Intensive week @ NUS - the drill begins

Hi

When I had applied to NUS, it was a 2 year MBA program. Somewhere along the line, it was changed into an 18 month program. I am not a great fan of the shortened MBA programs - specially 10 month MBA programs. I think it is a really short time for people like me to make the switch from IT into management. Anyway I had got an admit into NUS and grudgingly accepted the 18 month program. In my first week @ NUS, I got a taste of the evils of the shortened program.

It was called (or "Branded" for MBA speak) Intensive week. Two complete modules were to be completed within this one week - Management in Organizations (M& O) and Leadership. The batch was split into three sections with each section having a strength of about 40. I was in FM3 (FM - functional module). The classes were all day and throughout the week. During this week I was introduced to the other evil - Class Participation. A specific percentage of marks were alloted for Class Participation. Ask any b-school student and they will tell you they hate class participation. But once the lecture starts they will ramble on (me included!) with meaningless comments and stupid questions. And this is specially true of abstract subjects like Management and Leadership. People loved to say, "When I was in xxx company, my boss did this or my company did this....". In the end you only remembered that they were from xxx company (maybe that was the whole purpose of the excercise!!!).

Of course, there are always the pleasant exceptions. I distinctly remember the prof asking one of batch-mates, "So what do you think about this?". To which he replied, "Mam, I wasn't listening." That brought a sleepy class to life.

For the M & O class, I had the oppurtunity to work in a project team with a couple of Koreans, Jae Hong and Sandy. They were the most wonderful people. When we decided to form the group, Jae Hong and Sandy said that there was a pre-condition for forming the group. I asked what it was. They said that once the project was done we must go out for a treat!!!

Overall, the intensive week was a waste of time. It went too fast for me to learn anything. The exam and project work was pretty easy. The professors were generally nice people. A week wasted but atleast I had aced two MBA subjects. Or so I thought. Until my grades came after a few weeks. My grades sucked. It only added to my disgust of the Intensive week @ NUS

Cheers,
Suraj