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 trip to Barbados. I hope I will have motivation and energy to put some posts with pictures and videos or may be a separate website dedicated to this vacation, as it was really quite interesting and a lot of fun to share.
But first I need to put closure to my first year of part-time MBA program at GWU. As I was writing in my last post in June I was not expecting any surprises with the grades, but I actually was nicely surprised. Based on my grades for intermediate assignments throughout both classes I had in the module I was expecting an A in Business and Public Policy, but the Nature of Markets was a bit murkier. Nevertheless I got A’s in both classes! For the first time in my MBA terms I became a straight A student 
. Admittedly, I had only two classes in the term, and they both were not quantitative courses. But still it feels really nice. So I got my closure for the first year.
Now that I had my vacation I almost feel like I would be ready to continue with the MBA classes right away. But there are no classes I could sign up for right now. So I have another month to chill out. I am planning to use this time to do some reading to prepare for the fall term and just to read some of the books I had to put on hold during the year, my personal MBA summer reading list: Superfreakonomics by Levitt and Dubner, The Tipping Point by Gladwell, and surprise-surprise! – Basic Statistics: Tales of Distributions (with CD-ROM)
by Spatz.
Even though I got my B and B+ in two statistics courses during the first year, I know I need to get a better grasp of the subject and solidify everything I learned in a hurry. I stumbled upon this book while looking for an easier introduction to statistics. I wrote about this briefly in my April 5 post . Eventually I found Basic Statistics: Tales of Distributions (with CD-ROM)
and I really look forward to pouring over it in the next month. I will write a more detailed review once I finish it. But from other reviews on Amazon.com and my reading through the first 30 or so pages, I can tell that this is the must book for all of us who have stats anxiety. If you are preparing for MBA stats classes in advance or even take them at the time you read this post, I recommend to grab this book and start reading it ASAP. Statistics is not an easy subject for most students, but this book will make your experience with the stats as painless as humanly possible. I bought the eighth edition of this book used from Amazon for some really funny money, about $6. For the purists, like I used to be, but not anymore, there is the tenth editionn of Basic Statistics: Tales of Distributions
available new between $129-150 on Amazon.com.
Enough blogging for the day. Hopeful to continue posting regularly in the time before the second year of my MBA studies starts.
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 now I can honestly say to myself that the first year of MBA is finished. For some reason I don’t feel the same level of exaltation that I had back at the end of the Spring Term, just a deep sense of relief and calm serenity It works for me.
I am still waiting for my grades in both classes I had. In Business and Public Policy we had our final paper and in-class group presentation on Tuesday last week. Yesterday I submitted my take home exam in Nature of Markets. I don’t expect any surprises with grading, so I can mostly take my thoughts of the school for now and engage myself into other, no less pleasant, things in life: going to the pool with the kids, hiking on weekends, preparing for a vacation trip, read for pleasure, etc. And the beauty of it all is that I have 2 (TWO) FULL MONTHS of SUMMER BREAK. That’s a big luxury. I really feel for some of my classmate who opted for both Summer Term modules. That would be too much for me. My summer break is much-needed and well-deserved, and I am taking it!
There is still another test for my professional certification that I need to take in less than two weeks from now, but that really does not bother me too much. You always can re-take it without negative impact on your graduate GPA for the rest of your life 
. So I will take it easy.
I hope I will not disappear from this blog for the rest of the summer, but I am not making any specific promises. I have a lot of stuff I would like to put on the blog, but I don’t want to strain myself either. On the other hand, now that I don’t have homework and required readings, maybe I will fill this time with updating the blog. We’ll see how it goes, stay tuned! Have a great summer!
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 it takes no less time to do research and write papers. I have a tendency to get caught up in research to make sure I cover all the bases in a comprehensive way. Sometimes I spend hours in research to write just one paragraph. So staying up till wee hours of the morning has been way too common occasion for me in the last three weeks.
I mentioned before that this summer term both classes I have are non-quants: Business and Public Policy and Nature of Markets, aka Introduction to Marketing. In both classes we have to do case studies. All marketing cases are group assignments, and we have to crank out a case a week. There is some levereging in that, because we have divvied up the cases within the group, but still we have one final case to not just write a paper, but also do a class presentation.
In Business and Public Policy I wrote two cases so far and there is one final group project. I got maximum possible points on the first one about PR crisis in Toyota recalls. The second one was done in a more hop scotch manner, so I am waiting to see by how much I missed the mark. Our group project and presentation is shaping up quite nicely so far, so I hope it will give us above average grade overall.
This Saturday I have a “chain-group-meating” in the afternoon. First for marketing, then piggy backed on it – for Public Policy. It’s going to be at least five hours total. I am not sure if I am more concerned about “brain freeze” or “brain meltdown” as a result of that.
The only consolation is that it is going to be over next week. After final presentations we will still have a take-home exam in marketing. But next weekend it is going to be done at any rate. Can’t wait for a summer break and vacation. GWU School of Business is offering two summer modules, but I opted to have a little break and take vacation instead of the second module. I will have total 18 credits by the end of this module, so I am pretty much on schedule with the program. To make up fot this little summer lull I have already registered for 9, instead of my usual 7.5 credits in Fall term. But it’s is to early to fret about that yet.
I will update my status with the Summer term once I am done with it. For now, back to studies.
