View From a Height

MBA Almost-Mortem

With one more class to go, and an independent study to finish polishing, it's time to start looking forward to graduation and the post-MBA/MSF career around the corner. But it's also a good moment to pause briefly, turn around, take a deep breath, and consider what I'm on the cusp of finishing.

Let's do the numbers (Light, frothy piano version of, "We're In the Money", please):

• Years: 3
  
• Degrees: 2
  
• Courses: 25
  
• Credit Hours: 100
  
• GPA: 3.72
  
• Hours at Assistantship: 600
  
• Courses Paid For by Assistantship: 6
  
• Courses Paid For by Daniels Scholarship: ~4
  
• Student Loans: ~$54,000
  

Now, Peter Robinson wrote an entire book about this, so I don't expect to be able to cover the whole thing in one blog posting. I'll do what I can.

First, this was a hell of a lot of work. I took courses over the summer, and DU runs on an archaic quarter system, designed to kill off the weaker students at the end of each August. There's a 5-week break that covers Thanksgiving to New Year's. After which, a 20-week marathon, 28 weeks if you're taking summer classes. Total time off between New Year's and Labor Day: 4 weeks.

Most of the courses actually required a fair amount of writing. These could be group projects, case studies, exercises, case studies, problem sets, group projects, mid-terms, group projects, finals, or case studies. Take away Friday night & Saturday, and that meant three years of endentured Sundays, be they to homework or housework. I will say that I cannot recall a single student who complained about our having to hold group meetings on Sundays or weeknights.

Most of this time I was working, too. Ah, yes, working. I remember one quarter when an exceptionally understanding contract allowed me to take 16 credit hours while putting in about 30 a week, and taking 10 during the evenings to babysit printers for the assistantship. Yum. Sleep? I'm sorry, I don't know that word....zzzzzzzz. (There was actually a reason for that. DU used to have a billing system where you didn't pay for any hours above 12 in a given quarter. That extra 4 hours was free.)

While there was never a time when I thought of quitting, there were certainly times when I questioned the value of the project; was I really learning all that much, or was it just ticket-punching? Seeing DU get top-5 honors in finance and top-50 honors overall, two years running, in the WSJ recruiter rankings certainly made me feel better about the whole enterprise.

Part of the reason I never thought of quitting was that first quarter. I had probably the best accounting professor on the face of the planet. I mean good. Buff Honodel is former USAF, runs his class like a drill sergeant, and keeps things lively. I was actually excited to walk out realizing that the numbers embodied actual concepts. And while the less said about the finance professor the better, the class itself made it clear that you could interpret these numbers in a meaningful way.

It won't surprise readers of this blog to find out that I also found plenty of room for participation in the ethics & law class first quarter. I am told - by a reliable source - that when I missed one evening session, the professor looked over and wondered out loud if it was worthwhile even having the class.

I blogged only sparingly about the classes while they were going on. Part of this was just because I wanted to give the thing a chance to play out. Part of it was fatigue: I was writing up case studies for the class as it was. It's also hard to blog as a spectator when you're a participant. I'll spare you a class-by-class rehash of the program, but I assure you I can remember something from every single class.

If DU were to ask me what I'd do to the program, I'd have three suggestions. First, re-introduce economics. Incredible as it may seem, DU's graduate business program doesn't teach econ. That's like being a pilot and not learning about the weather. One course. One lousy course: 5 weeks macro, 5 weeks micro. No excuse, really, especially with Thomas Sowell's masterpieces out there.

Second, make sure that every course referred back to the Foundations courses, the basic accounting and finance. Even the management courses. How can you even think about negotiating a labor deal when you don't know your costs? By the time I took the advanced accounting course, I was using concepts I hadn't even seen in 2 years. Every course.

Finally, include 2 or 3 top-flight Bill James articles in the finance courses. Silly? Oh, no, my friends. You may or may not like baseball, just as you may think of finance as a roadblock between you and those juicy organizational behavior texts. But you can't dispute James's writing, his love of subject, clarity of thought, and above all, his ability to tease meaning from numbers like nobody before or since.

OK. As Crash Davis said to Nuke, "moment's over."