Cox has changed graduation requirements many times over the past few years. The program used to last almost 3 years! The administration has cut that down considerably. Currently, the PMBA program lasts 2 years ... if you follow the suggested schedule of classes.
In Fall 2004, it was required that everyone take a Communication Skills and a Managing Your Career class. Each of these classes lasted only 4 weeks and was either a pass or fail ... no credit was received. Since then, these courses have been cut from the mandatory classes. If it weren't for these two classes, I'd be done in August, as opposed to October.
Managerial Communication Skills
For this course, we were divided up into sections of 5 or 6 people. Each week, we were given a topic to present and then asked to stand up in front of the class and present it. We were to practice good standing, speaking and gesturing techniques. For me, it was uncomfortable. I had to take one if these classes at BYU. Whenever I have to publically speak, I get nervous and when I get nervous, I begin to sweat. I try really hard to keep calm. Usually I'm OK, but sometimes I just can't help but be nervous. We did our presentations and I got somewhat comfortable and survived the presentations.
Along with the public speaking stuff, we had to do some writing. She gave us a few scenarios and we had to write memos to our "boss" or "client." I had absolutly no problem with this. I enjoy writing. That part was easy.
Overall ... the class was a breeze. I passed.
Managing Your Career
This course was somewhat useful. The whole thing was more of an FYI rather than to learn anything. I really don't remember much about this class. I skipped it a few times. My wife was pregnant at the time and our baby was due in December. The only requirement that we had was to do this Meyer's-Briggs test and comment on the results or something like that ... I really don't remember. In my opinion, the course was didn't add a whole lot of benefit. They could have easily put all that info on a website and let us just read up on it.
Anyway ... I passed that course too.
Fall 2004 Semester Summary
My first semester was a rough one. My GPA was for the semester was 2.77 and as I've said, I was put on academic probation. Thankfully, I did much better the following semester. Fall 04 was a stressful time ... we had our 3rd child, I was starting school, our oldest started kindergarten ... we had a lot on our plate. But we survived.
Master Negotiation
Class is tonight. I read chapter 4 in the textbook last night. I also worked through some offers I intend to give in hopes of anchoring the other party. My target is twice that of my BATNA. I don't know if that is setting it too low or not. I'll find out tonight.
I think the whole exercise will be one of those "orange" negotiations where two people are negotiating over an orange. They finally decide to cut it in half. One person uses his half of the orange for just the peeling and discards the fruit part. The other person uses her half for the fruit part and discards the peeling. Had they negotiated better, they could have gotton more than what they received.
I think tonight's exercise will be similiar ... there are about 7 issues at hand. I think the dealer won't budge on some issues while being more flexible on others. I don't think our interests will be the same, therefore it will behoove us to work out a win-win situation.
I'll post the debriefing tomorrow.
Chess Update
The chessgames.com 2/8/06 puzzle ... I got the move in question, but I had to read the kibitzes to figure out how the game would have played out. I agree with the kibitzers who said that move 30 would be a good puzzle. It really was a beautiful move.
If I'm wired tonight after class (can't get to sleep), I'll probably play a few blitz games when I get home. I havn't played a chess game since January 6th!
540 days completed
254 days to go
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