English

This might be going a little off topic, but I've wanted to talk about this for some time, so I'm going to exercise my power as the owner of this blog, and post whatever I want for today.

I have this pet peeve for obvious and consistent improper/weird uses of English, especially if the speaker/writer has perfect command of the language otherwise. And in fact, this does have something to do with the MBA. Since a large number of students come from places other than North America, it might help straighten out a few things and potentially avoid confusion that may cause other people when they hear certain odd phrases for the first time. Or it might not help. I dunno. I just wanted to vent a little. :p

1. You did not "pass out" from undergrad, and you're not going to "pass out" now.
You graduated. And you will graduate from the MBA. You've probable had a few episodes of passing out, but you don't use the phrase when you actually mean graduate.

2. You did not "give" the GMAT. You took it.
The GMAC gives the GMAT. Not you. You take the GMAT. A student takes exams, giving exams is the teacher's job.

3. You don't have a "query". You have a question.
This does not cause as much confusion, but whenever I see "query", I think of SQL. In the context of normal langauge (as opposed to computer language), you have questions instead of queries.

4. Sign up for "the same".
Again, does not really cause as much confusion as it causes me personal misery. Haha. A classic example: we have an event next week, please sign up for the same. We don't need to sign up for "the same", we simply need to sign up. If we have to sign up FOR something, we can simply sign up "for it". Why not save a few keystrokes.

I feel better now that I've gotten it out of my system. I might even add more items as I think of more. But for now, bed time.

Added Aug 24, 2009:

5. I must be knowing
Classic example: you must be knowing that we have a class tomorrow. I'm not knowing. I just know. I must know that we have a class tomorrow. Correct me if I'm wrong, I think in general we tend to use "be doing" more when the doing is an actual action that we do. Example: we'll be going around collecting money. "Knowing" is not something you physically do.

Added Aug 25, 2009 (the list just keeps growing...):

6. Very less
"Less" is a comparative adjective, which means you don't stick "very" in front of it. What you mean to say is "very little" or "very few", depending on the noun you wish to qualify. For example, "very little quantity" or "very few units sold". Of course, "much less" is perfectly fine to say, but from my experience, people almost never mean "much less" when they say "very less".

CSR, Management Accounting, Ops Management

So, long time no post! Since Lots have happened since I last posted at the beginning of the month:

As I mentioned last time, we kicked off this month with a week of career stuff. Wall Street Prep and David Ohrvall came to give one day workshops on finance and consulting interviews, respectively. Both were excellent for those interested in careers in finance or consulting.

Saturday after the career week was our first case competition, with A. T. Kearny. Everyone who participated had fun, but at the same time we also realized how much further we still need to go before we could realistically compete for an MBA job at A. T. Kearney. Basically, the case they gave us was an example of what they use for their second round of interviews, where the candidate is given ~45 minutes to read the case and come up with recommendations, after which the interviewer comes back into the room for a presentation from the candidate. For our case competition, we had teams of 7 with 2.5 hours to work on the case, and it was still obvious that there was room for improvement. We really need to double up our case prep effort, which is actually recurring feedback the school keeps hearing from recruiters - that the students are smart, but just don't prepare enough for the interviews.

After the career week, we had a one-week module on corporate social responsibility. It was interesting, because the focus is not "how to be a good corporate citizen" per se, but rather aligning a company's CSR strategy with its corporate strategy. There were some good case studies and great videos, as well as three presentation opportunities for each team, which was an excellent amount for a 5-day course. The only side that was perhaps not so good was that each of us needed to write a relatively long individual essay worth half our grades. Not many people were fond of it, and half the class scrambled to get it done between 2am and 5am the morning it was due.

I also had my first encounter with a prospective student this week, who sat at the back of the class during our final presentation sessions. We chatted briefly during break, and I told him about all the good things that impressed me here at Queen's. I don't say this often anymore, but I do still pause once in a while, look around in amazement, and give myself props for ending up at such a great school. Then my train of thoughts would drift to getting a job afterwards and case interviews, and hectic life resumes.

This past Friday the MBA office organized a sunset boat cruise around thousand islands, which was really good. Gotta love the value-added stuff here. The next day, a whole bunch of people went skydiving and had a blast. I considered my severe motion sickness and chickened out, but went to the salsa class instead, which was fun.

This week we started a new large module with four courses. The ones that we've had so far are management accounting and operations management.

Management accounting is taught by Professor Clinton Free who's a good and engaging teacher, Australian, and a cricket player. He helped the faculty win a cricket match with the exec MBA students, and have now extended the invitation to play to our class. The course content is also very interesting, and it has to do with making good accounting choices within an organization. We do lots of interesting examples in class and there are lots of calculations, so I feel right at home, and Clinton's been impressed by my ability to work the numbers without a calculator. :p

Clinton also did a pitch on the CMA designation, and encouraged us to take advantage of the Queen's MBA-CMA combined program. Which actually prompted me to go to the CMA info session today. I had never thought of doing a CMA, but now I'm thinking. Clinton makes a lot of references to the consulting career, and says that this is a good designation to have not only for accountants, but for consultants as well.

Professor Paul Roman teachers operations management. He's part of the reason why I'm here, because it was his class that I sat in a year ago, and I thought he was one of the best profs I had encountered. He still is, along with pretty much all other Queen's profs! The course content though gets a little difficult for me at times, since we've talked a lot about manufacturing and production lines and such, which I'm totally ignorant of. It doesn't help that this class is always in the afternoon, when my brain is the slowest. But I definitely want to learn this stuff, and it'll probably be one of the most practical and useful courses for my intended career as a strategy consultant.

Now need to get back to reading...

Back to School

Exams for the last module were done with last Wednesday, after which I promptly headed back home to Toronto. Nevermind the end-of-module "party like a rock star" party that night, although I've heard good things about it (and seen hilarious pictures).

Returned to Kingston last night after the long weekend. This entire week will be filled with career stuff:

• Today: intro prep sessions on finance and consulting interviews.
• Over the next two days: professionals who help people prepare interviews for a living will come and give a full day workshop on each of finance and consulting.
• Friday: our corporate partners and alumni will conduct group mock interviews, which should be a good learning experience as well as networking opportunity.
• Saturday: AT Kearney case competition. This is just internal to our class, and we're the only school AT Kearney chose to do a competition at. This will again be an excellent opportunity to score some contacts.

In the background, there are two books that we need to read within this week and the next, for the next two modules. They're both interesting reads, but will take some time.

Now allow me to rant a little, which I almost never do. We suffered in heat the entire day today, it was brutal. It was hot, I mean HOT, H-O-T, in the classrooms. Something to do with the air conditioning being turned off over the weekend, and probably having trouble coming back on. So it got increasingly hot in the morning, until the AC came back on in the afternoon, but it would take hours for the classrooms to cool down, so it never really cooled down before the sessions ended for the day. Did I mention it was brutal? It also doesn't help that my house isn't air conditioned, but you know, I cheap out on housing, I suffer the consequences. This is not to say that I recommend not cheaping out on housing. For a generally healthy student in his/her prime years without a rich daddy, cheap housing is worth the suffering.