MBA Games - Rotman Team Kick off

Rotman is putting together a team for this year’s MBA games, hosted by Schulich from Jan 7th to 10th. I saw how much fun they had last year that I missed because I was on the study tour and wanted to make it a priority to participate if possible this year (postponing my flight out to London).

Last year’s team was the first time Rotman had competed in six years I’m told and was put together last minute. However, building on last year’s interest, the efforts and energy of our current organizing executive was quite obvious as they were eager to bring us all into the fold to compete and have fun at the games.

To our competitor colleagues at other MBA schools: “See you at the games!”

Winding Down, Gearing Up

While the MBA program is a very packed two years, it does seem to go by very fast. Already, we are almost halfway done (will be as of the end of next week). Yesterday, the GBC class reps had our last meeting of the year. In the last week, positions for various clubs have been announced and people are finding out in which capacity they will be assisting clubs. People have also started volunteering to prepare for the Orientation Camp 2010 for the incoming class (I've applied to participate in that also).

Unlike undergrad which (in engineering) we used to describe as "the worst four or best seven" years of your life, the MBA program is only two years which poses significant challenges when it comes to clubs. There is a very strong "in and out" mentality which is purely a function of the nature of the program when it comes to clubs relative to our undergraduate experience. However, many of the students have strong experiences in extracurriculars and work having passed through the recruitment and admissions process, so they are ready to be thrown right in and get right to it.

Already, there is some talk about some of the new initatives that will be undertaken next year and it will be exciting to see what results they produce. For the incoming class, I suspect that their experience will be improved from ours (which was improved from previous).

GRADitude Campaign Begins

Today marks the launch of the 2010 GRADitude campaign at Rotman. Funds raised by the campaign go back towards funding projects from the school. Money donated goes towards scholarships, travel bursaries for study tours and exchange, special projects by the GBC and a whole host of other initiatives at Rotman.

Personally, I've already benefited a great deal from Rotman. Besides the fact that I'm obviously having a great time here, I've also received a lot of financial support in the form of scholarships and bursaries to fuel my experiences.

While I don't have the financial muscle to donate much (the very reason why I needed the financial support to begin with), this is something that has helped me a lot and if I am lucky enough to "make it big" some day, I'd like to think that I could give back more to the school than my "two mites".

The school has made participating particularly easy, hosting a pair of events with the funds going towards the GRADitude campaign. The first is Lazy Dog Sports night, a fun event with games in the Atrium ($5) and a networking event at the Duke of York ($5 buys you a drink and entry, or you can pay $8 for the pair of events). Donations of $5 or more will receive a tax reciept. While the actual financial contribution of each ticket sale is not exactly earth shattering, what is important is the statement a contribution makes regardless of how small it is. The target goal is only $2000, the cost of putting in a nice foozball table in the new expansion. There is a competition in first year to see which section donates the most by dollar value and a competition for naming rights to the table by the year which has the highest participation rate.

While none of us are exactly matching Joseph Rotman's contribution, those who are donating what little we can are acknowledging the value of what we've been given beyond what's covered in our tuition in the same way that the Rotman MBA experience is more than just classes in finance (not a slight on finance... I love finance).

Something else to think about, giving doesn't have to take a financial form. While financial contributions certainly help, we are in the midst of elections season for various clubs at Rotman. People who don't currently have "excess cash" to contribute are finding other ways to support Rotman by donating their time in organizing clubs and events for next year.

While I'm told that there is no link to Rankings based on alumni donations (something that surprises me quite a bit), I think it would be short sighted to say that it doesn't have an enormously positive impact on the Rotman experience to have the support of current students and alumni. Even staff and faculty give, with participation rates historically as high as in the 60+% range.

And at the end of the day, being the best b-school in Canada didn't just happen. It is a combination of recruiting smart interesting people to share your classes, a world class faculty to research and teach, and administrative staff and alumni to support us.

GBC Elections for Second Year

The GBC is currently holding elections for all it's Executive Positions. There are some very strong candidates running who are very motivated and excited for the next year.

Because I'll be gone for half the year on exchange, I don't qualify for running for any of the GBC positions nor many of the clubs positions (a sacrifice I knew I'd have to make and acknowledged in my exchange interview).

However, I will still be around and helping students out in my own little way, either if people want help with prepping for jobs or in classes (I'm considering being a Rotman Scholar perhaps). I know that our year has been doing very well both academically and in our career hunts and that is very much a function of the support we received, especially from second year students.

Already, I have a few friends I know are coming to Rotman next year and I hope that my year can be as useful to them as the second years were to us.

GBC Quarterly Chat

Today we had our GBC Q4 and last quarterly chat. The major topic of discussion was courses. I didn't realize this, but most MBA schools (like Rotman) have a bidding process for second year electives. 2nd year MBAs are given a maximum of 1000 points on which to allocate and bid for courses they want to take in their final year.


For those of us going on exchange, we lose half our points because we will be at other schools. International Study tours also count as a course as well.


I have a particularly interesting dilemma. Because I'm going on exchange at LBS and have done study two tours (Middle East and Latin America), I am now entering bidding with the least number of bid points possible: 300 out of a possible 1000.


Although I only have a few bid points (and only technically need to take three courses in the first semister), I'm thinking of "overloading" and taking a few extra courses in the first semister anyways (possibly bringing me back up to as many as 5 courses). After all, Rotman is a great school (and it also isn't cheap to come here).


Not to mention that I missed "Negotiations" to do the Middle East tour and again to do Latin America (Normally, 1st years would take the course in May if they missed it in Jan). Apparently, I'm told that I'll have to take Negotiations with the part-timers at the end of August before the start of school.

Chinese New Year @ Rotman

Some of you may know that it was Chinese New Year this weekend. Along with Valentine’s Day and the Opening of the Olympics in Vancouver, it’s been a very auspicious weekend.

Just as a bit of a surprise treat, I’ve left one red pocket at each seat in our class room. Chinese associate red with prosperity (My friend, Jiang Zhang, was showing me his trading window and the board was all red. Apparently, in the Chinese Stock Market red means profits and green means losses he tells me).

The Chinese custom for Chinese New Year is for married couples with children to give red packets filled with money to single “children” who greet them with “Gong Xi Fa Chai” (Mandarin for “Congratulations and be prosperous”). Unfortunately, because I can’t actually afford it, I’ve decided to give everyone candy instead of money.

I hope my classmates enjoy this little treat to pick them up after the long weekend returning to school!

GBC Leadership Conference

Yesterday was the GBC's inaugural NSITE Leadership conference, hosting such fantastic speakers as Michael Lee Chin, Don Morrison from RIM (my old boss), Robert Deluce from Porter Airlines and a host of other tremendous speakers. Topics ranged from entrepreneurship to social responsibility.

Each speaker had their own individual flair and unique experiences for how they got to be where they are now. They talked about the challenges they faced, the frameworks they relied on and how there is a constant struggle against complacency caused by success.

The event was hosted at the Hyatt on King in Downtown Toronto as the event was too large for our Fleck Atrium. I believe that there were over 300 people in attendance.

Many of the students had a great time and several members of our class were excited and already planning ideas for how they could build on the work done by this year's founding team.

GBC Clubs Elections - Results

The results from the election are in, and there are a few noteworthy points I would like to emphasize. There are four positions available for MCA rep based on section, two were one by members of our little team: Yan Wang and Arash Noori. You may recall that Arash ran for Class rep for his section, but was beat out (in a good race) by Thi. However, I think that his previous campaign gave him good exposure which I'm sure boosted him to win a rep position with one of the most popular (code word for competitive) positions in the school for our level.

Also, oddly, there is only 1 position for each of RFA (Rotman Finance Association) and RAMA (Rotman Asset Management Association), although they are two of the most popular and competitive clubs. Aleksander and Xuan one those positions respectively (each was very clear and determined from the get go, so these results come as no huge surprise, although there was a lot of intense competition).

Also noteworthy, one of my teammates, Poonam, won the position of Healthcare and Biotechnology representative. All the people who won positions are 'Rotman 1st year household names' and the sheer number of applicants speaks to this years intensity and drive. It will be an interesting time to see how and where the newly elected reps carry their positions.

GBC First Year Class Reps Lunch

The GBC Class reps for the four first year sections had lunch today with the Program Services Office (PSO) and the Corporate Connections Center (CCC) team to talk about initiatives their departments are doing to improve the program and solicit our help and input.

One thing I've been constantly reiterating is that I feel as if Rotman is a great school, but (and I choose my words very carefully) has not nearly reached it's potential. This is not a slight by any means (as Rotman enjoys a very good reputation), but I feel as if there is so much more we can do to improve our brand, our services to students and there is a long runway for improvement.

It was clear that both the PSO and CCC was acting on feedback of previous students to improve how things worked for us, the new incoming class and we, the current class reps, are working to improve the program for our classes and subsequent classes. But more than that, the PSO and CCC had very unique (described by some as 'revolutionary') methods of changing how MBA programs work and deliver services and value to students. It's exciting to be involved with building Rotman at this very important stage of growth.

First GBC Meeting

We had our first GBC meeting this evening. There was an introduction of new members as well as a description of roles and responsibilities. It was very reminiscent of a CFES or MES transition meeting. We discussed operational issues such as the budget for the coming year and already the current council was aware of areas where we could make improvements in our processes and policies.

The current council (the more experienced second years) have made some great improvements to the GBC based on what we've been told, yet are aware that more drastic improvements and changes are necessary.

I would like to be involved with these changes as I think that many of the problems that need to be solved are not entirely unique to rapidly growing organizations and there are smarter people than I who have demonstrated standards and solutions which would cause most of our more egregious problems to disappear.

Having said that, we have very intense group of people (elected from an already highly filtered group) who have been asked to perform and behave in a manner consistent with the expectations of the whole. Certainly an interesting challenge.

GBC Clubs Elections

Today marks the beginning of the Rotman Clubs elections (If you are a Rotman student, you can vote here).

I'm proud to say that for the MCA rep, there is (once again) a disproportionate number of people represented from our case prep team (7 of the 21 candidates are from our team). Also, I personally nominated three of the potential RFA rep candidates and they are all strong candidates.

I'm very happy that there seems to be strong interest across all clubs. Our class has strong leaders and it's great to see students finding their niche.

Good luck to all candidates! And may the best candidates win!

GBC and PSO - Lazy Dog Sports Night

The GBC and Program Services Office (PSO) hosted a FANTASTIC event this evening, the "Lazy Dog Sports Night". The atrium was filled with students playing fooz ball, air hockey, guitar hero, Wii tennis, ping pong and other 'slack' sports. There was plenty of pizza (many of us managed to cart away a couple of slices away at the end) as well as an open bar. All for the price of $5!

If there was one benefit to writing the econ quiz today, it was being able to go to this event without worrying (Sections 1 and 2 wrote the quiz today, Sections 3 and 4 have to write it tomorrow - hence the majority of them spent tonight studying).

The competition for sports got pretty intense pretty quickly (MBA's being MBA's), but mellowed out just as fast when food and drink arrived. It was a great ice breaker and I'm expecting some great photos to be posted on Facebook soon.

What the Wednesday?

We were warned. We were told. "Your Wednesdays are 'free', but they are not 'free'". It's all fine and dandy to hear a current student tell you that at a recruitment info session. It's another thing to watch all your 'free' time quickly vanish. No complaints though. This is what I asked for and what I wanted. But here is a quick run down of what happened today:

8:30 I am a slave to routine. I could sleep in, but the habit of getting up in time for a class at this time of day is hard to break (nor would I want to). It gives me a chance to catch up on emails, review what is happening for the next few days and maybe sign up for upcoming events. It's like our mid-weekend, a good time to prepare for the course work for the upcoming classes. It's a good time to get that MPO or FIT reading out of the way, or review those Econ notes I didn't fully get a chance to appreciate (and write a math blog post about).

10:30 Meeting with my team. Although we have a great group of people, I'm feeling a bit worried about our time constraints. This quarter is evapourating very quickly (a common theme I'm noticing) and I'm concerned that we aren't where we need to be. However, our team (despite a relatively slow start) quickly gets into gear and within minutes we are having very energetic and passionate discussions about ideas for our project. We create a fantastic idea for our Foundations of Integrative Thinking presentation and the momentum requires that Poonam to furiously write the ideas on the blackboard that her team mates are throwing at her. After a whirlwind brainstorming session, our team has finally settled on a great idea and has already moved on to how our model can be used to explain CEO compensation (more details after we present)

12:20 Rotman Ambassador interview. I've applied to be a Rotman Ambassador, which is a position which allows us to participate in the recruitment process by giving potential students an insiders view on Rotman. I've done this before, for both McMaster Engineering and RIM, and feel like it would be natural for me to continue. After all, it was through talking with other "Rotman Ambassadors" (I don't know if they officially held the title, but they certainly acted in that capacity) that I was so attracted to the merits of the program.

1:00 Resume Drop in clinic. This may be one of the few items which I can front load. It appears my resume seems to be in decent shape, but it's nice to get a second pair of eyes.

2:00 Case prep team. Wow. This "little team" has grown quite a bit. We've gone from three (Neesha, Fei and myself) to about nine or ten and I've already heard some whispering in the grape vine that there are more people interested. We did some basic case prep and decided we'll stick to market sizing questions for now until our group normalizes and warms up before we start tackling the more complicated cases. Katie was phenomenal in giving some advice (she clearly has had some experience before) and between all the input in the room, we came up with some great preliminary strategies for how to tackle cases (beyond what is given in the Wetfeet and Vault guides).

3:30 International Study Tour interview. I applied for the study tour in the Middle East (UAE and Jordan). As I mentioned in my Rotman application, I want to get into Private Equity and M&A advisory, but have a particular interest in emerging markets (as the most likely place to find high IRRs for projects and investments). It was probably the most difficult interview I've had in a while and I actually think I didn't perform as well as I could. I am certainly impressed (border lining on intimidated) by the caliber of the questions asked. It would be a fantastic opportunity to go, both in terms of what I would get out of the experience as well as what I think I could potentially offer to the program through my participation.

4:00 Meet up with our financial accounting prof, Franco Wong (no relation), as our Section's Rep. He asked to talk about his mid-quarter review. There are no major issues in our class and the students seem to like him and his style well enough (which is true of all our classes). We did talk about that incessant buzzing noise which seems to only plague our class room, but I've already spoken to the PSO and they'll be talking to us about it in class tomorrow. It's a signal transmission problem caused by... 'phones with data service'. Our room is like a Faraday cage, and gives phones just enough signal to connect, but loses that signal just as quickly. The constant connecting and disconnecting of phones induces a charge in the cables, so even if the speaker system is off, it will still create that insufferable clicking noise.

5:00 Google! This will get it's own post (which still doesn't do the presentation justice).

6:30 The details. Cooking. Cleaning. Laundry. It's surprising how much time these essentials eat up.

9:00 Go to Rotman to read Stat's (for our upcoming quiz).

10:30 Finish readings, but decide I'm too tired to read ahead and go home. Start blogging.

Official First Acts as Class Rep

I had an opportunity to begin to make good on my GBC election promises yesterday as I performed my first official act as Section 2's Class Rep. Our Financial Accounting Prof was conducting a mid-quarter (an eighth?) course review and I was required to collect all the course feedback for the Program Services Office (PSO). While hardly the most glamourous of duties, it did give me a sense of nostalgia for my undergrad student council days and a mild sense of elation that also acted as a confirmation that I'm doing the right thing.

Katie, who also keeps a great Rotman blog and was also elected Class Rep for her section, organized a lunch for us (the four class reps) later today so that we can talk about our plans for the coming year to make the most of our time as Reps. The other class reps are good friends of mine: Amit and Thi. Besides the other GBC reps, there are now also elections open for club positions (RFA, MCA, etc) and I've already heard some buzz about people interested in running for various positions so I'm very excited to see more people assume leadership roles as they describe their view of how they can best serve the students.

I have a series of other interviews coming up for Rotman related opportunities and I'll be continuing to post as I have more news in this area.

Elected GBC Class Rep for Section 2

I had the good fortune to discover that I've been elected to the position of Graduate Business Council Class Rep for Section 2. I am ecstatic that my classmates have entrusted me with this position and I will work hard to ensure that their faith in me is well placed.

As I mentioned in my speech, the Rotman Recruitment staff has done an excellent job of recruiting high caliber MBA candidates to our school and it is an honour to represent such a diverse and talented crowd. It is my hope that I can play a role in helping each person reach their maximum potential.

Other classes had some phenomenal candidates, however, I would like to make special mention of a friend of mine, Arash. I've known him since we studied engineering together at McMaster and he was a more "typical" engineering student back then. However, even in this early stage of our MBA he has impressed me with his personal development and growth. His speech was in the form of a poem which, besides having good rhyme and meter, was also content heavy as to why he would be great for the job. While he lost out in the election to another good friend of mine, he has displayed an impressive leadership ability and it is my hope that Rotman will benefit from his talents in one form of leadership or another.

GBC Section 2 First Year Class Rep Speech

Today was the official start of the Graduate Business Council (GBC) First Year Representative Elections. There were three positions for each section: Class Rep, Sports Rep and Social Rep.

As you may know, I'm currently running for Class Rep and Alejandro is the other candidate for my section. In talking to friends from other sections, there are going to be some tight races. My boy, Arash, surprised me as I found out he did a poem (with good rhyme and meter) expounding the virtues of his candidacy.

If you are reading this and are a Rotman 1st year student, you can vote for your candidates of choice by following the link below:
http://www.rotman.utoronto.ca/MBAProgramServices/election
(l/p: your R-World Credentials)

Elections are now open (except for Section 2 - I'm guessing ours will open after we hear the last candidate speech tomorrow) and will be so until 4pm on Thursday. Election results will be available on Friday.

GBC First Year Rep

I'm officially running to be the Section 2 First Year Class Representative for Graduate Business Council (GBC). I was debating before I started the MBA program if I should continue to be involved with student government, and have decided that it would be more a more enriching experience if I could participate.

I was nomitated by Mark Wang, who offered to nominated me after he heard the presentation from the current GBC. The election is next week and a bit less involved in terms of process to what I was used to in undergraduate engineering. There we had a much more extensive process (going to classes to speak, putting up posters etc).

While the process is different, I would suspect this to be quite challenging. Candidates are only permitted 1 minute to speak before the class and we are in a group of very competitive and type A personalities.

Either way, it is my hope that I am given the opportunity to represent my fellow classmates as I embark on my MBA career. I feel I have a lot to offer my classmates as we build the Rotman Brand together through our learning and networking so we can leverage this brand in now and into the future.

As I prepare to craft my election speech, I'm looking to expound and demonstrate the qualities that I would like to have in a Class Rep. Wish me luck!