Today was the last day of classes in the first module of the Spring Term for me. Next week we have finals. For me it is Global Perspectives and Managerial Accounting. I have a false sense of confidence about Global Perspectives, mainly because it’s an open notes, books, everything exam. As for Managerial Accounting – I just started to comprehend many of the concepts. However, when it comes to slicing and dicing the actual numbers, I feel mostly at loss. So do most of my classmates most of the time, based on observation and conversations.
Today, for example, we submitted two cases prepared in groups. One of the cases we prepared was so far from the solution which we discussed in class, that I don’t even know where to start. The other one was much closer in final recommendation to the solution presented by professor, but we had chosen different motivation as driving force. I still believe our explanation is a valid alternative. What amazed me was that the write up I prepared for this case was explaining everything in just narrative manner. For me it seemed quite reasonable to do it that way based on the question and the input information. But professor showed us how all this narrative could be quantified. Really amazing how the left and the right sides of the brain can see the same thing from so different angles. As I told the guys jokingly on the break after we had solution for the first case ‘one just has to have a very ‘perverted’ mind to be able to see things that way’ 
We had evalutations of the courses in both classes this week. From what I could tell both professors got very highly appraised by my classmates. One of the guys said that Managerial Accounting professor has been his best instructor in the part-time MBA program so far. I would probably concur with that. He is not the only good one I had, and I am not sure you could use superlatives to say “the best”, but he is definetely a very good instructor. So is the Global Perspectives professor by the way. So far this semester my experience with professors is quite good. I hope I won’t get disappointed in the second module of my Spring term MBA program.
Regardless of how good the instructor is, on the Managerial Accounting exam we are still expected to manipulate numbers and this will require some quite “perverted mind”. My group mates suggested to meet this Saturday to prepare for exam. We are going to discuss the example exam from the course pack. It was indicated that the actual exam will be close in format and content to this one. I am going to be at the meeting to tone my brain.
A final joke for the day that I heard today in class. It was actually related to the case, as we compared two subsidiries of the company, one in Italy and the other in Germany:
In Germany everything is prohibited unless explicitely allowed. In Italy everything is allowed, especially if it is prohibited.
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