Over the last few months I’ve unfortunately strayed from writing about my experiences at school. Part of this has to do with the crazy economic circumstances, and part of it has to do with a general school overload. But a classmate reminded me the other day that this is an NCSU MBA weblog, and should at least make an attempt to address the events and happenings inside the walls of Nelson Hall.
So here we stand, exactly 30 days from the end of our first year of business school. The next four weeks will be full of tests, papers, and presentations for all of our classes: Strategy, Leadership & Ethics, Finance, Career Effectiveness and our concentration course (Supply Relationship Management in my case). On top of this stress, many students are still working towards finding an internship for the summer. This has proven a tough nut to crack in the current economic environment.
Fortunately, several students in the program have been successful in their internship search, myself included. I will be spending the summer in South San Francisco with Genentech, a leader in the biotechnology industry. I’m tremendously excited for the opportunity to work with an amazing organization and to return to one place I consider home. Early next week, I’ll produce a video highlighting the summer plans of other students within the program.
Over theses last four weeks, I’ll try to post more updates about end of semester events and highlights from the year. At the end of the day, I just can’t believe how quickly the last eight months have passed.
I sat down with one of my classmates (and teammates), David Kleisch, today to talk about his joint MBA-DVM program. For those who don’t know, NCSU offers a 5-year program wherein a person can obtain both an MBA and Doctor of Veterinary Medicine. Sounds interesting, no? Check out the video:
Perhaps one of the only regrets (and even that’s too strong of a word) from my undergraduate experience was missing the opportunity to study abroad. Between classes, leadership positions in my fraternity and holding down a part-time job, I didn’t have the time to make a trip overseas happen.
Fortunately, I have an opportunity to remedy that while I’m here at NC State. The Jenkins College of Management has a sister program in Copenhagen, Denmark that I’ll be investigating and hopefully applying to next semester. While in Denmark, I would most likely take a number of marketing courses with a potential supply chain course mixed in there to move me toward satisfying my concentration requirements. I’d also have an opportunity to get some much-needed international business experience as well as travel around Europe.
On the downside, I’m looking at making some more financial sacrifices (i.e. more loans because cost of living is so much more expensive, and it might put aspects of my scholarship in jeopardy), and it will restrict the number of courses available to me in the Spring of 2010. However, I consider this a potentially small price to pay in return for the opportunity. I’ll be blogging more on this as well as my internship search in the coming weeks and months.
In my last post I provided a link to the overview of the different concentrations NCSU’s program offers. Instead of reviewing each of the concentrations, which you can do at the website, I’d rather take the time to offer a rationale for my two choices: Supply Chain Management and Marketing.
I knew from the moment I came into the program that I wanted to double concentrate in order to expose myself to both sides of an organization: production and commercial. Concentrating in SCM and Marketing will give me that experience.
The Supply Chain Management program at NC State is consistently recognized as one of the top SCM/logistics programs in the country. Additionally, managers with Supply Chain experience are in high demand in today’s business environment, particularly in the energy and biopharma sectors. But I also want to overlay knowledge of the production side with knowledge of the commercial side, hence the choice to add the Marketing concentration.
When I graduate, I’d like to begin my career in one of two directions. First, I could see myself in Product Management, which requires direct interaction with supply and commercial departments in an organization. I could also see myself in Corporate Business Development, which requires a fundamental grasp of innovation techniques, production capabilities and market positioning that comprise an organization’s overall strategy.
Here we are, back in the groove of classwork after a nice, five day Fall Break. I thought I’d provide a quick update on the Management of Technology course I mentioned in my last note. The class will be taught by Steve Markham, a person with deep experience in the field of technology management. Here is the course website.
The bulk of the class will revolve around a deep research dive into the upstream operations of a major oil company (i.e. BP, Exxon, Shell, etc.). Each team will investigate aspects of the upstream supply chain: exploration, reservoir management, deep sea drilling and shipping activities, to name a few. Once we have this knowledge in hand, we’ll put together a strategic recommendation for the company’s investment in and use of technology going forward. The project is designed to give us an idea about the concepts and strategy involved in managing technology with energy serving as an introduction from which we can apply what we learn to other industries.
I’m excited about this class and the project because I have an interest in the energy industry, and I’m also keen on the intersection of technology and strategy. It sounds this class will give us a nice dose of both.
On an unrelated note, we registered for next semester’s classes today. I’ll have more on that in the future, but for now, I’ve decided to do a double concentration in Supply Chain and Marketing. In my next post, I’ll elaborate a bit on the different Concentrations NC State offers. If you’re interested now, clink here to do some research on your own.
