Back to School...The Fall Lineup

We're back into the full swing of things here in Cambridge.  After a full week of Sloan Orientation (see Yalu's post here), we jumped right into the Fall selection of courses.  Steve also has a great post on the emotional impact of leaving the summer and jumping into the fall.

This is when the uniqueness of the LGO experience really come to light.  Although we are all getting MBA's and MS Engineering degrees, we seem to constantly find ourselves doing a delicate dance between the worlds of business and engineering.  Some general observations so far:

1. Sloan is incredibly diverse.  41% of the MBA class this year comes from outside the US and I'm really looking forward to hearing the unique perspectives from all over the world.  On my core team of 6 people, we cover the US, Russia, and Singapore.  In the larger cohort, there seems to be a lot of students from Latin America, Asia, and Eastern Europe.  We've already had some great discussions and cross-cultural talks and I look forward to many more throughout my time at Sloan.
2. Grocery Shopping is Overrated: If you get on enough club lists and cross-reference them with all the events in Sloan and the engineering colleges, there is essentially FREE FOOD available somewhere on campus at any given time, 7-days a week.  There is even technology available to point you towards the free food (i.e. the "vultures" e-mail list).  Out of the last two weeks, I think I've only cooked 2 or 3 dinners and packed 1 or 2 lunches.  Such is life as a graduate student!
3. I have no interest in being a straight-up MBA student.  We had our first "Career Core" session for the MBA program yesterday and there was absolutely no mention of manufacturing industries, which reflects the views of the class as a whole.  The top target industries were: 1) management consulting, 2) finance/banking, and 3) high-tech.  It was somewhat interesting to gain insight into those industries, but I maintain that my passion and career interest remains in actually building tangible things.
4. I have no interest in being a straight-up engineering student.  We've had several mixers with the various engineering departments in the last few weeks and I've gotten to know several of the MS and PhD graduate students.  The discussions always revolve around what research they are doing, how many years are left in their program (which is usually a lot), and how stressed they are about finding an adviser or prepping for the qualification exams.  This has made me realize that while I really do like engineering, I don't quite have the mindset to jump into a research-based graduate program for an unknown number of years.

The conclusion of all this is that LGO is definitely the program for me.  We are fortunate to experience the best of both worlds and  end up being able to carry on intelligent conversations with engineers and investment bankers alike.  This really is what sets the LGO program apart from any other program out there and I have absolutely no doubt that coming here was the right decision.  It's funny that the LGO lounge has become a clubhouse of sorts now, a place to reunite with our classmates from the summer and some of the 2014's who are back on campus.  It has definitely become a community.

With that said, my fall lineup of classes definitely shows the combination of management and engineering, with a few seminars thrown in for good measure:

• The MBA "Core Four":
• 15.010 (Economics): Case-based studies of econ, focused on management decision-making and general market understanding.  Having already taken econ, I'm looking forward to getting a different perspective in terms of how to use the data in business decisions.
• 15.515 (Financial Accounting): Focuses on the fundumentals of financial accounting, and spends time discussing cases and the trade-off between the many different options for accounting.
• 15.280 (Communication for Leaders): Although this is an independent class, it integrates heavily with 15.311 and the Sloan Career Development Office (CDO) to help us develop our communication skills.  From everything from impromptu Toastmaster-style presentations to formal project report-outs and self-reflection essays, it looks like this will definitely challenge us to work on our communication styles.
• 15.311 (Organizational Processes): An interesting course that dives into the dynamics of teams and organizations and looks at them through three distinct lenses (strategic, political, and cultural).  This class also involves our biggest project of the term, which entails finding a company in Boston undergoing a major change effort and analyzing their organizational dynamics.
• Engineering Electives:
• ESD.260 (Logistics Systems): All about supply chains, and the engineering and numerical work that goes into establishing and optimizing them.  This looks to be a high-paced and somewhat numerical class that covers a lot of topics that are familiar but I don't know much about (i.e. how does Starbucks get fresh bananas to every location in the world on a daily basis?).
• 16.71J (The Airline Industry): This is definitely my favorite class so far, and my first class from the Aero/Astro department.  I knew I had found the right place when I walked into the classroom and noticed a giant mural on one of the walls depicting a 767 in a high-rate climb out of some foreign airport.  The class is essentially a survey-level exploration of the airline industry, covering everything from route planning and revenue management to aviation safety and fleet selection (of course the answer to the last subject should always be: All Boeing!).  As our prof said on day 1, "This class won't teach you enough to run an airline, but you'll understand something about every aspect of the industry".  Sounds like fun!
• Seminars:
• 15.792 (Global Operations Seminar): This is the flagship LGO seminar in which a speaker comes in every week to discuss their business and a particular challenge that they have faced.  The lineup for the fall includes some great speakers from Nike, Apple, Amazon, and many more.  It is one of that many highlights of the LGO program and I'm definitely looking forward to some interesting presentations.
• 15.S25 (Leadership and Ethics Seminar): This is another mostly-LGO seminar, but focused specifically on issues around leadership and ethics in the industry.  Our instructor, LGO's own Vah Erdekian, is a veteran of the electronics industry and was most recently the senior VP of operations for Cisco.  He brings in some great speakers throughout the term, and supplements their presentations with additional wisdom from his own career.  This is another portion of the program that I am really looking forward to.

In case you're thinking "geez, that's a lot of classes", it is.  This is MIT, such is life!  It actually isn't too bad.  Essentially I have class/recitations on Monday - Thursday from 8:30 to 11:30 and  1:00 - 5:30, with any spare time filled in with group meetings or individual homework.  Then the evenings are filled with more reading and prep-work for the next day.  As I've said before, it's not that the work is hard; there's just a lot of it.  The key is to stay ahead of the curve but leave time for all the other adventures that Sloan and MIT offer.  More to come on that topic in a few weeks.

A departing pic...

Food!