not just go from whatever news articles they read. I'm meaning the way typical day-traders do it.

GTD vs. Being Lazy

2006-01-16T14:39:00.000-08:00

I've been reading Getting Things Done by David Allen. It's a great book and has heaps of useful advice for making a trusted system for accomplishing "stuff" in your life. It's a useful bunch of 'life hacks' that, even if you don't implement the whole system, will get you better at getting things done. There are even various websites out there that give good advice for the whole GTD way of life. I've been trying to practice this in my work life and would like to move it into my home life. I have had some success. I highly recommend it for the busy professional.

However today, MLK Jr. holiday, I didn't get ANYTHING done. I have sat watching TV all day and didn't do a single productive thing. I have that accounting book to finish before classes start.... it's just sitting on my desk sneering at me. I think this was a good day for me to recharge my batteries. I've been stressed lately so taking a good lazy day off seemed like a good idea. I have had some success. I highly recommend it for the busy professional.

Less than a month, family not ready.

2006-01-15T09:33:00.000-08:00

So in less than a month I'll be starting classes. I have my hotel reservations made and I have all the financial aid papers done. It looks like that's all taken care of.

They sent me the welcome packet. It had pretty much all of the information that you find on the website but also it contained 'Essentials of accounting' Eighth Edition with a note saying to have it done by the time classes start. It's not a HUGE book, but it's still going to take a lot of my time. My wife doesn't seem to understand that and keeps distracting me from it whenever I try to work. Every four minutes I think i'm going to have to start going to the library in order to get anything done.

I know that this book is representative of the amount of work that I am going to have to do for this program. I really wish I could get some more support at home. It's going to be very hard to get it all done working full time and then coming home and having to fight with the family to give me some peace and quiet to do school work. I know that having 3 kids and a baby in the house means that I have certain responsibilities. But I am making a sacrifice and going back to school so I can better provide for my family. The least they can do is support me in this effort. Instead, my wife is insanely jealous of the amount of time I will be spending away from her. (one weekend a month is an outrageous amount of time to her) and I just KNOW there will be no time for schoolwork unless I physically leave and go to someplace quiet.

We're facing one of those transition times and I know we'll be able to make it work while it's happening, but as we go into the transition, everyone has anxiety about it and doesn't know HOW it's going to work. But that's life, I guess.

Financial Aid

2005-12-25T08:50:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas everyone. Mine was fun, but my wife takes everything too seriously, so it's been a wild ride since Thanksgiving. Kind of stressful.

So I got some correspondence from the University of Florida. It's my financial aid package. It's some pretty big numbers and I'm hesitant to put this much debt on myself but I know there is no other choice. At least it is not as much as some people going to the top 10. Those figures are really large.

I still have to fill out my Master Promissary Note. I'll do that as soon as I can.

I'm really looking forward to classes this February. The time is flying by. I'm hoping to hear from some of my classmates. I'm in the PMBA Class of Spring 2008. If you are too, drop me an email at the address on the sidebar.

New MBA grads rake in the $$$

2005-11-19T08:25:00.000-08:00

According to This New York Daily News article MBA grads are experiencing salaries that are back up to the levels before the IT bubble burst. Good news.

Arbitrage for classes

2005-11-19T07:22:00.000-08:00

This article:JP Holland: November 2005 by JP Holland is a fun read. It tells how Wharton uses an auction system for deciding which classes you take. The fun part of the story is how he went buying and selling classes through subsequent rounds of auction. In the process he racked up a stack of auction points. Very clever.

Market Crash

2005-11-17T17:01:00.000-08:00

Here's a great post: Brought down the Class

It's from Mark and Jie's blog and is kind of the second part of this post. It's a fun little story of how Mark (or Jie, i don't know which one) managed to crash the heck out of the market in his/her Dynamic Markets class. Good read.

Non-profits not so useful?

2005-11-17T16:47:00.000-08:00

Future MBA Girl has an interesting post on her blog:
Future MBA Girl
It seems that her dean asked some bankers at a forum if they would be interested in resumes from people with military or non-profits. Apparently the bankers indicated that the non-profit experience is no indication of knowing anything about banking.

I think I agree with Future MBA Girl's assesment of how much that is lame, but, I guess I can understand it. The BB bankers out there are only interested in cookie cutter likenesses of themselves. You can only wear a certain color shirt, certain style suit, etc. They never worked in a non-profit, they don't understand why anyone would want to and it certainly doesn't fit the mold they have built in their head of "one of them". This is misguided and certainly they miss lots of great candidates because of such stereotypes but I don't think they care.

Regardless, it's something we all have to live with so get used to it.

Top School?

2005-11-14T15:50:00.000-08:00

In this article: Am I There Yet?: To B-school or not to B-school... Paul Teddy asks the question of the value of a top tier business school. He takes the position that many prospective students take, that a top school will make all the difference. Better job placement, better alumni networks, etc.
He's right, of course, but let's not discount the lesser schools right off of the bat. It's true that a school like Harvard or Wharton will get you the best bang for the buck on name recognition and their alumni are the current leaders of industry (and as such, very nice to have in your network). However, you have to consider the strength of regional programs.
Where I live (Central Florida) the University of Florida has more local prestige than Harvard. Everyone in the state is either a fan of the Florida Gators or a fan of their evil arch-rivals the Florida State Seminoles. Having gone to Harvard makes you stuck up in these parts, not to say that isn't desirable to some employers. The Gator Alumni network rules all in the state and it's members are the leaders of industry around here.
I guess it all depends on your perspective and where you want to end up. West Coast people should probably favor west coast schools
and if you want to be among the elite in an investment bank on wall street, nothing short of Harvard, Sloan or Wharton will get you there.
Just something to consider.

The Test

2005-11-10T12:53:00.000-08:00

This is part 4 of my MBA backstory.

In the previous portion (http://floridamba.blogspot.com/2005/10/how-to-get-in-gmat-prep.html) I discussed my preparations for the GMAT. Today I will talk about taking the test.

When I decided to register for the GMAT, the nearest testing facility with a weekend date (since I work during the week) available in the near future was all the way in Tampa. That’s about a three hour drive from where I live. With the test at 8 in the morning I had to leave at 4:30 am to give myself a comfortable margin for being there on time. So I made stern comments to my wife and children about keeping the noise down since daddy has to be in bed by 8 on a Friday night. They behaved well and I was able to get a good nights rest.

I was smart and the week before took a day trip with the family out to Tampa to scout the testing location. It’s a darn good thing that I did. Campus was deserted and it was actually a difficult place to find being buried deep in the inner annals of the University of South Florida. It wouldn’t have done to be looking around frantically for the place on the morning of the test…

So I arrive about a half hour early and am calm and relaxed. Things are going good for me.

Inside the testing center things went smoothly. The staff there had done this, in my estimate, about one point six gazillion times. They checked my ID, had me fill out some forms and next thing I knew I was sitting in front of the computer.

The test was exactly like the powerprep software and there were exactly zero surprises there. I’m not going to reveal any test specifics since I don’t want to jeopardize my future and also since I don’t really remember any specifics. I felt it was tough but fair and I think that’s how the perception is supposed to be considering the computer adaptive test format only gives you questions that should be tough for your abilities.

I ended the test with a 620. Not darn bad for only one week of study.

Now on to the application...

MBA Site Update

2005-11-04T06:54:00.000-08:00

The UF MBA office has updated their program page for admitted students for the Spring Class of '08. It was a little out of date until just recently when I looked. It's now reflecting the correct dates for orientation and has a revised calendar. They have also added a page for admitted students for Fall class as well. Here's a link

Also, the page shows a new PDF titled 'Elective Courses'. It turns out that there is a week long residency required for our electives. You can choose either the spring or fall semester, but it's still a week away from work and family.

I don't know how I feel about this. I didn't know going into it that this would be required. The most I knew of was a vague mention of a "Special session during the spring or fall terms" on the class schedule... course and instructor TBD. I figured that would just jive somehow into the regular class periods.

I think it will be really fun to do and I am kind of looking forward to it, even though my wife is very unpleased. She can't stand the idea of me being away for that long. She won't know what to do. Still, it's time away from my wife and kids so that's not so good.... plus it will be a slight inconvenience at work.

I guess I'm alright with it but I would have liked to know with some more warning.

What's up with football.

2005-10-30T15:46:00.000-08:00

Well, as you may have seen, I have been accepted to the MBA program at the University of Florida. UF has a long and distinguished football tradition. They love their gators. So since I'm soon to be a student I've taken it upon myself to become a gator fan too. I've been Tivo'ing the games on Saturdays and been watching them as well as I can. I just got done watching Florida taking down the Georgia Bulldogs (yesterday's game).

The problem is that football is just boring.

I've seen a few games live and those are great, the thrill of the crowd and all of that. But on TV they are just long drawn out periods of standing around interspersed with some good action. Sure I've seen some great games on TV, some that are action packed and thrilling... exciting even. But the majority of games you see, especially regular season games, just drag on and on.... it's not very thrilling. It's all very repetitive and hard to watch over and over. At least with the Tivo I don't have to watch the commercials. I couldn't watch this junk if I couldn't fast forward through the commercials. It would be way too frustrating.

Now, don't get me wrong... I'm proud of my team, GO GATORS. Chris Leak is the bomb. And I'm going to try to keep watching the games. Hopefully I can get past thinking it's the boringest form of entertainment around.

Uconn MBA: Unique Recruiting

2005-10-30T15:43:00.000-08:00

Alla Remen of Uconn MBA Blog posts:Uconn MBA: Unique Recruiting It's an entry about Aetna's CEO Jack Rowe coming to a recruitment event for the MBA students. Apparently it was a really great session and very informative. Nice little story to read.

Why MBA? Simple Question -- Tough Answer

2005-10-28T08:02:00.000-07:00

Over on the BW Online blogs I found this post that got a lot of comments and good discussion:
Why MBA? Simple Question -- Tough Answer

Since I blogged about my reasons earlier I thought it was nice to see some other people's perspective on getting an MBA. There are valid points about not needing the MBA to be successful, but I hope that the counterpoint that it is a great stepping stone and a turning point are not passed up by readers. I want my MBA for a bit of a career change (to move into management) and I think it's an excellent avenue for that.

Kaplan vs. Princeton

2005-10-28T06:57:00.000-07:00

Since I was just talking about the books I bought here is someone reviewing the same books. I guess I'm not the only one. He reviews some of the slight differences in the books.

How to get in - GMAT Prep

2005-10-28T06:47:00.000-07:00

Part 3 of my MBA backstory.
Today I will address how I got in at UF. It was pretty easy really.

Let's just take a look at the requirements. Basically, they are as follows:
1. 4-year degree.
2. Good GPA
3. Good GMAT
4. TOEFL if you need it.
5. 2 years work experience after undergrad (8 years for executive programs)
6. Two letters of recommendation

So, I had the degree and a decent GPA and I was getting close to two years good work experience. That gets me to the point where I'm eligible. Now i just needed to cross all the tees and dot all the eyes.

The application deadline for fall term was rapidly approaching. (really, I only had about a month from when I decided to apply until the application deadline). I still hadn't taken the GMAT!

Well, I decided to cram it.

I ordered three study books from the internet used off of amazon.com. I ordered the Official Review, the Kaplan book and the Princeton Review one. The first one came within three days. I figured from this point that I would have to get the GMAT done quickly if I were to have any hope of getting my school application in. I looked into scheduling online and compared with my schedule and the timeline for getting my application in. The best I could do wasn't so good. It ended up that I gave myself only one week of study time.
Since I work full time, have a small baby, three demanding kids and a wife who is also pretty demanding of my time it was going to be tough to study. I basically told my wife that for this one week I was off limits. She wouldn't be seeing much of me.
I spent the week after work at the public library. There was no chance that the studying was going to happen at home. There are just too many distractions.
I worked off of the Princeton Review book mostly. It was the first book that came in the mail and it was the first one that I started looking at so it was the one that I ended up reading. In the one week I worked through it cover to cover. I absorbed every lesson as best as I could. I am a pretty smart guy and I am a very good test taker so a lot of the strategies were already known to me, but there were some good techniques in the book that made sense so I learned them. I looked at the Official book a few times but not really extensively and I did one of the practice tests with the power prep software. (i didn't get a score on this, however, since I quit before the last question to get home). I didn't even crack the Kaplan book even though I had heard it was better than the Princeton book. All in all I would say I studied pretty hard for the week. Some people take months preparing and spend thousands of dollars. I didn't do all of that but I think I prepared well.

In coming posts, I'll go through taking the test and my results.

Vaccinations Form Sent

2005-10-25T08:58:00.000-07:00

Today I sent in my "Immunizations Health History Form". This is a mandatory form that you fill out to certify that you have the requisite vaccinations for attending class at UF. It was pretty simple, but required me to go to the health department in town and have them put their clinic stamp and signature. Filling the form was easy for me since I've kept my shot records all on one standard form. I can see how it would be a problem for some people if they don't have the information collected in a meaningful way. You might want to think about this early if you are in that situation. But then again for Business school, the only requisite shot was the MMR (2 doses). Should be pretty easy.

Now that the decision is made....

2005-10-09T06:45:00.000-07:00

(this is the second part of my MBA backstory)

Now that I have made the decision to go to grad school the question remains what school to go to?

I have some special circumstances. My wife has kids from a previous marriage. Her divorce terms prevent her from leaving the state with the kids. So guess what? Unless I want to leave my family (which I don't) I am now geographically limited to Florida. Kind of a gyp but it is what it is.

I live in Titusville, FL and because of the convenient location, I went for my undergrad at University of Central Florida (UCF). Because of that, the first school I considered was UCF for my MBA. But then I got to doing more reading.

From most sources on the internet (if they are to be believed) the reputation of your school is very important. Much more important than the reputation of your undergrad school was (which, really, it wasn't). There are two reasons for this. First, the reputation of your program directly reflects the expectations prospective employers will have of you. The better the reputation, the better they expect you to be. Second, most importantly, the reputation of the school because of the first reason causes the best and brightest to gravitate to the bigger name schools. They get to choose the best and brightest to attend their programs. Why is this important to you? Because of your network. Networking is about the most important skill a business person can have and your absolute best possible bet for networking opportunities is at graduate business school. These are the next generation of corporate leaders and being in tight with these people by sharing the common experience of your MBA is a major *HUGE* source of great networking. They say if you are going to bother going to grad school, you need to go to a top school.

The top schools are Harvard Business School, Wharton, Stanford and others. None of the top tier schools are in Florida. And recall where I am stuck at... Florida. I still did not have much of a different outlook. The only school within driving range was UCF... but they aren't a top school not even in the state.

I posted to the Business Week forums with my dilemma. Someone there was kind enough to post about the University of Florida's two year professional program. I hadn't considered something like this.

It turns out that UF offers a program that involves only one weekend a month of class time. Only one weekend a month away from my family. Only one trip per month to Gainesville (3 hours aay). This would actually save me over the three trips per week (30 minutes one way) to UCF that I would have to take going there. PLUS UF is the best business school in the state. They have a great national reputation and in Florida they have a GREAT alumni network and are very well regarded in the business world. This would be a great opportunity for me. In fact the more I thought about it, it was the ONLY way I could do it.

Now just to get in.....

New Feed Service

2005-10-06T11:48:00.000-07:00

I put a feedburner feed up on this site. The link is http://feeds.feedburner.com/FloridaMbaBlog

Maybe it will get some use. There is also a chicklet on the side there... it's the orange thing that says 'Feed'.

Got my Receipt

2005-10-02T07:30:00.000-07:00

I received the receipt for my deposit yesterday. It's signed by Erica Daughtry from the MBA office. I guess that means I'm official.

So why grad school?

2005-09-26T16:54:00.000-07:00

This will be part one of my MBA back story. Currently I've received my admissions letter from UF and sent my deposit. Since there is a wait until classes start and I have some good stuff to blog about, I'm going to blog the events that transpired to get me where I am. Today I'm going to spell out my motivations for going to grad school and getting my MBA.

Going through my undergrad work I thought that when I got my BS in Computer Science the world would be my oyster. I was going to be a hot commodity. I could ask my price and people would overbid that to get me. Then the tech bubble burst. I finished school in August 2002, after everyone lost their jobs and the hordes of unemployed IT folks snapped up all the jobs that were available. There were no jobs for me with a degree in hand but little real experience besides a college internship. Gradually I managed to get my foot in the door at one company and parlay that experience into another good job.

So now I've got some more experience and a little stability. I want to move into management but all my experience says is "Computer Geek". I need something that says "leader". This is where I figure an MBA will pay for itself. I'll finish this degree with a goodly amount of experience and a degree that shows I can lead. It's the way to go.

I'm a Gator! A Florida Gator.

2005-09-25T13:25:00.000-07:00

I was recently accepted into the MBA program at the University of Florida. I'm very excited about it and I'm planning to blog the whole experience start to finish. I will be attending the Professional two-year program starting on February 10, 2006. It will probably be some time before I have real material to post since classes aren't starting for another four months so my next few posts will be about how I got in and what made me decide on UF. I'm kind of hoping to get a few other MBA students together to post their common experiences... might be kind of cool.