Posted 2:16 PM by Zachary (e-mail)
IMAP Continues
Many of the international MAP teams, mine included, returned to the US. As much as I enjoyed Ireland, it's good to be home--and there remains plenty of work to be done over the remaining four weeks of the term. Most teams, upon returning to the US, are in one of two stages: data analysis or further research. For my project, the next couple weeks will be filled with interviews (mostly by phone) before work begins on the final presentation.

Posted 5:07 PM by Zachary (e-mail)
Ireland Update
I'm a week into my IMAP project, and loving every minute of it.

After some spotty weather late last week (the days were sunny, but windy, and punctuated with brief bursts of rain), it's been mostly sunny here.


The weekend provided a chance for my team to travel a bit. Starting from our home base in Ennis, we travelled north, seeing some of the countryside.



A rough ferry ride took us to the Aran Islands, a sparsly populated cluster of land masses visible from the Irish mainland. They offered a pleasant bike ride, handmade "Aran" sweaters, and some amazing cliffs.


However, those cliffs didn't quite match the famous Cliffs of Moher, which are a few miles southwest of Galway.


On the project front, it's amazing how many times there have been "this is just like a case" moments. These are moments during interviews when the client says, "On paper, this should be working, but for some reason it isn't"--a common lament in nearly every business school case. I can't emphasize enough what a great experience this IMAP project is: putting knowledge to action, solving real-world business problems, and seeing a new country, to boot.

Posted 8:27 AM by Zachary (e-mail)
Course Bidding for Next Term
Believe it or not, we're now in the process of choosing our courses for next Fall term. UMBS has an online course bidding system that works much in the same way as the interview bidding tool. MBA2s (and rising MBA2s) each get 1,000 points to allocate amongst all the courses/course sections for the term. A computer then goes through and works out the MKP ("market clearing price") for each section (i.e. time) of each course, and students who bid more than the MKP are allowed to register for the course.

The administration was kind enough to post the bidding records for the Fall 2003 and Winter 2004 terms. Last fall, many courses had MKPs of 0. In this [Winter] term: the most "expensive" course was the Financial Analysis & Portfolio Management class taught in the Tozzi Center (it cost 225 points), followed by Bargaining & Influence Skills (201) and Strategies of Growth (155). I presume that the Winter classes are more expensive because there will be a larger number of MBA1s also taking them. Still, it's clear that the vast majority of students get to take the courses they want--the problem is too many interesting classes, not too little access.

As for myself, I'm undecided about how heavily I want to focus on finance next year. I'd really like to take the Portfolio Management class (mentioned above), but it has two accounting classes as prereqs. If I take that series of 3 classes, my schedule is pretty packed and very finance-centric. On the one hand, finance is my interest and why I came to school; on the other, it would be great to work on some of the other knowledge areas--management, communication, business law--that I won't have time for after graduation. That's why I've already committed to taking a year of Business Japanese (through the U of M Department of Asian Languages). Throw football, the finance club, poker, and learning golf into the mix, and next year's already looking busy (in a good way).

Posted 9:27 AM by Zachary (e-mail)
Congratulations
...to the new UMBS admits (second round admission decisions were announced last week)! It's good to see some fellow bloggers got the good news.

I'd encourage all admitted students to attend the Go Blue Rendezvous weekend in April. I went last year, and besides just having a good time, it gave us all a clearer impression of what it's like to attend the University of Michigan Business School (you'll meet tons of current students, many of your future classmates, sit in on "classes", do the team projects, meet the different clubs, go to parties, etc.). I've volunteered to be a host for GBR (and manning the Finance Club booth), and one thing I'm sure you'll find is that all MBA students are happy to answer any of your questions. I look forward to meeting the admitted class of 2006 there.

Go Blue!

Posted 9:13 AM by Zachary (e-mail)
Michigan Weather
February 1 - March 12
January and early February was the worst of it. It wasn't that it was unbelievably cold--if you live in New York, you've felt the same temperatures before. Rather, it was the consistency of the cold--every single day was 20 degrees, overcast, with a chance of snow. Not horrible, just grindingly bad.

The weather then went all screwy from mid-February on. It got milder and milder (temperatures in the 50s!?!), and then colder, then milder. Yesterday alone started cold and snowy, turned bright and mild during the day, and then closed with blustery, windy, snow. From day to day, the weather could be January-ish or October-ish.

Thankfully (really?), the weather in Ireland doesn't seem to be as variable...

(Image from Weather.com)

Previous Update:: December 2 - January 31

Posted 8:38 AM by Zachary (e-mail)
Thank Goodness for the Internet
MBA1s are now in the second week of their MAP projects. For most teams (mine included), that means we're spending most of the days doing background research on relevant industries, markets, products, technologies, etc. Most of the IMAP (International MAP) teams depart in the next two weeks (all of the Ireland-based IMAP teams will travel there together, arriving, coincidentally enough, on March 17th). Michigan MBA students will soon be at work in Niceragua, South Africa, India, China, the Czech Republic, and many other places around the world (the only continents not visited will be Antarctica and Oceania).

From my perspective, so far this project has only solidified my appreciation of the internet, and the resources available to UMBS students. Case in point: yesterday I spent five hours doing background research. From my laptop, sitting in a Starbucks, I was able to perform 50+ queries on various databases, uncovering dozens of relevant books and articles. Ten years ago, to get the same results, would have meant required two or three days spent in a couple libraries, shuffling through books and magazines and microfiche.

This type of work also gives a new sense of the magnitude of resources available to UM students. It would literally costs tens of thousands of dollars for an individual working at a company to gain access to all the research databases (Lexis-Nexis, ABI/Inform, DataMonitor, Hoovers, Thompson, Bloomberg, and on and on) that we get for free. These resources also serve as a reminder of how weak Google is as a serious research tool.