Mentally abused....

THE EXAMS ARE OVER!!!! The week was rather intense, with 6 exams in 3 days. It started relatively easy on Wednesday. After a pretty fair exam on operations, where we had to calculate on production capacity of a cheddar cheese factory, we had Human Resource Management in the afternoon. The exam only had 2 questions and we all were ready in less than one hour. The hero of the day was the Indian guy Abanis (has to be pronounced ABAAAAAAAANIS), who was ready in 15 min. (I believe the employees in his company will not have a lot of social benefits).
The next day was also OK, first we had Capital Markets. Eventhough we knew almost all the questions in advance, most of us got confused on how to use arbitrage opportunities. This is the new term we learnt and use a lot nowdays. SO, what is arbitrage? Borrowing something cheap in one market and selling it for more money in the other without any risks. In capital markets it will mean something like:
Borrow a call option, borrow money, buy a stock, sell a call option, buy a put option, sell a stock, borrow something else, .....shit - what did I borrow? How am I going to return this? Where are my profits?
Marketing was OK, we had to decide on marketing policy for a credit card for a bank in Mexico. The opinions are different: some want to give a credit card to every Mexican, interest and fee free. Some, like myself, prefer to find some rich guys and offer them something "special" for high price (you call it "niche marketing"). Still did not talk to the Mexicans in the class, what they think about it.
Today, started as a nice (for most of you kind of summer) day. We arrived to school pretty early, to do some last reading before the exam, but at the end all of is end up sitting in the sun and drinking coffees. The first exam, Microeconomics, was the most scary for me personally. Somehow, I am not very comfortable with this abstract subject. Terms like "perfect competion" and "natural monopoly" confuse me, I can not "think at a margin" and consider big investments as "sunk cost". The exam was not so bad (mostly because I expected the worse). The whole lunch went in discussions of "why would Swiss government subsidy cattle farmers?" (the best theory was because they help chocolate production), "How much would you charge for crossing the bridge?" and "How many of the red pens should we produce?"
The weather was great, we were sitting in the sun and we only had one more exam left. Managerial Accounting, our favourite professor Tony Davilla, 3 more hours, how bad can it be?
Well, .........pretty bad indeed!!! That was the hardest exam most of us could remember. 3 hours of intense calculations, and most of us did not even manage to finish it. In fact, there was only 1 person, who left before time and from the other 70 they had to take away the exam paper. Nervous laugh or swearing was the only two reactions. The only relief that the exam result will still be relative to the performance of the others, so each of us just hopes that there are at least 7 people in the class dummer than he/she is.
A couple of hours and beers later, here I am. Resting before the BIG NIGHT OUT.
This weekend is the Spring Fling. 150 students from other MBA schools (Paris, Italy and London) are coming to compete against us in sports. They all arrive today, so we have to give them a warm welcome. Tomorrow, we will have to beat them in all possible sports. Me personally - Women Touch Rugby.

Doing good and doing ....

So, what happened in the past weeks. First of all we had mid-term exams, which were pretty
tough indeed. I honestly spent quite some time on preparation and in general was feeling OK on most of the subjects, but at the end managed to make enough mistakes to eliminate myself out of the "A" zone. Do feel good about myself still as I understand most of Operations and Managerial Accounting, which are not the easiest subjects.
The course of Operational Finance is unfortunately finished. It was absolutely great as we actually learnt to understand finance of the company (how much cash is needed to run the business and where it is coming from). Professor (by the way, a prince of Lichtenshtein), was very good and entertaining.
Now we have 2 new subjects, which are an absolute nightmare. One is Capital markets - it is about stock markets, bonds and all the things I have no idea about. Very good for my general education, but quite challenging. The other one is micro-economics, eventhough I had it before I seem to be very confused now.

Last week we had a great event called "Multicultural fair". Every country was presented with a stand full of national food and drinks. Also, lots of countries prepared dancing acts or drinking competitions. The final results of this amazing cultural experience: 400 completely wasted people. The owners of the place could not make us leave on time and called the police. A number of people lost their driving licenses, the floor was slipery and everyone kept falling down, some people cut themselves on glass (5 hospital visits), one person was lost for 24 hours...well it was really fun!

Yesterday, after the hard week of studying we had 4 birthday celebrations. The party had a James Bond theme and Francis and Ryan decided to dress up as Austin Powers characters. We thought that it would be really fun if Ryan (dressed as Doctor Evel) will go and rent the "Austin Powers" movie, so I ended walking with him on quite busy street, renting a movie and buying beers in a supermarket. Now we have an amazing amount of stupid films and pictures we made together.

The final exams are approaching...In fact they are coming in 10 days! This weekend I am studying a lot and being very serious. Actually, now it is 23:00 on Saturday and I just finished writing a paper on Negotiations.