Fuqua CCMBA - Thoughts at the End of Term 1

Journal Fortunato_NC's Journal: Fuqua CCMBA - Thoughts at the End of Term 1 2

Journal by Fortunato_NC on Wednesday September 28, 2005 @12:19PM

Barring any major collapse on my last two assignments, as of yesterday, I'm officially 1/8th of the way to an MBA from Duke University. We wrapped up Managerial Effectiveness with an individual paper and presentation, and capped Financial Accounting with a six-hour exam. As a natural procrastinator, this meant I had a very busy weekend. Still, I think I did well, and hope to earn a pair of SP grades this term. SP is Fuqua's rough equivalent of an A grade.

For those interested, Fuqua's grading scheme breaks down like this. "SP" stands for Superior Pass and is a 4.0 GPA. "HP" stands for "High Pass" and earns a 3.5 GPA. "P" is "Pass", 3.0 GPA. Any of these grades are acceptable. In fact, some people in the program have a saying: 16P = MBA. Below P, however, is where you can get yourself into trouble. To remain in the program, you have to maintain a 3.0 GPA or better."LP" stands for "Low Pass" and is a 2.5 GPA. "F" is "Fail", and represents a 0.0 GPA. Get one "F", and you are "held back" a year to repeat the course with the next cohort. Get two "F" grades, and you flunk out. Hopefully, it doesn't come to that for anyone in my group.

Some random observations on CCMBA after one term:

This is less work than I thought. At least, it was in the first term. I'm not saying I'm not working hard, but I am spending considerably less time than I expected working on assignments. All said, I'm averaging 5-10 hours per week, while I was expecting 15-20 hours worth of work. I would imagine that having just recently finished an undergraduate degree in business gives me a level of familiarity with the material that helps a lot.
Centra is a great way to conduct classes If you're not familiar with Centra, it's a lot like WebEx, just customized to the classroom environment. Professors can lecture, while students virtually "raise their hands" and contribute to the class discussion. It's a lot more orderly than a conference bridge, and the added advantage is that the classroom sessions are recorded for later playback. Unfortunately, there is no Macintosh client. It works surprisingly well under Virtual PC, however.
There are two kinds of people in an Executive MBA program. By this, I mean that there are clear differences between people who choose to attend business school in the Executive MBA format. Some people are in the Executive MBA because they love their jobs, have a great career path ahead of them with their current employer, and just need an MBA to help them along the ladder. Then there are the people who probably should have signed up for a full-time program, but for one reason or another felt that they couldn't give up their full-time job for two years, even though they plan to change careers at the end of the program. The first category of folks (which I fall into) finds endless frustration with the second category, because they are exasperatingly single-minded. All discussions with program administration invariably turn to career services, and the discussions about career services invariably turn into arguments between the administration staff and the would-be career changers, who just don't understand why they're not entitled to the exact same career services as daytime students, regardless of the fact that the program's career services are clearly laid out before applying. Some of my best friends in the program are those looking to change careers, but every once in a while, I want to shake them violently and ask why they just didn't go to a full time program.
It's amazing how social people can be at a distance. As a long time BBS and USENET user, I shouldn't be surprised by this, but our program's message boards are incredibly lively. I'm learning a lot from the discussions on our entrepreneurial board, and the "student lounge" is a lot of fun. We've organized a 20-team fantasty football league, and we're generally having a great time, even though we rarely see each other in person. Of course, when we do get together in person, we have a great time! Speaking of which...
I'm ready for the next residency. As great as our distance education technology is, I'm ready to see my classmates face-to-face again. One of the most enjoyable parts of the program has been our class discussions during the residency portions. This term, we're doing Microeconomics and Decision Models, and I'm raring to go.

So far, I've been really happy with the Cross Continent program. I think that it's going to do a lot for my career long-term, and my boss commented the other day that he's already seeing positive changes in my way of thinking that he credits to my classes. It's a long way from flunking out of NC State to a Fuqua MBA, but the journey seems to be worth it so far, and I'm anxious to see how far I can go!

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