Lots To Say, Little Time To Do So

So, as you can tell from my 6 weeks of absence, the Core keep us busy! Since my last post we have done a LOT. Midterms are done (I made it through without too many scars), we've gone through Academy Intensive Week 1 (which I'll expound upon here shortly), and we're back in the mix of things preparing for the pending 1st Year Case Competition.





Midterms: Though the midterm season is definitely brutal; the school does attempt to alleviate some of the pain by spreading out most of the exams over the course of about 4 weeks. They then try to add to the pain by piling on the other deliverables/homework assignments/team projects/etc. all due within those same 3-4 weeks. What you get is a bunch of stressed out MBA's that learn how to survive and even thrive under stressful conditions. It also teaches us a lot about time management and prioritization (definitely important subject matters post-MBA). The worst for me was Finance, though I think I've started to understand better what went wrong and how I can improve for the final exam. My best performance I think was on my Econ test. All in all I'm tracking for a decent grade and learning most of what I'll need for my electives next semester and beyond.





Academy Intensive Week 1: At Kelley all students join what is called an Academy. These academies are something like a mix of a professional club and Major that are function and industry specific. This program of using the academies to complement our MBA and chosen major is unique to Kelley and really sets us apart for long-term success. There are 8 (and a half) Academies for students to choose from in 3 broad business areas. The finance academies are Corporate Finance, Investment Banking, and Investment Management; the management academies are Supply Chain and Global Management, Consulting, and Entrepreneurship management; and the Marketing Academies are Business Marketing and the Consumer Marketing Academy (of which I am a member). During my two years as a Kelley MBA student and a member of the Consumer Marketing Academy (CMA), I will have 3 Academy Intensive Weeks (Academy Week) with the CMA. Academy Week 1 consisted of company presentations of 6 companies in 5 days in 4 states. Kraft Foods (Oscar Mayer) visited us in Bloomington, we then traveled to Chicago for company presentations at MillerCoors and JewelOsco (Supervalu), over to Benton Harbor to visit with Whirlpool, down to Indianapolis for an event with Eli Lilly, and then lastly on to Cincinnati to visit with P&G. I learned a lot about many industries and how consumer marketing is similar (and different) across categories.

As this was meant to be posted long ago, I'm going to cut it off here and try to get another update out there soon. Wow - School really does take a lot of your time!