Intro to My Blog

October 15, 2009

in MBA experience

In my blog I have been writing about my experience of going through the MBA program as a part-time student, full-time employee, full-time husband and father. I hope that some of my experience will be helpful to others who are considering taking on this endeavor of going part-time or even full-time MBA for that matter.

My personal way to MBA was very long. Suffice it to say, I am in my early forties. Not your typical MBA candidate. I really wish someone could tell me many of the things I know now may be 5-9 years ago. That’s why in my posts I will try to be personal, honest, informative, and hopefully regular. What I am trying to accomplish is just to give my personal perspective, so the readers could have additional information to help them in making some of the many decisions connected with the pursuit of MBA.

There is a lot of information about MBA programs, schools, courses etc on formal, official, semi-official sites of all kinds pertinent to ‘everything MBA’. There are also a lot of private blogs and websites from current and former students. All those sites combined provide a mother lode of information for prospective students. I hope that my blog will add some valuable insights to this wealth of information.

I am a part-time MBA student in Washington, DC area. I have finished my first year of MBA studies in summer 2010,  and I still have a lot to share about in my remaining two or so years of going through the business school.

I realize that many of the readers could be prospective students and they are specifically interested in the application/preparation aspect of the MBA experience (I know I was, and intensely so). I will share some of the things that I think could be helpful for the aspiring students. They will be posted in ‘MBA Introspection’ section of my blog.

Otherwise I will try to keep up to date on my current journey through the program, so you might know what to expect once you overcome all the hurdles of application and get admitted to the school of your choice. May be for some readers my insights will serve as deterrent, but I think that for most of the MBA aspirants it will serve as encouragement and motivation.

I noticed that some visitors to my blog have been searching the site for my email. If you are too shy to leave a message in the comments, shoot me an email to webmaster at parttimembadegree.com

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Today I had the first class in my elective course – Consultative Processes. From the syllabus and the first class it became obvious that the class is going to be very writing-intensive and group work oriented. We will have to submit three individually prepared cases from Harvard Business Publications. And there will be two group projects, each consisting of a write-up and an in-class presentation: Consulting Proposal and Consulting Report. On top of that a lot of reading assignments too.


From the Professor’s comments in the class it appears that, just as I expected based on the syllabus, it is going to be relatively general, high level introductory course to Consulting. However, the cases and especially the two group projects are going to give me enough exercise and taste, for me to decide if I want to take more advanced classes geared to Consulting later on in my MBA program.

In class we did some exercises, namely the students were giving their answers to three questions about Consultant’s professional attributes. Here is the result of our collective brain-storming. I think it gives some interesting insights for those who are not very familiar with what Consultants work is like. The bullets are in no hierarchial order, but rather in the order they were suggested by the students. Every suggested bullet was supported by specific example, but I have no time for those details here, and you would have to interpret some of the more vague points on your own. So here are the lists.

What Consultants DO:

  • Diagnose the problem and figure out how to address it
  • Provide expertise/capacity to the client
  • Identify opportunities
  • External revies of the client’s processes
  • Benchmarking
  • Changem management
  • Soft skills
  • Conflict management
  • Avoid conflict of interests

What Consultants Should NOT DO:

  • Undertake projects outside their expertise
  • Cover up illegal activities of the client
  • Bad customer service
  • Sell up unnecessary services
  • Make decisions for the client
  • Breach confidentiality

Skills (and attributes) of Consultant:

  • Communication
  • Listening
  • Absorb a lot of new information quickly
  • Analytical skills
  • Project management
  • People skills
  • Ethics
  • Negotiation
  • Humility (I guess this is not very popular notion among consultants, but apparently clients are expecting this)
  • Dealing with ambiguity
  • Continuous learning
  • Creativity
  • Receptive to client’s feedback
  • Research skills
  • Interviewing skills

The list is not exhaustive, but a good start nevertheless. I hope it would be helpful for those who are interested to learn more about consulting, but do not have very clear understanding about what Consulting is yet.

The required text for this class is The McKinsey Mind by Ethan Rasiel and Paul Friga.. The book itself was not very expensive, because it is not a formal textbook. Which was nice, especially in comparison to the one I had to buy for Financial Markets. But unfortunately this price advantage was all but eliminated by the cost of other materials that need to be purchased for the class: the pack of Harvard Business cases and the course pack. Well, it’s not something new. (MBA) Education is pricey. I have kind of got used to it ;-)

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Today I had my first class in the Fall term – Financial Markets. It was rather interesting and at times even entertaining.

Professor had eventually placed syllabus with required textbook earlier today and I was able to order it from Amazon. The book we are using in class is Financial Management: Theory & Practice 13 edition, by Brigham and Ehrhardt. As is customary for me, I was trying to get an international edition of the book from Ebay, but it was not available there, at least for now. So it cost me $146, includding shipping, from Amazon marketplace. Professor mentioned in class that we don’t have to buy the latest edition, and can get the previous one instead, as it would be much cheaper. I wish she had mentioned this in the syllabus before I ordered it :-( .


As for the textbook, Professor also said that it was essentially the same book that she had used at her graduate studies some 30 years ago. She also made a remark that the only difference is that the problems at the end of chapters are getting simpler and shorter with each edition. I am not even sure how to interpret this. Either the expectations from the students are getting more and more lax, or the authors realize with the time that they had overthought the problems in the first place and eventually get to terms with reality by making them more relevant and coincise. Whatever it is, I guess I could live with that :-) .

In the class professor gave us a general overview of the subject of Financial Management and its principal differences from the Accounting. Financial Management is all about cash and it is directed toward the future. So such thing as assets depreciation, which is in the realm of (Financial) Accounting, is basically irrelevant for Finance guys, as there is no real cash flow from this superficial accounting transaction.

As for entertaining part, Professor told us about the attitude of people working in finance towards people doing accounting. She refered to a joke about how the Swiss count cows: they count the number of legs in the herd and then divide by four. They ultimately get the correct result, but in a cumbersome and inefficient way.

So in the true spirit of Financial Management principles, I am looking forward towards the course, with expectation of payoffs, and in hope that it will be less cumbersome than what I experienced in Financial Accounting last year ;-)

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Second Year Part-time MBA Begins

August 30, 2010

Today is the first day of classes at the University and official start of my second year of studies in GWU part-time MBA program. My classes however haven’t started yet. I have my first class on Tuesday. For the first module of the Fall term I have signed up for two classes: Financial Markets and [...]

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First Year Part-time MBA Closure

July 24, 2010

Have not been posting for almost a month. Now I am kind of have been missing blogging and ready to post some updates. The two main reasons for my extended silence are the preparation for the professional certification exam that I took in two weeks after the end of the summer module, and the family vacation [...]

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First Year Part-time MBA Is Complete

June 29, 2010

I know, I know, I already reported it once, almost two months ago, that my first year of part-time MBA was over. But it was according to the business school’s schedule, not my personal. If I did not take take classes in the first summer term module, then it would indeed be the end. But [...]

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Othello by Synetic Theater

June 25, 2010

Since the term had been winding down to its end, and I was basically done with all my deliverables, last weekend my wife and I had a little treat: another theater night at Synetic. I had a post back in February about this theater and their Antony and Cleopatra play. I know it may sound ridiculous, [...]

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Summer Term MBA Classes are Near to Close

June 18, 2010

Have not been able to post lately due to the overwhelming amount of work in business school. As much as I prefer qualititative over the quantitative classes, in terms of time it is not really easier. In quants it takes me a lot of time to comprehend the concepts and their application. In qualititative classes [...]

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Management, Leadership and My Shepherd Dog Experience

June 3, 2010

This style of management -herding the flock- is actually not as uncommon as it might seem in our “enlightened” era and all the advances in management theory. Quite many managers in business and leaders in public arena are still treating their subordinates and constituents as a flock of sheep which needs to be herded and manipulated into going through the “desired” gates. Even if it is done in more subtle inconspicuous or sophisticated ways, this still is the underlying philosophy of those “shepherd dog managers”.

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The 4-Hour Workweek – Jar of Goodies from Tim Ferriss

May 27, 2010

One of the two books I attempted to read on my break between the Spring and Summer Terms in my part-time MBA studies was The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss. It is really a great read, though I have to admit I haven’t finished it yet. Not everything in the book is really applicable, or even [...]

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Nature of Markets – Introduction to Marketing

May 20, 2010

Tonight I had my second class that I am taking in this Summer Term at part-time MBA program at GWSB. I have been looking forward to this course and it seems that my high expectations will be met in this class. I have long been interested in marketing and I really expect to learn a [...]

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Business and Public Policy – Part-time MBA Summer Term Begins

May 18, 2010

I had the first class in my summer term tonight: Business and Public Policy. I can tell from the class that it is going to be quite interesting. Some of the concepts that we were exposed to in the class went against the grain of the widely held beliefs by free market proponents. So in a way [...]

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Entrepreneurial Ideas: Snow Storm 2010 Shirts

May 11, 2010

One day at the end of April I had a breakthrough, thanks to my MBA Entrepreneurship class. Not that the breakthrough had much bearing directly to the class, but it was definitely induced by the ideas I had been introduced to during the course. One night on my way to GWSB I got a brilliant business idea. I don’t really [...]

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Human Capital Management – Efficiency and Monetary Motivation

May 7, 2010

In our Human Capital Management class professor showed us a great video from TED.com featuring Dan Pink’s presentation on relationship between different motivational factors  and human creativity and efficiency in solving problems.  Needless to say, Dan Pink is a very entertaining speaker. I enjoyed his talking very much. But even more fascinating for me was the [...]

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MBA Exam Human Capital Management – Mimicking Law School

May 4, 2010

A week ago on Wednesday I encountered a somewhat new format for the final exam in my MBA pursuit. Usually, if it was not multiple choice, the exams  had a requirement to write a short answer.  If it was  a longer narrative required, then it was usually done through the final research paper or a case write up done [...]

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My Part-Time MBA First Year is Over!

May 3, 2010

It’s official now. My actual last class of the first year in part-time MBA program at George Washingtonn University School of Business was on Wednesday last week. That week we had the final in-class presentation in Entrepreneurship class, and final written exam in Managing Human Capital. But I did not feel like reporting this milestone because I still [...]

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Entrepreneur Interview – Lessons for MBA Student

April 25, 2010

One of our assignments in Entrepreneurship class at GWSB MBA program was to conduct an interview with an entrepreneur of our choice. This was an individual project, so we had to find a worthy candidate on our own and to interview him/her. To make it easier, we were even given a set of questions which could be [...]

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Lessons from Elevator Pitch Presentations

April 23, 2010

I already had a post about the making of the Elevator Pitch by our team in Entrepreneurship class. But I wanted to give a bit broader review of that particular class and talk in general terms about the cases that were presented by various groups. I really found that exercise quite stimulating. It also provided the opportunity [...]

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Human Capital Management – Indirect Compensation Gone Wild

April 21, 2010

In one of our classes on Human Capital Management we were discussing employees’ compensation. Obviously, among other things we were touching on all hot topics related to the issue: executive compensation, fair pay, incentives, indirect compensation, etc. Our professor gave us an in-class exercise: we had to get into four groups and come up with as [...]

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Entrepreneurship Galore – Meet Serial Entrepreneurs

April 13, 2010

This last class our professor in Entrepreneurship had another very special treat for us. This time he had invited to our class the co-founders of PointAbout – Washington, DC-based mobile applications start up – for a panel discussion on entrepreneurship, what else? I really enjoyed the meeting and the four guys were just fascinating. As the [...]

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GMAT Prep Scholarship Competition from Beatthegmat

April 11, 2010

For those of my readers who are still in the planning phase of their MBA journey it will be very beneficial to learn about the GMAT Scholarship offered by Beatthegmat.com. Beat the GMAT (BTG) is one of the few internet sites that provide a unique community platform not only for those who are yet aspiring to embark [...]

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Elevator Pitch – the Empowering MBA Experience

April 7, 2010

Continued from Executive Summary – Brewing Disaster. What started and promised to stay as just another lackluster group assignment, turned into probably one of the most empowering experinces in my MBA endevour so far (Ok, getting an A in Microeconomics comes as second close  ). // When I showed up for class a bit earlier than [...]

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Executive Summary – the Brewing Disaster

April 6, 2010

On the first day of classes our professor in Entrepreneurship prompted us to form study teams to work on a few group assignments throughout the course. Namely, we were expected to work in groups on the Executive Summary and Elevator Pitch for some business start up. I joined a group of classmates I knew from my [...]

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Data Analysis Mid-Term Exam

April 5, 2010

Nothing too exciting happenned at the exam. The format was open book, open notes. Needless to say that even with this format I felt a brain-freeze, as oftentimes the case in my quantitative classes. Will see how I fared on the forced grading curve. The stuff covered in the exam was all the material we have [...]

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Human Capital Management Case Study

March 31, 2010

Have not had enough time to post lately as I have been doing a lot or writing for my classes. I finished and submitted to the group my part of the research on the Nordstrom: Dissension in the Ranks case for Human Capital Management class. So far, my write up is the first for our group.  [...]

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Group Projects in MBA Learning Experience

March 27, 2010

If you followed this blog for a bit, you might have noticed that I have been participating in group projects in some of my classes since the beginning of  my part-time MBA program. So far, I have co-authored two group research papers (Business Ethics and Global Perspectives) and have been doing group assignments in Managerial Accounting [...]

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Creative Entrepreneurship in MBA Program

March 23, 2010

There was another blast class in Entrepreneurship this week. From the two first classes it seems that the main purpose of our instructor in this class is to evoke our creativity and show us how indispensable it is for those of us who aspire to venture on our own or join a start-up after getting [...]

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Spring Term Module 1 Grades In

March 22, 2010

On Monday I finally got my grades for Global Perspectives. The Managerial Accounting grade came within a couple of days after the final exam. I waited to get both grades before posting on that. Both grades came as a surprise to me: a pleasant one and somewhat disappointing, even though I got straight B’s in both classes. [...]

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Laptops Banned from Universities Classrooms

March 14, 2010

Don’t panic, they are not outlawed yet. But the trend is there. In my MBA experience at GWU School of Business I have encountered different policies by different professors on the use of laptops in the classroom. There were two classes (Financial Accounting-1, Judgement and Uncertainty) where the use of the laptop was highly desirable, even though not [...]

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MBA Textbooks — Inter- Or Not Inter-(national) Edition

March 10, 2010

Over the weekend I had to order the textbook required for my Human Capital Management course which started today. When I looked up on the internet the required book from the syllubus (A Framework for Human Resource Management 5th Edition, ISBN-13: 978-0136041535), I was not shocked to see the list price of $132. What’s new? I [...]

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Entrepreneur Is a Verb – Unorthodox MBA Notion

March 9, 2010
Two Dice

Tuesday class in Entrepreneurship was a blast. Professor has been teaching it since mid-seventies, so he can afford to be unorthodox. There were quite a few ideas he introduced in the class that would probably not fly if he was a younger member of the faculty. But this is a charm of having a seasoned educator, [...]

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Data Analysis and Decisions: Venturing Further into Uncertainty

March 8, 2010

On Monday I had my first class of the second module: Data Analysis and Decisions. This is a continuation of the course I took in the Fall Term – Judgement, Uncertainty and Decision Making. I have different professor this time, just hope he will be able to explain the material at least as clearly as [...]

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Celebrating End of First Module of Spring Term at GWSB Professional MBA

March 7, 2010

It just happenned that way that both our kids had sleepover arrangements out of house on Saturday night. Not a very common occasion in our family. So I decided to make some fringe benefits from this coincidence: to have a night out with my wife. Regular a la carte menu for such occasions for us (not that we [...]

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Global Perspectives Final Exam – Done

March 6, 2010

Yesterday I had my last final exam in module one of the Spring Term at GWSB – Global Perspectives. Overall exam was not very difficult, especially given its open book, notes, internet access format. There was only one question I somehow had missed during the course regarding “foreignness liability”. Thanks to internet access I was [...]

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Managerial Accounting Final Exam-Done!

March 4, 2010

I had a major blunder with my final on Managerial Accounting. I knew in advance that the case for exam will be posted on Blackboard a day before. But with all this cramming for the exam proper it absolutely evaded my mind. It was like a blind spot. I felt pretty good before the final [...]

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MBA Exams Session – Funny Side

March 2, 2010

Bookmark this on Delicious I have been reviewing the material for Global Perspectives final exam on Wednesday (tomorrow), when I incidentally found out that the final is actually on Friday. I was not planning to post anything until after my both exams, but now as I am getting a little breather, I decided to place these [...]

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