Walter's way to the MBA

Final result table

2008-09-10T09:44:00.000-07:00

Today I got my final results... I expected to be a bit better, but still happy about the result. Think I have to wait a bit till I realise what I achieved in the last year ... best proof will be that I get a good job at one of the big Management Consultancies where I can now finally apply after getting my results...

Wired

2008-09-09T03:14:00.000-07:00

It's a bit wired to wake up in the morning and no studies are waiting...
The weather is getting colder and colder and daylight less and less ... so I'm looking forward to come back to continental Europe and hope for a few weeks of nice autumn :)

Meanwhile I spend the time with reading books which were recommended during the lectures and I also decided that I wanna develop my career in going to be a Management Consultant and so I'm looking for companies where I can apply and bring my CV up to date and all this things ...

Enjoying Scotland

2008-09-07T11:46:00.000-07:00

I decided now that I'll gonna leave Edinburgh on the 19th this month so in exactly 12 days. Before that I enjoy a bit of Scotland and will do another tour when I get more visitors up here for a few days ...

Today I made it to two galleries here in town which was really good and now I'm resting a bit ... later I might go to town for a drink, it's just a bit boring to go alone because most of the others are already gone ...

Trip round Scotland

2008-08-31T08:25:00.000-07:00

Last week when Stephan was visiting me we were traveling a bit round to visit some places:

Glasgow

St.Andrews famous golf court
St Andrews ruin of the cathedral
North Berwick

Inverness Castle
Somewhere on the drive along the West Coast

E-Day

2008-08-22T05:24:00.001-07:00

It's done!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I just finished my last exam of my MBA and again I'm confident that I passed this one as well so I'll go to celebrate tonight ... there might be drinks with plenty of alcohol included :)

After this 9 month it feels good to know that I finished this and it feels good to know to finish it good and so all the effort was it worth! Now I'm looking forward to some friends coming over to visit me and enjoy a few days of Scotland without thinking or touching any black book :)

... will still post some stuff here the next weeks, my way to the MBA here at this Blog will finish with my Graduation on November the 20th 2008 !!!

sun!

2008-08-21T12:04:00.000-07:00

For the first time in days there was a period of about 2 hours of sunshine!! :)
I just used it and went jogging and now my tiredness is gone and I feel much better then before!
I should have done this a few days ago before :( ... whatever, now I study and do my best to perform great tomorrow! ... 11:30 hours till exam starts ...

22 hours till exam

2008-08-21T03:26:00.000-07:00

What a nice study day, it's raining outside and so there is no thread of being distracted from studying SRM ...

I got up in the morning, had a cup of coffee, was practicing a bit of SRM like doing a test answer for strategic drift and now having a break. Later I practice scenario planning and the risk interdependency field and for the end I do a risk analysis for the different risk types ...

E-Day

2008-08-20T05:26:00.000-07:00

I'm getting crazy!!!

In every exam I get the cases which I find the most difficult ones :(
I think I did the exam well, but the case was so difficult that I spent over two hours just on question one and was running out of time at the end :(

Now I'm eating a pizza, relax a bit and then study SRM to be prepared for Friday.

Preparing for MSW

2008-08-19T04:02:00.000-07:00

Today I enjoyed sleeping longer after a short night yesterday :)
Had my cup of coffee and was reading some online newspapers about what's happening on the surface of this crazy planet and now I go back to study MSW ...

Won't write a lot because I already did 4 complete past paper tests last week, will just easy revise the stuff and get sure that I have the models in place so that I can draw them with closed eyes :)

4 days to go ...

E-day

2008-08-18T08:59:00.000-07:00

Was studying the last weekend again like almost all weekends so fair here in Scotland and prepared for my last exam week.

Today was then the start of the exam week with my first exam in Strategic Planning.

The exam was good, think I passed, just don't know how good it was ...

Now I'm watching a bit tv, relax and start maybe later with looking at MSW. Tomorrow I'll then prepare for my exam on Wednesday.

Feel tired

2008-08-15T03:45:00.001-07:00

I don't know why but I feel really tired since the last days...
...but the good news is that I have just 3 days left till exams begin and 7 days till it's over and I have time to relax :)

The last days I was studying a mix of all subjects in random order because they are related in some parts anyway... I was writing a bunch of past papers for all subjects and tried to increase my efficiency in timing myselfe to write faster and practice writing at the same time ...

Today my plan is to start with SRM, doing a bit of review and then writing a past paper. Then I do the same for MSW and think that will take all my time till 10pm when I leave EBS...

Changing Company Structure

2008-08-13T06:45:00.000-07:00

"We trained hard to meet our challenges but it seemed as if every time we were
beginning to form into teams we would be re-organised.

I was to learn later that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganising; and a
wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of prgress while producing
confusion, ineffectiveness and demoralisation."

- Gaius Petronius Arbitor, Roman Governor of Bithynia

Last EBS-Seminar of my MBA!!!

2008-08-12T11:54:00.001-07:00

Last weekend we had the revision seminar for Strategic Planning which were at the same time my last seminar days for my MBA :) Sounds good, but it's still strange to realise that the year of my studies is going to an end and there are many moments where I do things around here probably the last time ...

Since Monday I'm now studying to get ready for the exams next week. Started with SP / SRM, today I did a bit of SP and more in MSW ... tomorrow probably again MSW and SP ...

Strategic Risk Management Details

2008-08-06T05:18:00.000-07:00

Just realised that I didn't really tell you guys what SRM is really about and what we learned in classes :)

The EBS-Book devides Risk in 4 main categories:

- Strategic Risk
- Change / Project Risk
- Operational Risk
- Unforseen / Unforseeable Risk

The main aim is to identify the risks of each category and how they can influence your organisation. Important here is to know the Mission / Highest level objectives of the company to have a context to search.

After identifying the different risks they are plotted on a risk map which has the two axes "Impact" / "Likelyhood".

Then you can plan what you wanna do with these risks: Mitigate, Transfer, Accept, Avoid and so on... here it is important to recognise that there will always be a residual risk left after taking actions. The aim here is to bring the risk to an acceptabel level for the organisation.

Another big part of SRM was scenario planning where we made different scenarios how the risks might influence our strategy. Here it doesn't really matter how realistic the different scenarios might be. The important step is to recognise different outcomes and at least thaught of it instead of being taken by surprise.

And the last part was Risk interdependeny which is plotted on a matrix called "Risk interdependency field (RIF)". This matrix visualises the different risks and shows how they are related to each other in the context of different functions in the organisaion.

In classes we had different case studies to each of the different main parts and had good fun during the group works.

Two weeks to go!

2008-08-04T09:36:00.001-07:00

Today in two weeks the first exam is done and two ahead :)
Which means that my inner unrest is increasing and I'm getting more and more tensed about my knowledge or even worse the holes in this knowledge ... I'm convinced that I can do a good job for all of the three missing exams, but to reach the big goal to graduate with distinction I have to go back to power-studying like I did it in any other term so far... today was the last day where I was lazy and relaxing a bit... will do my study plan for the coming weeks and then it's time to get focused on studies and forget about the world outside...

Strategic Risk Management

2008-08-02T14:29:00.000-07:00

The last three days and tomorrow I enjoy the Strategic Risk Management classes. The group is unfortunately not as dynamic and mature as the group we had at Making Strategies Work but it's still good. Just the evenings are pretty boring, nobody wants to go out and so I'm already at home on this nice Saturday at 22:30 without any drink in town ... just don't wanna go out alone because that's pointless, too ... Next weekend is the revision seminar for Strategic Planning and then it's over, this will me my last tow days of lectures at EBS for my MBA :)

It's getting harder

2008-07-29T15:55:00.000-07:00

I finished my notes for Strategic Planning like planned yesterday and today I was studying Making Strategies Work and will finish my notes in about one hour ... but as more time I spend with this two modules the more I'm worrying about Strategic Risk Management ... but there I'll have classes from Thursday to Sunday and so I think I'm able to catch up then in my knowledge about this process...

Professor Roberts was using this picture to show our performance during the 4 day classes in Making Strategies Work... I think I can apply this one to my studies as well and when my feelings are right I'm just going from "This is getting hard!" to "I'm lost!" ... just have to mange it to come to the optimistic part short before the exams :)

Here is a little test for you guys...
Try to answer all questions related to the company you just work for:

- What is the strategy?
- How is it enforced? - What mechanics enforce it?
- Who else would give the same explanation?
- What are the critical success factors?
- What would you fail to deliver them?

If you couldn't answer them properly you should think about taking a course at EBS ;-)

3 weeks to go

2008-07-28T03:50:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I decided to go out till late to at least see some people before I start hiding now again while studying for the next 3 weeks... I found some nice places with good looking girls and great music it just seem that the girls are kind of resistant to me. But anyway, music was great and now I have to concentrate on my books anyway :)

Today I plan to finish my notes for Strategic Planning, tomorrow the notes for Making Strategies Work and then I look at Past Papers to practice them ...

RESULTS ARE OUT!!!!

2008-07-27T04:25:00.000-07:00

Here are my next results... I'm happy with Finance, but not with Project Management. Missed the X again just by a bit ... :(

Back on track

2008-07-25T13:43:00.000-07:00

Was cleaning my flat round noon and washing some cloth. At 4 I met Lachlan to play a bit golf and came back at 6pm, was eating some leftovers I had from cooking yesterday and now I'm back on solid studies ... think it helps when I start taking notes so I'm busy and see that I make progress :) Finally it seems that the tiredness is gone ... maybe I just needed a break to get new power for the last days to come :)

Tiredness

2008-07-25T02:19:00.001-07:00

I don't know what happened to me this week but I feel tired when getting up till I go to bed... Tried to study the last days but when I look back I hardly managed to do anything properly ... maybe I just can't wait till it's over in exactly 29 days when I finish my last exam! :)

Another reason might be that it is finally summer in town and we had more then 20 degrees the last 4 days and the sun is shining... so I hope the week before exams it will rain :)

I did some calculations about the 80% average ... to reach this I have to reach 80% of each of my last exams + 17% over this three... which looks almost impossible... so I try to maintain my 70% average and still graduate with distinction but without the extra price...

Making Strategies Work

2008-07-23T07:43:00.000-07:00

To make it short, this is the best course I've had at EBS so far and I enjoyed every second which I spent in classes!!!

We had a great group of people and it didn't make a difference if we were in the groups or in classes we always had sophisticated discussions about the topic. The Professor was great and did a very good job to bring us close to the topic. We had dinner together with a few of our group every night and then a few drinks :)

The subject is really great, it was one of the most interesting books I've read so far and I got many useful ideas I wanna apply in my future career.

By the way, this is the "Strategic Focus Wheel", developed by the Professor which was teaching us Making Strategies Work and parts of Strategic Planning.

Little explanation what each stone means:

· Strategic Planning is required to identify the most appropriate future state for a firm, which will create sustainable competitive advantage through choosing a strategy that can be implemented by the firm.

· Project Management is an ideal tool to manage and control defined packets of change, whether or not they fit with existing organisational processes and structures.

· Strategic Risk Management is a set of principles and techniques that can be used to identify and test the probabilities and impacts of outcomes not intended by planning and change efforts and to manage and control these risks throughout the other elements of the model.

· Making Strategies Work is required to connect Strategic Planning with Project Management. It defines which projects are the right ones to initiate, and provides an overall framework to align these projects with strategic objectives and control a multi-faceted change effort.

Oh and by the way, these are the descriptions of the other subjects I've done:

· Economics is about the economic influences at three levels. At the highest level it is necessary to have some understanding of how the economy operates. The next level concerns how markets operate and how prices are determined. The third level concerns ideas about efficiency, primarily based on marginal analysis.

· Organisational Behaviour is one of the top requirements of any manager. Organisations are run by people and every manager has to have an understanding of what motivates and influences people, be able to design appropriate reward systems and job designs and how to manage organisational change.

· Marketing is the complex process of relating product characteristics to market demand and attempting to win competitive advantage in a dynamic competitive setting.

· Accounting is a series of processes and techniques used to identify, measure and communicate econimc information of the company which users find helpful in decision making. (corporate reports, NPV calculation)

· Finance is required to understand the financial markets and takes all available information on projected future cash flows and subjects them to rigorous evaluation.

Studies

2008-07-23T07:41:00.000-07:00

Oh and by the way, even through the two weeks in the Highlands I studied a lot to be prepared for the seminars of my last term. I even made it possible to be ahead of schedule and managed it to finish during this two weeks the black book of Making Strategies Work and almost finished Strategic Risk Management.

Forth bridges

2008-07-23T07:38:00.000-07:00

On my way down we had a quick stop and I made two pictures which are crossing the Firth of Forth near Edinburgh.

Forth road bridge:

Forth rail bridge:

Highland sightseeing trip

2008-07-23T06:58:00.000-07:00

On the semi last day we decided to have a little road trip to the north sea and then driving down along the west coast to the Dunrobin castle.

Here are the pictures:

It started with a little hole in the ground which was a place where people lived a few hundred years ago...

Random pictures on the way...

Cave of smoo near Durness

Durness cementary next to the ocean

Ruined Caisteal Bharraigh (or Castle Varrich) near Tongue

Kyle of Tongue

Caslte of Mey

Duncansby Head Lighthouse

Stacks of Duncansby

Random picture on the way along the west coast...

Loch Watenan

Cairn o'Get

Hill o'Many Stanes

Dunrobin castle

...the end :)

Trip to the Highlands, Week 2

2008-07-23T06:43:00.000-07:00

In week to I did even more then in week one and so I have plenty of pictures for you guys to get an impression how it is up there...

This is a nice view over the kyle of Tongue.
View in the other direction towards the end of the kyle.

The beach of Coldbackie

View out of my window in Talmine.

Single Track Road

2008-07-23T04:00:00.000-07:00

Because this time it was light while I was driving up north and I wasn't in a hurry I took a few pictures on the way....

Graduation Weekend

2008-07-23T03:40:00.000-07:00

I had a break between the two weeks of my trip to the highlands where I was coming back to Edinburgh for the weekend to see Lorraine and here Family and to see her graduation ceremony.
It was a really nice weekend where we made a trip to Loch Lomond on Sunday.

The ceremony was really good. All graduates were running around in there robes and it looked really amazing. Look forward to my own graduation in November :)

Straight after the ceremony I jumped back in my car and drove up north back to Tongue.

Trip to the Highlands, Week 1

2008-07-15T17:00:00.000-07:00

Finally I managed it to put all the pictures together and give you guys a taste of the Highlands!
(sorry for the quality, I had to resize them to upload them...)

First I wanna show you guys where I've been... the next biggest village next to Talmine is Tongue. As you can see is it on the top north of Scotland just at the Atlantic coast.

This is a view from Tongue to the ruined Caisteal Bharraigh (or Castle Varrich)
http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/tongue/tongue/index.html

The house where we stayed was in Talmine and the view out of my room where I was sleeping and studying looked like this at 00:29 ( half past midnight!! )
http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/tongue/talmine/index.html

This picture is from the first day when we were running a bit around to discover the area.

This ship is laying on the beach of Talmine (and I'm proud of this shot :))

This is the wall which protects the ships in the port behind it.
I forgot the name, but this is actually the national flower of Scotland and as you can see is it growing pretty high...
On the right side you can see a few houses. They are belonging to the neighbor village called "Midfield" ... so I discovered the miracle where the German "Midfiled" was hiding during the Final of the Euro 2008 because when I was following the Game I couldn't really see it...
On Wednesday we made a great hiking tour up Ben Hope (you can see the top in the background). He is 927m high and we made it in 2 hour up and then 2 hours down again ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Hope

(I was wearing this t-shirt because I was sure that nobody would see me there ;))

View down to the Loch Hope.

Me :)
The top.
Me on the top :)
During the next days we just made a few small hikes up a few hills just around the house.
Here are now some pictures of my travel down on Saturday. I was driving down to Edinburgh from Saturday to Monday because Lorraine invited me to join her and her family at her Graduation ceremony at the Heriot Watt University.

This is how the single-track-roads look like. To come to Tongue you have to drive about 1 hour on such a road where you have just passing places you have to use when you meet other cars.

Ok, I didn't have to drive over this bridge, I saw this one just when I had a stop to get some gas :)
...to be continued with my adventures of week 2 :)

Strategic Planning Seminar

2008-07-14T08:03:00.000-07:00

It's already two weeks since I enjoyed the SP seminar but because of my journey to the north and the lack of network availability up there I wasn't able to present my impressions earlier.

The seminar was really interesting and good organized and structured. The first one and a half day was going through different models which support strategic thinking and application in group works where we were running a shipping company. The team where I was a member of was winning the contest and we created wealth for our imaginary shareholders while others managed it to destroy plenty of wealth :-) We started with a few ships and £600 million. Our team finished after 30 quaters with a value of £1605 million. It was a good lessen how to react on external shocks trough the environment and how to develop a strategy to go through the different stages of the economy cycle...

The core of the course is about a model which was developed by the Edinburgh Business School called the "Strategic Process Model":

After this sessions we were going through more models and got additional information and learned what we did right or wrong. One of the biggest mistakes is to take intuitive decisions and the target of the 4 days was to shut down intuition and develop a analytical approach to look at important factors which are influencing the strategy.

The only bad thing about the seminar was the group again, people were coming late again and some disappeared after the first day again. Here you can see a picture of the group to get an idea how it looked like...

Still alive

2008-07-07T07:40:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the long delay since the last entry. I'm still alive, I just spent one week up in the top north of Scotland and I just came back for two nights to spent some time with Lorraine and her Family in Edinburgh because of her Graduation today and now I'm just packing again for a second week in the Highlands.

Details about my SP classes, holiday and studies up north follow next week when I'm back, don't have internet there to keep you informed every day ... but you can already look forward to fantastic pictures of the highlands!!! :o)

Progress

2008-06-24T11:30:00.000-07:00

Today I made good progress, I finished the last Module of Strategic Planning and now I'm writing my cards for learning the words I didn't know while reading the book. I'm happy about the result that I "just" have to learn about 40 words this time, that's a lot less then with the other books and not too bad after all because the book was still about 400 pages to read...

The weather was changing again and after a great sunny day yesterday it was really cold tonight and I was waking up with a slight cold.

Back to SP

2008-06-23T16:49:00.001-07:00

After my three days off, I opened the book today again and was working through Module 7.
So now I have just Module 8 left and still two days time. I plan to read the Module tomorrow morning, then have a break and start producing some MindMaps again for each Module to get the stuff ready to learn it. After this I think about starting with the next book...

Because I already finished the Module at 7 and the sun was still shining I went to the sea which ended up in an two hour walk to go there and back on a slightly different way ...

The days are now getting shorter again because we passed the 21st of June ... but it is amazing when you realize how long the days are ...

Here is an actual 5 day forecast so you can see how "summer" in Scotland looks like...

Weekend off

2008-06-23T16:41:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I had a break of my studies thanks to my friends Stefan and Nicole visiting me over here. It was really great, I saw many parts of the city I didn't see before when I was running around before...

I hope to get the pictures of these days soon, then I'll put some here at the blog to show you guys how nice the city can be :)

I hope to manage to see more of the parts of the town I didn't see till now before I leave...

SP and Football :)

2008-06-19T07:56:00.000-07:00

Started Module 6 this morning, already finished 30 pages, now made lunch (pasta with home made sauce :) and now back to module 6 to finish the other 30 pages before I have to go to see the football match Germany vs. Portugal today...

In SP I have now just Module 7/8 left which gives me some free time I can spend with friends coming over to visit me for a few days! Today it's really windy again here which reminds me to tell you guys that when arriving here in Edinburgh by plane when it is windy like today is the most turbulent landing phase I've ever had so far... and people who know me know that I was flying a bit around...

May the better team win tonight... and I hope of course that this is Germany ;)

Studying at home

2008-06-18T09:17:00.000-07:00

Today I decided not to drive to campus to study and was just sitting at home, try to finish Module 5 of Strategic Planning. Hope to reach Module 6 then tonight so I have two more to go to finally finish the book...

I thought that after studying so long I could increase the speed of reading this books, but with taking the same effort in concentration in it like I did with the books before I still keep my average of 10 pages an hour... but at least many of the concepts of Strategic Planning are covered by the 6 core courses I did so far and so it's a repetition for me and I benefit from the fact that I still remember the other stuff so I'm feeling confident that I can learn the rest easier... which is very good because of the fact that I have three Subjects this term and I'll need time for the other two books as well...

Cooles time in months!!

2008-06-17T02:15:00.000-07:00

Thanks to football and meeting people who are not at my course the last weeks became the best since Lorraine left in December. I finally have proper people to hand out with, going to clubs and have great discussions outside the questions "Which Module did you reach?" ... I made it to see new clubs and bars and even with going out and having much more fun than before I still manage it to study hard, too and will finish my stuff in time... I finally feel what student life can be if you have a nice group :)

Yesterday we were watching the football game Germany vs. Austria which we won 1:0 through a great goal, but the rest of the game was not very good... hope we improve till Thursday! :)

Today I try to finish Module 4 and maybe 5, if I have time I'll go to see the next football matches.

Back on Studies! Last Term!

2008-06-16T03:10:00.000-07:00

It's really shocking how fast the time is running, I have the feeling that I just arrived, but now it's just 3 more month and I finished my MBA!!! That's really incredible!!!

The sad point is that I feel that I didn't really use my time to see a lot of Scotland, but at least since I live in town I saw a lot more of Edinburgh and now I go out a lot more often like yesterday evening till 3am. It was really fun and I still can get up at 9 to study like I did before :)

I started reading my Strategic Planning book now tow days a go and reached Module 3 of 8. I have now about one more week to finish the book which might work because the book is written like the Marketing or OB book and so it is more about understanding some concepts and not understanding formulas like Finance or Accounting :)

London

2008-06-12T03:16:00.000-07:00

Monday I left Switzerland for London and arrived there in the evening at my friends house just in time to see the match Italy vs. Holland. It was really great, when you imagine that the people in front of the TV were Austrian, Scottish, Dutch, Trinidad & Tobago, and German... What a nice mix :-)

On Tuesday I went to the "Olympia International Art & Antiques Fair" because the brother of my friend has an art gallery and was attending this fair. It was a nice mix of old and modern art, some are really nice, some I wouldn't pay a penny for it :) ... but that is what art is about...
Then I went to visit my friend at Merrill Lynch and for a great finish we went to Hyde Park and made a little picnic in the sun :)

After just one and a half day I was off again to go back to Edinburgh...

Switzerland

2008-06-12T03:11:00.000-07:00

Just after finishing my Finance exam I was on my way to the airport to fly back to Switzerland.
It was a very nice trip, I met many friends and was even at the opening game of the European Championship!! :) A friend got tickets and invited me to join him (THANKS LUKAS!! :-)
I was surprised about the lack of atmosphere in Switzerland after arriving compared to what I saw in Germany two years ago. But to be fair, part of the problem is that Germany was really lucky with the weather while Switzerland just shows the real summers in continental Europe which are nowadays more like tropical summers with hot wet air during the day and thunder storms at nights... I even made it to visit my colleges in Lucerne and it was great to see them again, too!
But time was running much too fast again and I didn't manage it to see a few other friends I planned to visit... next time I have to prepare a better plan :)

Finance exam

2008-06-11T14:31:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the delay in news. I was booking a flight leaving 2 hours after the Finance exam to leave to Switzerland, so I didn't have time to write the latest news earlier.

The Finance exam was ok, I think I did a decent job and hope that I score well there. I'm not sure if I wrote enough things to score high and get the X, but at least I'm sure I won't fail :)

The whole exam had a strong focus on Options/Futures/Forwards and that was good because I think I knew this part very well... but at the end the guy who is marking my paper has to decide how much this is worth...

Locksmith

2008-06-03T16:08:00.000-07:00

Today I learned a new word... locksmith... that's the word for the guys who are coming to your flat, rip you off with charging a horrible high price to help you opening the door without key... that happened now to me today after this stupid plumbers were here... I was just at EBS studying and came back at 10pm to figure out that this guys locked the door with both locks instead of just with the one lock I usually use ... the key for the second lock was of course inside the flat ...

Now I lost tow hours of studying through this mess... called some of this locksmith and they told me prices between £120 and £70 ... I thought it would be cheaper to stay at a hotel then paying £70... but that was wrong .. just found a place where they wanted to charge me £100 and the others were booked out... so I decided that the opportunity cost of running around longer or studying is too high and I want to invest my time in studying ... so I called the locksmith for £70 and now I'm back inside my flat... now I rest for 15 min and then I go back to my desk studying ...

Today I got really shocked, I tried exam-type Multiple choice questions and scored 11 out of 25 ... that's 44% and far away from what I thought I should be able to score ... I don't know what I learned the last 3 month in finance that I still score that bad!! Seems there is lots of work waiting for me the next 24 hours to get me ready for this exam!

Project Management Exam

2008-06-02T16:19:00.000-07:00

This afternoon was the Exam for Project Management.
I think I did a good job, but I'm not too sure that I really scored high ... the Questions were more or less ok, I just expected a bit more application. Most of the questions were just pure theory ... or I misunderstood something...

Afternoon exams are the worst of all, you wake up in the morning and then think the whole time what to do till the exam starts... I didn't look at the papers again because I wanted to go to the exam with confidence and not scare myself before entering the room ... I had a look and the 4 exams I have left are all at 9:30, so no more afternoon exams :)

Today I also passed half time of my exams :) 5 done, 4 more to go ... one this week and three in August and then it's done!!! Time is passing so fast, it's incredible that term 3 is already over and I have just 3 month left! I wonder what I did all the time here beside studying ...

Go now to sleep a bit, tomorrow after breakfast I'll stick my head again in my finance book to be prepared for the exam on Thursday.

Last revision of PM

2008-06-01T14:15:00.001-07:00

Today I went through all parts of Project Management again for a last review. I'm more or less confident that I can do a good work tomorrow, just hope like every time that I will understand all the questions and then it should be fine :)

Now I'm relaxing a bit, listen to music and surf at the internet... later before I go to bed I'll have a last quick look over my notes and that's it. Tomorrow I don't wanna touch anything of PM till I'm in the exam room. Just don't know what I will do till then because the exam is at 2pm and I'm sure I'll be awake early ... :) Maybe I just go for a walk or something ...

Finance Finance Finance

2008-05-30T09:34:00.001-07:00

The last three days I did just Finance. Calculating old Past Exam Papers of the previous years, calculating extra questions the lecturer gave us, try to get the theory in my head ... all this stuff ... now my arm starts hurting from writing all the stuff the whole time ...

I have a bit of a mix of feelings for this exams. Usually I was more scared and this time I'm more confident. Don't know if this is because I'm used to study now and I'm really better prepared or maybe I just lost fear because of my good results of last term which leads to overestimating my knowledge and bad degrees this term ...

I'll figure it out soon anyway, just 3 days left and I can't wait till it's over again... I feel so tired I think after exam I'll just sleep for a whole day without doing anyting...

Project Management vs. Finance

2008-05-27T06:55:00.000-07:00

For the last tow days I was studying now Project Management and as longer I stick to this one as more concerned I get about Finance... At the moment I think, that Project Management is not too difficult and I'm confident to get the processes we are supposed to know in my head... but for Finance I'm more and more worried about the stuff...

I just went through the first 3 parts of the Project Management Exam which are:
Case 1: Organisational Breakdown Structure
Case 2: CPM (Critical path method) or PERT (Project evaluation and review technique)
Case 3: EVA (Earned valua analysis)

...for all this topics more details of course and things like advantages, limitations and so on...

Finance Revision

2008-05-25T09:32:00.000-07:00

Thursday/Friday was now my Finance revision. It was quiet good, we got lots of questions and cases to practice and this was not bad. I just hope now, that the focus of the Exam will be the same like the revision classes because in the "back book" is much more then what we covered during the 4 day seminar and the 2 day revision.
Today I'm back on Project Management, didn't look at it for a while and so I have to refresh it now... time is running, just 8 more days to my next exam ...

less then two weeks to go

2008-05-20T06:11:00.000-07:00

Last Sturday/Sunday I enjoyed the revision session of Project Management. Was really good and I enjoyed doing the group work with competent people round me :)
Yesterday I went back to my Finance book, I try the online MCQs at the moment and get a bit frustrated how many mistakes I make... but as long as I do them now and not at the exam I'm confident to learn the stuff within two weeks :)

PM Notes

2008-05-16T09:38:00.000-07:00

I'm getting more and more tired, but now I have just 30 pages left to finish my notes for Project Management. This morning I had to get up early, we had voluntary finance revision and I decided to go there to get a bit practice with this stuff... was quiet good, the only bad thing is just the discussions about the solutions... it's so frustrating working with such stupid people who are not able to answer a view questions in 4 hours! Even I didn't know everything but I went to the computer and searched for the missing information and so I know the stuff now. This guys didn't even bother about looking for the answers... I'm happy that I don't have to do much more work with them...

China's Financial Conundrum

2008-05-14T15:41:00.000-07:00

Today was really good! ... not for my studies, but it was the first time that we had a guest Professor at EBS who did a presentation. It was about "China's Financial Conundrum: Lessons from Japan and Implications for the U.S. Credit Crunch" and the speaker was Ronald I. McKinnon... people who are into Economics know this guy (http://www.stanford.edu/~mckinnon/)
It was really impressive, how the actual situation in China looks like compared to the situation of Japain 30 years ago... really sad is just that it seems that the political leaders are too stupid to realize the danger of doing the same mistake again and so the people have to suffer...

...now I have to catch up with some studies for PM...

Studying

2008-05-13T18:10:00.000-07:00

Not much happening in my life at the moment, its pretty much the same now all day... getting up in the morning, having my cup of coffee while reading the financial times. Driving to EBS round noon, studying, having lunch break with coffee, studying, having afternoon break, studying till 10pm, having quick dinner, driving home, having cup of tea and relaxing, studying till 2 or 3 am, going to bed... that's it... not really exciting, but in 3 weeks are already the next exams and I wanna try to get my next distinctions...

Financial History

2008-05-10T03:53:00.000-07:00

Before I came here I thought Marketing is just producing some Promotion things and that's it... now after my Studies of Marketing, I really like the topic because there is so much content in it like setting the strategy, analyze the market and all this interesting things around ...

...and now I have the same with Finance :) ... I thought it's about boring calculations and this stuff, but it's much more and that makes it really interesting ... unfortunately I can't do all courses with classes here because of time and money, but maybe after finishing the MBA and back at work I might do some additional courses to learn more and maybe get later an MSc to my MBA ... :-)

Yesterday was one of this interesting courses, they had tow days of Financial History and they were discussing stuff like the actual crisis in the financial markets and things like financial behaviour, which sounds really interesting. It starts with people who buy shares at the stock market. Almost everybody who buys shares ignores bad news about this company and prefer to look for good news :) ... but that's just on a small scale... now think about the same situation for a project in a company. If the project is successful nobody will care. But if the project is not that good usually the funder of the project will look for the good news but ignore the bad ones just like the share holder is doing for his share decision. And like in the share market if a share goes down, many people avoid to realize their losses and just hold on bad shares and watch how they are going down... same with the projects ... to get rid of big bad projects in a company you usually have to change the CEO to have arguments for the shareholders why you do it. If the old CEO would stop the project it might weaken his position in such a way that he is no longer in a strong position to lead the company... unfortunately I haven't been at this course because I just got this part in discussing with one of the guys sitting there... have to ask them later how this story ends and what you can do to avoid personal bias in project decisions to stop projects at the right time...

sun sun sun sun

2008-05-07T14:36:00.000-07:00

I can't believe that the weather here can be so nice!
We had sunshine for the last 5 days and hardly any cloud around... even the wind is hardly to feels... feels like proper spring :) On one side I hope it stays like this, on the other side I hope for a few rain days as well to have a good reason to stay inside to study ... ;)

Studying goes on very well, I just finished first revision of Finance and think I got all important things in my head. Tonight I plan to do a bunch of practicing and tomorrow I'll move to Project Management. There I then have another 10 days time to practice this before revision classes and then the "hot" phase before exams starts again with practicing all the stuff and studying the details to the concepts... And I now already ordered tow of the books for next term, so if I feel to be ahead of schedule I can already read a few pages of the new books I have to know next term... or finally enjoy life a bit more :-)

There is hope :)

2008-05-05T14:34:00.000-07:00

Last weekend was great, I was studying a lot and made some progress with my Finance studies. I'm still 2 days behind schedule, but that's not too bad and I hope to save this two days on another place when I can speed up in doing the practicing part of Finance in calculating...

On Saturday I went to dinner with a group of students who came for the Mergers & Acquisition course and it was good fun. We had a great dinner and the people were all proper people with plenty of experience and knowledge about the business and so finally I had the pleasure to have proper discussions about business and the world how it runs :) This was exactly what I needed to see hope that there are normal people doing this courses which are not just coming to pass exams...

Today was the sunniest and warmest day in Scotland so far and it was the first time I left the house just in T-Shirt and jeans and went on a hike up Arthur's Seat here in Edinburgh... now I took a bit of a rest and after finishing this post here I'll go back to my Finance book to get some more pages done ...

Counting the days

2008-05-01T17:55:00.000-07:00

Today the counting starts again, in exactly one month or 31 days I'll have my next exam and this means that I have to increase the hours of studying again ... I was studying the last days now Finance but still look for the light on the end of the tunnel ... I have many formulas in my head, but most of them don't really apply to any case and this I have to find somehow to go on ... tomorrow I'll try to do more exercises and hope to reach the point of understanding them ...

Next week I'll go back to Project Management...

Just a little discussion

2008-04-30T03:59:00.001-07:00

After two good friends left Edinburgh last year in December and last week there is not a single person left to have proper conversations. I thought that in coming to a full-time program I meet people with my or even better education and knowledge, but unfortunately there is not a single person left with whom I could have a discussion e.g. about actual Finance topics like the influences of the credit crunch on our finance system and so on ... It would be really helpful for our Finance classes, too ... but the sad news is that this guys are only busy in discussing stupid stuff like what others say about others and so on ... I started calling this group "Kindergarden"...

Finance studies are going well, I just didn't reach the point where I understand all the concepts I'm reading ... hope now with the practice questions I finally reach this point soon ...

Studies

2008-04-28T15:56:00.000-07:00

At least I was taking my books with me to Germany, but didn't really read a single page. The only thing I did to keep in touch with Finance was buying some German financial newspapers and reading some articles there. And I took some of them with me to have some material to practice the calculations I have to do now ...

Today I finally started my revision studies for getting the stuff in my head to be ready for the exams in a few weeks time ...

The weather looks good, hope tomorrow morning it will be good, too so I can try the jogging trail I have in mind round the corner here ... :)

Back on studying

2008-04-21T09:49:00.000-07:00

After one day break on Saturday I started again studying in reading the last pages of the Finance book which I didn't finish before classes ... this topics are really heavy it is about calculating Options and Derivatives ... Despite studying the weather here is really nice! :) It is still not warmer then 11 degrees, but sunny and that makes life nicer. Yesterday I was walking along a little river called "Water of Leith" just a few minutes away and that was really nice.

Tomorrow I'll go to visit my Family in Bavaria for a few days. I'll take the Finance stuff with me, hope I'll get some stuff done ... :)

Finance seminar

2008-04-20T04:51:00.000-07:00

Last week I had my Finance seminar from Tuesday till Friday ... it was really interesting because Ken is a teacher with plenty of knowledge in this area and so you can ask almost everything ... this leads to the problem at this course... again there were too many stupid guys who didn't read a single line of the textbook before sitting in the classes and so we lost every day more and more time when Ken was answering the most stupid questions a few times and this was really annoying for me ... I stopped asking my questions which would probably have been of more value for the course but I didn't want to get another delay ... and the discipline of this group was again really bad. I think there was not a single time that the group was back in class on time, instead of breaking for 15 or 20 minutes for coffee most of the time it was more then 30min and the lunch break was never below one hour ... this really sucks... so we ended up that we had one of the most difficult part puts/calls/futures on Friday between 5pm and 7pm and everybody was really tired so nobody payed lot of attention and we just wanted to get it over ...

So I have to study the stuff now in main parts on my own and try to find the answers to my questions in the internet instead of asking in classes ... Ken was much too nice to all this stupid guys and so I feel sorry to say that this course is one of the worst in my Money/Time/Value measurement ...

Have to start studying now to catch up with my finance stuff and try to understand some more ...

RESULTS ARE OUT!!!

2008-04-14T17:04:00.000-07:00

Finally I've made it !!!

!!! DISTINCTION in Accounting and Marketing !!! :)

So my hard studies which I described here are rewarded by a great degree!

Tomorrow I'll have a few drinks :o)

Arthur's Seat

2008-04-14T16:56:00.000-07:00

After we went to Roslin we decided to use the nice weather to just do a second trip and we hiked up Arthur's Seat which is located between the city of Edinburgh and the North Sea.

Rosslyn Chapel + Roslin Castle

2008-04-14T16:34:00.000-07:00

Today I used the day between Project Management and Finance to go hiking with some of my class mates ... it was a sunny day and so it would have been a shame to waste it with too much studying after the demanding 4 days of PM ... :)

So first we went to see the Rosslyn Chapel which probably most of you know since "The Da Vinci Code" was published...

Unfortunately it is no longer allowed to take pictures inside since 1st of Jan, but who is interested can see some pictures at Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosslyn_Chapel)

After looking inside the chapel we went around to the Roslin Castle:

Project Management Classes

2008-04-14T16:27:00.000-07:00

As you could see here at my blog I didn't really have time the last days to let you know what happened ... the reason was, that I had my Project Management Seminar. It was a great time, I never enjoyed having a seminar with such a great group! As I told you before, I changed the group for this seminar to have it with the executive rather than with the full-timers.
It was a great experience, we had great discussions through the input of many guys with experience in this subject and the group work we did was really demanding! And the social part is much better, too. After the classes we went for having drinks in town at good restaurants and then went to nice bars to have a few drinks. On the last evening I made a presentation for our team for the last presentation which included a summary of all steps we made before: OBS (Organization Breakdown Structure), WBS (Work Breakdown Structure), GANTT Chart (MS Project Plan), Cost analysis of all alternatives, conclusion, open issues, Risk Map and so on... The lecturer was great as well and I'll get him again for Strategic Risk Management in the next term.

Pictures of my new flat!

2008-04-09T08:55:00.001-07:00

Here are a few pictures of my new flat in town. Today I was driving to IKEA to get this nice little table you can see and so I have now a great place on the window to study! :)

Downtown

2008-04-08T17:54:00.000-07:00

I spent my first night here in the flat and it's amazing! Last night was the first time in weeks that I slept without waking up through slamming doors or other noise in the hall and I managed it to sleep as long as I wanted! (During the last weeks I hardly got 6h in average of sleep and so I felt tired the whole day!) ... but now I feel strength coming back in my body :)
I even catch up with writing some emails which I avoided the last weeks and sort out some other stuff I didn't manage in a long time ...

The only bad thing today was that I got a parking penalty for my car because I went to the city council yesterday to get my resident parking permit but because it was already too late that they could go through all the process while open I had to go back today to pick up the stuff ... and of course I got a penalty meanwhile even with a letter in the window saying that I'm on the way to pick up the permit ... now I can query the permit, but I don't know if this might be successful ...
The bad thing is, that the penalty here is 60£ !!! ... if I pay within 14 days I get 50% off ... so it's 30£ ... the crazy thing here is that the parking permit for the 6 month I stay costs me 41£ !!!
... this all doesn't make much sense to me ... but I fear now that if I query the penalty it takes longer then 14 days and then I have to pay the 60£ instead of 30£ .... grrrrrrrr

Because studying at the kitchen bar is not that comfortable I might go to IKEA tomorrow to buy a cheap table to put it in front of the window to study with a nice view ... but I still managed it to go through Module 8 of Finance today, just 4 Modules left to finish till next week Tuesday... should be fine despite the fact that I have Project Management from Thursday till Sunday ...

Silence

2008-04-07T16:32:00.000-07:00

This morning I got the keys for my new flat in town and it's really cool! It's small and a few things are not perfect, but it has a big bed, it is quiet (I her the birds when I switch off the music) and it's 10minutes walking distance to the city center!
And then this morning when I was moving I could hear the work starting for the replacement of the windows in the Hall and you could hear every hammering when they break out the frames...

After a few days where I didn't get much studies done I finished Finance module 7 now and hope after sleeping well this night I will be refreshed to speed up and get some more Finance stuff done tomorrow. I'm looking forward to my Project Management classes.

World Swim Against Malaria

2008-04-06T17:14:00.000-07:00

Today I was doing something social, I was organizing a fund raising event for the Rotaract Club of Edinburgh where we decided to join the world wide project "World Swim Against Malaria". So I was there at a pool in Edinburgh this morning and was swimming with 3 other guys :)
We made 200 laps 25m each so we got 5km of swimming in 2 hours ...

If some of you guys are interested in sponsoring something for our effort, you're welcome :)
http://www.worldswimagainstmalaria.com/Fundraiser.aspx?ProjectID=5&FundRaiserID=3628

After this swimming I was so tired that i took a nap ... later I went to EBS to study a bit finance, but didn't reach really far and so I gave it up for today ... I'm now in the room and put the stuff together for moving out tomorrow! Can't wait to leave this place!! Tomorrow 9:30 I get the keys, then I already will have the first load of stuff in my car with me, then I put this in my flat, drive a second time and by noon I should have everything together ... then I will put the stuff on his place ... in the afternoon I go to the city council to get a parking permit and on the way back I get mobile internet. It's a cool new thing, it's offered by mobile companies and it's just a SIM-card in a little device you put on the USB-Port and you have mobile broadband and this thing is working world wide (if you have network availability ;)...

Project Management

2008-04-03T08:00:00.000-07:00

Today I finally finished the Project Management book. The last pages seemed to take ages to finish them and I had to read some pages about 5 times till i could go on ... wanted to finish it yesterday but at 3:30am I was so tired that I gave it up for the last pages... but now it's done!!!
Unfortunatelly I have to switch back to Finance tonight to go on there ... another 9 Modules with 30 pages in average are waiting to be studied...

Moving out on Monday!

2008-04-02T08:41:00.001-07:00

Today I signed a contract for a flat in Edinburgh city center!!! :) Unfortunatelly the cheap one I wanted to have was already gone but now I have a nice one in a quiet are which is just renovated and in a nice quiet spot where I should have the pleasure of quietness for studying and sleeping without noises round me and 15min walking distance to the city center with all the bars and restaurants! :)

Seems the timing is just right, when I came back I had a letter in my room, that on Monday work starts to replace all windows at the Hall during the next 9 weeks! Monday till Friday 9am till 5:30pm work is going on here ... I wish all the guys with exams fun in studying here the next weeks!

Lets see if I find somebody to help me moving but I don't really care, it's just about driving 2 times with my stuff and that's it :)

The "X" marks my flat, as you see the distance on the left bottom corner you see that it's about 600m to the city :)

Math classes

2008-03-31T18:03:00.000-07:00

Today we got free math classes for all who have been interested in refreshing their math before the Finance seminar in two weeks... it was kind of like all seminars with the full-timer students. Classes started at 2pm, the last guys arrived at 3pm... this rudeness of this people annoys me more and more ...

I'm really happy that I was accepted to join the Executive Seminar for Project Management! Tomorrow starts the seminar for the full-timer and there are still guys who didn't even start reading the book. Because this is a subject which is really important for me and my future job I was really scared to end up in a group of people where I'm the only person who ever worked in a project and can bring in some of his experience (like it happened to me in Marketing where I was standing at the board during group work and was doing all the work like most of the "members" of the group were taking notes of my stuff without participating in anyting). Now I'm sure to have a proper group where I can learn of others, too! JUHUUUUUUUUU :)

Tomorrow I'll go to town in the morning to have a look at different flats, hope to find a nice quiet one which is already available so I can move this week and leave this sad place behind me... Think I didn't write it yesterday, but beside the fact of the false fire alarms in this hall there are many more reasons to go e.g. during the holidays is almost everything shut down, so I ended up to stand in front of the closed student shop on Saturday at 2:30pm (during term it's open till 10pm every day...)

Weekend

2008-03-30T16:50:00.000-07:00

This was a nice weekend, the weather is finally more like spring and so I went jogging again and it was nice and even the sun feels warm now :)

Studies are going on fine, I reached Module 6 in Project Management, two more to go and then I have to go back to my Finance book... Tomorrow we will have some Math classes in the afternoon, I'll have a look, if there is something new for me or if I already know the stuff...

The fire alarms are getting worse, in the last 3 days we had now 5 false alarms! One of them again this morning which woke me up :( I now desperately look for a flat in town! Hope to find something nice, soon!

Oh and today I saw my first Bollywood movie. That's wired stuff, but lots of dancing and music stuff and hot girls ;-)

What a day....

2008-03-27T15:38:00.000-07:00

How can a day be when it starts with waking up by hearing the fire alarm? ... I really have to find a flat soon in town to get out of here! Hope to find something soon...

I finally managed it to finish my tax-bill for 2007 and brought it to the post office, then I continued reading Project Management ... parts of it are so boring... I hope it's getting better after this Chapter...

In the evening we went for a movie called "Juno". I can really recommend this movie, was very good. Just go there as a couple, everything else looks gay ...

Try to study now a bit, have to finish this module... and I'm tired ....

Project Risk Management

2008-03-25T08:32:00.000-07:00

I'm back on track, reading my books prior my seminars in two weeks and I just started Module 3 now in Project Management with a nice definition I want to share with you guys :)

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Risk can be considered from many perspectives and we are all familiar with risk in our everyday lives. Obvious activities that carry sigificant risks are:

driving an automobile;
rock climbing;
gambiling;
speculative investments;
entering a relationship;
getting married.

Easter-Trip to the Highlands.

2008-03-24T10:53:00.000-07:00

Finally I made it to the highlands and it's amazing there! Even when it is still kind of winter and there was lots of snow, but still can you see the beauty and imagine how nice it will be in a few weeks when spring and summer are coming ... :) I hope to show you some impressions with this pictures.

This is called "Queens View"

Picture of me and Lukas there
Stop on the road up north
Inverness castleView from the castle down to parts of the city

Loch Ness with the ruins of Urquhart Castle

Eilean Donan Castle

Bridge to the Isle of Skye

Ferry from Armadale to Mallaig

View from the ferry

Beach on the west coast near Mallaig

View on the way back south on the coast line

The trip was amazing, I'm just now really exhausted after driving for two days round Scotland :)

Brussel - Trip

2008-03-24T10:46:00.000-07:00

I missed the report about my trip to Brussels after my exams two weeks ago with some pictures for you guys...

Here we have a picture of me in front of the dome of Brussels.

This is somewhere on a hill between the old town and the palace.

On Sunday we went by train to Brugge and visited this city there. It was really nice, even we

There are still a few pictures missing, something went wrong with my mobile hard disk and I can't read the files ... hope to get at least almost all of them...

Project Management: The experience trap

2008-03-18T12:36:00.000-07:00

Today I started my studying for Term III, which includes for me the Modules of Project Management and Finance.

It seems just in time, that I subscribed to get the Harvard Business Review which has the following article in its February 2008 edition, I give you a quick impression in typing the first three paragraphs here for you, some of you guys may be simile after finishing the reading... for a copy of the whole article send me an email :)

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The Experience Trap
As projects get more complicated, managers stop learning from their experience. It is important to understand how that happens and how to change it.

If you were looking for an experienced manager to head up a software development team, Alex would be at the top of your short list. A senior manager, Alex has spent most of his career running software projects. His first responsibility was developing scientific software for NASA, and since then, he has overseen ever more complex projects for commercial enterprises and government agencies.
Alex was typical of the several hundred project managers who participated in our research initiative on experience-based learning in complex environments. We invited him to test his skills by playing a computer-based game that entails managing a simulated software project from start to finish - making the plans, monitoring and guiding progress, and observing the consequences. We set goals for him: finish on time and within budget, and obtain the highest possible quality (as measured by the number of defects remaining).
Alex's decisions and outcomes were representative of the group as a whole. He started with a small team of four engineers and focused mostly on development work. That tactic paid off in the short run. The team's productivity was high and development progressed quickly. However, when the size of the project grew beyond initial estimates, problems cropped up. Because Alex still chose to keep the team small, the engineers had to work harder to stay on track. Consequently, they made many mistakes and experienced burnout and attrition. Alex then tried to hire more people, but this took time, as did assimilating the new hires. The project soon fell behind schedule, and at that point Alex's lack of attention to quality assurance in the early phases started to show up in snowballing numbers of software errors. Fixing them required more time and attention. When the project was finally completed, it was late, over budget, and riddled with defects.

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UK is getting cheaper!!!

2008-03-17T16:51:00.000-07:00

For all of u who plan to visit me there are good news: UK it's getting cheaper and cheaper!!! But theres no sense in waiting too long to visit me because I have half time now and this means that there are just 6 month left for potential visits! So everybody who wanna come up here, contact me sooner than later to plan the trip!

That's the prices for buying £1:

Here is the EURO to the GBP since I arrived in October...

And here the Swiss Franc...

Accounting exam -> term 2 is over

2008-03-14T04:07:00.000-07:00

My exams of term 2 are over!!! JUHUUUUUUUUUUUUU
What a good feeling!! :)

To relax a bit, I'll go to Brussels for a weekend to see friends who are just staying there.
I can't wait to sleep in a nice bed :) On Monday when I'm back I have to plan my next term, I already got the books for it and it's again lots of stuff to read ... and this time we just have 3 weeks left to finish this books ...

Marketing exam

2008-03-10T11:06:00.000-07:00

puuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh.
That was a tough one, but I have the feeling, that I did it pretty well. I saw many hanging faces after the exam and I just can say: Your fault, study harder next time! :)
This was finally an exam, where my value of this course is increasing again. The questions where hard, but fair and I think everybody who just thought to pass with a bit reading will have to try to pass this exam next time again :)

I started writing in the first minute of the exam and started at the last minute and still had pages and more pages of content in my had which I could have applied...

Now I'm relaxing a bit and listening to music because I slept really horrible last night... later I try to go back to Accounting in starting again with a few MCQs before I go back to Accounting cases tomorrow to be prepared for Thursday ...

E-Day of Marketing ahead

2008-03-09T14:37:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow it's time to write another exam and proof, how much I understood and how much not ... this time I feel much better prepared then for OB and I'm confident, that this time I can do a really good job. My only fear with will follow me through this hole program is still, that I have now all the knowledge in my head, but I get a question I don't understand and screw it up ...
But in now 12 hours and 20 minutes I'll start writing and 3 hours later I can let you know, if i screwed it up or iced it... hope the latter :)

Today I just did an easy revision day with writing about tow pages for each topic to cover and then did one past paper about a strategy decision and now I'm back in my room, listening music and relaxing ... later before I go to bed, I read once more a few papers what I did today and special the points I missed and that's it ... try not to look at anything tomorrow morning which could destroy my confidence :)

the days before exams

2008-03-05T06:39:00.001-08:00

Just to give u guys an idea, how my life looks like at the moment, my week since Sunday...

Sunday
9am, getting up, going jogging, then breakfast (which means just coffee for me...)
11am, start studying at EBS, Accounting 3 past papers with 2 cases each. 1 Case 30min.
3pm, having a quick sandwich and a little break.
4pm, coming back to EBS, doing 2 more past papers, in between doing MCQ's online and read parts of the book where I made mistakes....
9pm, going back to my room, have a quck dinner, back to Accounting MCQ's till 2am
2am, going through my Accounting notes before falling assleep at about 2:30am.

Monday
9:30am, getting up, going jogging, then breakfast
11am, starting with another 3 past papers of Accounting at EBS
3pm, lunch: some ready menu of the supermarket
4pm, back to studies
10pm, leaving EBS, done now all past papers availiable (10) and read a whole chapter of the book again about investment decisions and net present value (what is our money worth next year...)
at the room, having tea, then discussions with other guys about Accounting problems and going back to MCQ's.
12am (yeah, midnight is 12am), Start studying Marketing
Going to bed after revising Accounting notes again at about 4.

Tuesday
9:30am, getting up, going to do some grocerys
11:30am laundry beside studying at the room
1pm arriving at EBS, start reading past papers in Marketing
3pm going to the student union to have a Starbucks coffee and sit there to study for one hour
4pm back to the hall for having a sandwitch
4:30pm back at EBS, practice "Positioning Process", then Forecasting and Segmentation of Markets.
10pm leaving EBS, back to the room.
10:15pm going to have dinner with Lachlan in town, discussing Marketing concepts while eating
12am, coming back and start studying agin till 3am

Wednesday
10am getting up, breakfast
11am coming to EBS, start with a little practice of drawing the 4C's on the board and check what I know about positioning.
1pm start my target of the day: The Marketing Mix (Price, Product, Place(Distribution), Promotion)

I'll post u my MindMaps for the 4P's here later, I just have them as PDF at this computer...

Now it's 3pm, so it's time for a reward, I'll grab my book and go to have a coffeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

By the way, my consumption of products keeping me awake is increasing dramatically.
Last 3 days: 7 Red Bull, about 15 Coffee, a double Espresso and I don't know what else...

revision behind, exams ahead

2008-03-02T17:53:00.000-08:00

sorry for not writing much nowadays, I'm busy with trying to get as much knowledge as possible about Marketing and Accounting in my head...

Today I was getting up at round 9am, went 30min jogging. At 11:30 I started my first "Past Paper" exam in Accounting which includes 2 cases each. I spent 30 min for each case and did 3 Past Papers till 4... then made a quick lunch with some ready menu and back to EBS at round 6:30pm till 10pm and did another 2 Past Papers ... tomorrow I plan to do the other 5 Past Papers available and hope that so I'll be able to do as many mistakes as possible to learn all the hidden hints and threats they have in this papers ...

Last week we had two days of Accounting revision and two days of Marketing revision. The days were quiet good, we practiced a lot of each subject and the lecturers tried to push our existing (or non existing) knowledge in the right direction to get an exam focus for it.

... the Marketing seems to be the more difficult one, because it is an open secret, that the first question is about making a Marketing strategy decision ... that's the good news... the bad is, that the way to do a marketing decision goes through nearly every module in the book :( ... It starts with the 4C's, which are the analyzing part, where you look at strengths and weaknesses of the own company and then at opportunities and threats at the environmental context, the competitive environment and the consumer. After you went through this you have to look, how your market looks like which means, that you look, which segments you can build. Then you target one or more segments for your product and formulate a positioning statement. The next step is to get a forecast with the help of market research tools and estimated sales volume. ... After this is done, you go straight to the 4P's, which are Product, Price, Place and Promotion. For each of this topics you have to describe what you do at each stage to bring our product to the market... after this you have everything together to formulate your overall strategy ... and we have about 50 minutes time to write round 6-8 pages about this ...
And that's just the first case! ... then follows case 2, which is more focused on one of the topics above and to get the punishment completed we have to do an assay about one of the narrow topics in the book... because there are so many topics they can cover and I can't remember every little point the only way to get it done within the time is to decide which parts to cut and hope they won't ask for it ...

2 weeks to exams

2008-02-25T16:20:00.001-08:00

Today in tow weeks the first exam is behind me and I start preparing for the second one ... the pressure and stress level is rising and I try to get the loose stuff in my head in the right way to create the big picture... Today we had the first of the two days of accounting revision, it was quiet good, even when I made again many mistakes, but this shows, that accounting can be done with practice practice practice ... Marketing will be even more difficult, there we have revision classes on Thursday and Friday... I still didn't manage it to finish my notes for Marketing, but I think I won't have time for this now... I'll try to go through different past papers now to learn how they expect us to answer the questions and get in the process of connecting the different topics like industrial analysis with market research and product development and so on...

Fire alarms juhuuuuuuuuuu

2008-02-20T14:42:00.000-08:00

I didn't think that this university here has such a bad reputation, but a guy sent me this today:
http://news.scotsman.com/latestnews/400-false-alarms-in-3.3696556.jp

That's really a serious problem... I thought, that students are not that stupid, but I know even 2 guys of my MBA-class which set off the fire alarm! So it's not just "undergrads" like I thought...

Studying is going on, but much too slow... there are so many example cases to do for Accounting and the time is so short ... I don't know how to cover them all :( ... Tomorrow I'll go back to EBS to study... it was good to change the environment for a few times, but there it's a bit more quiet ... or at least at night :)

Studying at the main library

2008-02-19T15:38:00.001-08:00

Today I was studying again at the main library on campus like the last days. It's nice there, because you see other people around and not just always the same students and staff of EBS, but it's a lot more noisy and disruption and so I think I just go there tomorrow morning to see two other guys of my group to study and in the afternoon I go back to EBS and have a look if my room is still there :)

I switched to Accounting now, which is more a subject where it is important to practice all the stuff, but I'm still much too slow ... I tried hard today, but I don't know, it's not working at the moment ... I have the feeling that I studied much more last term ...

Oh and we had fire alarm number 18 for this term in our hall tonight ... looks like some guys will never learn it ...

Sunny Sunday

2008-02-17T14:29:00.000-08:00

The last couple of days where surprisingly very nice, the sun was shining every day. It's still cold, but I don't care as long as I have a bit of sunlight during the day ... :)
The last three days I was sitting in the main library on campus to study there, on the 4th floor are tables for studying on the windows and from there you have a few over the park behind the building and so I was enjoying to study and see what's going on outside ... the view out of my window at EBS is getting a bit monotone ... so I feel a bit better now, I was out on Friday at a Jazz bar, was quiet good and on Saturday I went with a few People from Greece, China and Spain to a Spanish bar and was fun, too :)

I made it to reach Module 10 in Marketing for Revision (taking my notes), tomorrow I'll switch to Accounting, but still try to continue doing my Marketing notes in the evening ... lets see how it goes... :)

Motivation where are u?

2008-02-14T10:49:00.000-08:00

Today I was a bit down, it started already yesterday evening. Don't know why, but I don't feel very well. Nevertheless I tried to study and get at least one Module a day done except of the planned tow ...

Tomorrow we have a new student rep meeting with EBS to give feedback about the second term. Like always the feedback is mixed, but a bit more positive ... at least after many discussions and experiences I think that there are two factors which makes this year not to the experience I was looking for. a) the group itself and their behavior makes it difficult to have something like study groups and social events and b) the full-time program at EBS has without functioning groups to study no incentive compared to the distance learners...

But the grass on the other side is always greener, I know ... :)

Marketing revision

2008-02-12T16:32:00.000-08:00

I just realized, that I forgot to inform you guys about the weekend...
Friday we went by bus to a career fair in Glasgow, organized by the Business School there... it was kind of wasting time, because there haven't been any recruiter of the company's, there was just marketing staff and so noting serious happened except that they told everybody to apply online...

We stayed a night in Glasgow which was really cool, the people there are much more friendly and they have a great street for shopping with trees and no cars allowed :) Unfortunatelly I didn't bring my camera with me, but there are trains every 15min between Edinburgh and Glasgow and the return ticket costs round 10£ so it's affordable to be there soon again ...

Monday I started revision of Marketing, it's going a bit forward, but really slow... I don't know why, but I can't concentrate properly at the moment on my studies... so I started jogging again to have something for my balance and now it's a bit better ...

I made a picture to show where I'm usually go jogging... (red line ...)

Pictures of your Term-Start-Party in Jan!

2008-02-06T16:04:00.000-08:00

It's a long time ago, but finally I got some of the pictures :)

Accounting Day 3

2008-02-06T15:54:00.001-08:00

The light on the end of the tunnel is coming closer and closer :)
It's really good to have this seminar, the guy is telling us a lot about Accounting in practice and has an example for every theory he can tell us of his own experience as an accountant. And we are doing lots of examples where we have to do the calculation e.g today for costs by ourselves and then he is explaining the solutions ... I'm happy that I make a few mistakes, because so I learn more :) ... on Sunday I have to teach a few guys in my group the stuff again, this should help to learn, too... when you explain some stuff to somebody you remember it better :)

We went out tonight to have dinner with tow guys of the distance program, this was quite good. Just as we almost finished our meal, the fire alarm in this complex went off and so we had to leave the restaurant and wait a while outside till we could go back... but the food was fine :)

Accounting Seminar Day 1

2008-02-04T10:59:00.000-08:00

Today we started our Accounting seminar, it's really good. Now a lot more things I hardly understood at my self study make sense and we got many examples to practice. A friend who already did the Exam told me, that accounting is just practice practice and more practice and I think he is right! :)

The teacher is great, for every thing he explains to us he can give us a few examples of his own work as accountant and so it is better to understand the concepts behind...

Unfortunatelly the mix of the class is the worst I ever had till now!! At 9am when the seminar started there have been 13 guys, which was about 50% who should have been there and so in the first hour there have been interruptions of guys coming in late ... and after everybody finally had their seats the chatting started in the last rows and so everybody in the rows on the front got pissed of, because the acoustic design of this room is so great that you can hear everybody speaking at each part of the room... many guys complained to me after classes and so as the student rep I have to talk to the group tomorrow morning about their behavior ... I feel like going to a class of plumbers instead of a class of future managers!!

Snow again!

2008-02-01T14:44:00.000-08:00

At the moment the weather changes every few minutes... we have a mix between snow, wind and sun, sometimes rain ... oh and by the way, I'm not to lazy to run in wind ... but this wind here is a bit strong, sometimes it's impossible to stand still on a place because it blows so strong... even trucks on the road have been lifted up and fallen to the side...

Here is a picture of the Firth of Forth Bridge next to Edinburgh.

Studying goes on very well, I try to finish the Accounting book on time to the seminar starting on Monday, probably I have to read in the evenings of the seminar, too, but should work :)

Friday is a career fare for MBA students in Glasgow where our class is going to. Lets see, if my value increased through my new level of education...

Progress

2008-01-30T17:06:00.000-08:00

Today it was better, I didn't feel so tired again like the last two days and so I was full of energy to continue my studies ... the Modules 8 and 9 are much better to study then the 5 before, so I made good progress and even had time to go back to Module 7 and try the stuff again ... didn't work, but at least i tried :) ... Tomorrow I'll try to go trough 10 and maybe 11 and if there is time back to 5 to 7 where I didn't get the stuff in my head ...

Weather is horrible at the moment, when it is not raining it is cold and windy and so it's impossible to go jogging at the moment ...

How can you see the difference between Scots and Tourists? ... Tourists try to open the umbrella when the rain starts, Scots already know that this fight will just win the wind and blow the umbrella away ... -> Which means, that I gave it up to try to go out with the umbrella when it rains ... the only stuff which helps is a jacket with hood...

Accounting

2008-01-29T14:17:00.000-08:00

Today I'm a bit down because I didn't sleep very well again, but usually even on bad days I manage it to read a few pages and understand something of this stuff, but today I was sitting just 1 hour in front of a page about pensions and how to put them into the accounts and then I have it up and just skipped this part ... With the books I read till now I always managed it, that I understood what the guys are writing and what we are supposed to know even when I couldn't just remember it after first reading ... but here in Accounting I don't get the point :( ... I hope that I understand a bit more when I reach the second part of the Book which is from Module 8 to 16 with the topic "Managment Accounting for Decision Making" :)

First results are out

2008-01-28T15:27:00.000-08:00

Hi Guys... today we got the first results for my December exams.
I'm a bit frustrated, because I thought, that I would score higher, but at least an A is not too bad.

I thought about the results and what I did wrong to score less then expected and I think I had two major weaknesses in my exams: First, I Rushed through the multiple choice questions, Second, I was writing too less, I have to write much more, even the most obvious things.

And so I will learn as hard as before and try to fix my weaknesses and be prepared well for the next exams which are just 49 days away ...

Getting proper food!!!!

2008-01-27T14:32:00.000-08:00

Today was really disappointing for getting proper food! I don't know if it's my fault, but here in Scotland it's sometimes really hard to get good food! I went to the pub of the student union for having lunch... the place where they usually serve good sandwiches was closed ( I don't know why, usually it was open on Sundays but you never know ) ... so we had to go to the second place where the food is usually not that good... I decided to try a "Cesars Salad" ... and now I can understand why people here are getting fat with eating "just" salad... the salad was more or less a piece of green salad covered by chicken and bacon ( it's new for me, that there is any bacon in such a salad, but anyway ...) ... the sauce was covering the hole plate and it was full of mayonnaise ... so I tried to eat a bit of the stuff without too much of the sauce but didn't finish this meal... after eating this I felt really sick and had to drink a coke to recover a bit ...

Then I continued my accounting studies....

...at about 8:30pm Lachlan and me decided to have proper food after the lunch experience ...
so we drover to a place round the corner where we have been before ... we had a look at the menu and wanted to order when the guys there told us, that the kitchen is closed (on the door is written that food is served till 10! ) ... so we drove a bit further to the next place went inside the pub and ... of course is the kitchen closed ... so we ended up eating at a Italian place where they served a least proper Pizza :)

I'm tired of this experiences! Why is it so difficult to have good food in this country!?!?

Buying a Kilt!

2008-01-24T15:35:00.001-08:00

Tomorrow is the birthday of the Scottish poet Robert Burns and for this day there are all over Scotland gatherings to celebrate this day, eat haggis and read poets of him. EBS invited all students to come to such an event and the dresscode is: "Black Tie/Smart/National Dress" ... because I don't have a Bavarian dress here, I decided to use this event to buy a Kilt and have so the Scottish national dress :) So next week I can offer you some pictures of my wearing a kilt :)

Marketing Classes

2008-01-23T15:32:00.000-08:00

Today was the second day of the Marketing course and it's really good! The teacher has a good mix of teaching, group discussions and group work! I really like this and because she creates it interesting with many examples and not too many slides it's not getting boring at all!
I just slept horrible last night again :( ... hope tonight will be better!

... we are still waiting for the results to come out!

Marketing course ahead

2008-01-21T14:55:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow starts our Marketing seminar for the next 4 days, each day will be from 9am till 6pm. You can see when classes are coming when you're in a study room a week before, because it's getting busy and many guys now finally started reading the book :)

Today I finished reading Accounting Module 3 and started taking notes for Marketing Module 3... so I think it will be fine to finish the Accounting book till the 4th of February...

The most exciting question at the moment is not the Marketing seminar, everybody is excited, because our results for Economics and OB should be come out this week...

Pentland Hills

2008-01-20T17:20:00.000-08:00

Today the weather was fine and so Lachlan and me hiked again a bit in the Pentland hills.
I found a map and marked you guys our rout with a red line ...