This blog serves as a record of my MBA experience at the Sam M. Walton College of Business and my experience in starting up a company, cycleWood Solutions.
I'll keep this one pretty short. Just wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas. Last weekend we went and saw the Hodo house in Van Buren. The video is below.
The 2011 Walton MBA class also donated 72 cans of corn and green beans to Samaritan House, which is a non-profit organization that provides a food pantry for those in need. They also have a Snack Pack for Kids program that provides children in need with food during the weekend when they don't have access to school lunches.
Christmas is a great time of year for sharing and catching up with friends and family. If only Christmas were year round. I'm off to enjoy the rest of my Christmas, hope you are doing the same.
CASA is an advocacy group for abused and neglected children. Each year they have a gift drive similar to the Angel Tree. Children are sponsored and gifts are purchased. This year the 2011 Walton MBA Class sponsored four kids. Our original goal was to sponsor two. However, our class went above and beyond our goals. This should come as no surprise from such a generous and caring group.
Yesterday some of my co-workers at Walmart and myself went out to CASA to help organize the presents.
There were nearly 400 gift parcels in all. The overwhelming success of this program shows the quality of the people in the communities surrounding the University of Arkansas.
I would encourage any students, anyone for that matter to go out and volunteer. There are numerous opportunities. These experiences open up perspectives that you might not see anywhere else, and like chicken soup it's good for the soul. It's easy to turn away and think that everything is ok and no one needs help. The truth is that we all struggle at some point in our lives. To paraphrase a famous song it's always nice to have someone to lean on when your not strong.
Today I took my last final for the 2010 Fall semester. Needless to say, I am glad to get it over with. It's been a good semester though. Most of the semester was nicely paced there til the end. I guess that was partially my fault. I have the Spring to look forward to now. Just a couple classes left then graduation. It's bittersweet, I've met many wonderful people in the last year and going back to work just won't be the same. To all of you that I've had the pleasure of meeting and spending time with, I hope we can keep in touch. It's always difficult but with so many networking tools and social media it should be easier.
It's been super cold around here lately. I think last night it got down to single digits. Not my favorite kind of weather. I like snow occasionally, but not this bitter cold. Hopefully this cold streak will end soon.
I'll wrap up this semester with a post reviewing the classes I took this Fall and the professors who taught those classes. I really have no complaints about the classes. There may be a thing or two I might change but not too much.
The Spring semester should be lots of fun. With just a couple classes I'll have time freed up to do other things. I can focus on competitions for New Venture Development (Entrepreneurship). I can savor the free time I have left and spend it with my favorite people. I am really looking forward to it. Everyone should make the most of every moment. Our lives are so busy these days that we're always looking to the next thing and in doing so miss being in the moment we're currently in. That's kinda sad when you think about it.
Ok enough about that sad stuff. It's cold outside. I'm making a pot of chilly, and I think I'll go ahead and have some hot chocolate while I'm at it. Til next time, savor the moment.
Today I was working at the Walmart Home Office and Will Ferrell makes an unannounced visit. It's one of the perks of working there. Occasionally you'll run into folks that make you do a doubletake. He was just wandering the halls looking around at stuff.
We just walked up to him and ask for a picture and he said sure. He seems to be a very nice normal guy, unlike the wild characters he plays. That was pretty much the excitement for the day.
I better get to studying for that Accounting final.
Wow, it's been a long time. I apologize for my absence. The past few weeks have been kinda crazy. I'll start with a quick run down of what I can recall.
Chris Gardner (The Pursuit of Happiness) was great. I thoroughly enjoyed and found him very inspiring. He literally struggled through homelessness to get to success. I would say he took the path less traveled. I'm not sure I would take his path, but his experience shows that hard work and determination go a long way.
After that nice event, it seemed like a pile of work buried me. I had two papers due for ECON this past Monday, an Accounting project also due on Monday, a Leadership final also on Monday, and a Consumer Research presentation today (Tuesday). On top of that we had to scramble to put together a business plan for an idea that we have only had for about two and a half weeks. We had a business plan competition this past Sunday for $1,000 in travel funds and the good news is we won. I've embedded our presentation lead-in video below.
I finally have a little breathing room. I have an Accounting final on Saturday and an Econ final on Monday. I also have a Consumer Research paper due Friday and a business plan critique due on Monday. That's plenty to keep me busy, but not buried.
Aside from school, I also need to get some Christmas shopping done. This may be the most wonderful time of the year, but it's also the most busy.
In other news, the Razorback football team is going to the Sugar Bowl, this is their first ever BCS appearance. They'll be playing the Ohio State Buckeyes. Here's a question for you, How do you smash an Ohio State Buckeye? With a Mallett. I know that was a bit corny, I blame it on lack of sleep.
I'm going to relax now for a little bit before I start studying again. Hopefully it won't be too long til my next post.
The semester is winding down, Thanksgiving is next week, and I've registered for my final classes. Final classes for now. Someday I may get my PhD. Who knows. Everything is pretty good right now. I'm busy, but I don't feel stressed or overextended. I know this time last year the MBA students were really concerned about jobs. I feel like the economy is recovering and most, if not all, of our class should have offers prior to graduation. I know there are still many problems with the economy, but I'm generally an optimistic person.
As far as plans for this week and the coming weekend, I'll be going to the Chris Gardner (The Pursuit of Happiness) Thursday evening and probably headed to Fort Smith this weekend. I've got to get everything together for Thanksgiving. I usually cook so I need to figure out what dishes will be on the menu this year. I like to get a little creative with this. I will post some pics of course.
I suppose I should start working on my Econ papers. So until next time keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars.
So this past week has been a little hectic, but I'm catching up. We had an accounting test on Wednesday. I think that went pretty well. We also had to submit our HR Plan presentations for Leadership. I've been scrambling of late trying to get all the loose ends tied up for our Entrepreneurship product. Hopefully we can finalize that soon.
So what's left to do? As mentioned before, we need to start putting together a business plan for our Entrepreneurship project. We'll be competing in a couple weeks with other teams in our class for an extra $1,000 in travel money. We'll need that to go to various competitions. I have a couple papers to do for Econ, which shouldn't be too bad. I really enjoy that class (Emerging Markets) so I don't mind the papers so much. We have a presentation next Monday for Leadership, that would be our HR Plan presentation. Our final test for Consumer Research is coming up in a couple weeks too. We also have to disseminate a survey and analyze the resulting data and then present it. I think that's about all I have left to do for this semester, besides finals.
Overall, this semester has been pretty good so far. It seems like this semester was much simpler than last Spring. I think this is because I wasn't used to the whole school thing yet. It takes a lil bit to get re-acclimated with the whole going to class, homework, and studying process. Now that I'm back in the groove of things it's time to readjust. I have a couple classes in the Spring and then it'll be back to work. I like change though. It keeps life interesting.
So this post is about a week behind, but better late than never right? So last weekend was Halloween. It was a good weekend. The festivities started at work on Friday. This is how the Walmart Home Office does trick-or-treating.
Then we had a pumpkin carving get together Friday night.
Saturday night we went to a Halloween party.
And that was pretty much that weekend. Good times.
As promised, here are some pictures of some of the happenings of late. Some are sort of random, but interesting nonetheless. I'll start from most recent and work backwards. A picture is worth a thousand words, so this may be a very long post. Bear with me.
Snoop Dogg Concert
Waiting in line to get into the Snoop Dogg concert
Arkansas vs. Ole Miss
Teamwork
Random rainbow on the way to class
Arkansas vs. Alabama
So that's what I've been up to lately. There's so much more to getting your MBA than sitting in the classroom. Remember the experience is what you make of it, and you should make the most of it.
We are hosting an MBA Campus Visit Day on Monday, November 1. This is event is for prospective MBA students. Jeff Murray has agreed to do the lunch and learn and it will be 11:00-12:30, location to be determined. His topic will more than likely be ethnography, although he is thinking about another option as well.
In other news, I went to the Snoop Dogg concert this past weekend at Barnhill Arena, the leaves are changing colors, and the Razorback football team is winning again. I will provide a more thorough update later including some pictures.
Well I've survived one test so far this week. A couple more the next couple days, then I'm in the clear for a little while. Fall is in the air. The weather is starting to cool down a bit and the leaves should start changing colors soon. Should be some great photo ops in the next couple of weeks.
The GSB Fall Social is Thursday night. If you or someone you know is interested in pursuing an MBA or some other graduate degree through the Walton College of Business, then this is the event for you. It's a good chance for prospective students to talk to current and former students, as well as professors and faculty. You can gain a lot of perspective from these events. I went to this event last fall and it was nice to meet some of the students and future classmates. Besides the foods pretty good too. So if you're interested come on down to the Powerhouse just off Dickson, it kicks off around 6:00.
In sports news, the Razorback football team narrowly won this past Saturday defeating Texas A&M. However, Alabama lost which means the Razorbacks may have a shot at winning the SEC West. A road trip to Auburn this week is the next hurdle for the football team.
Moving right along, the CRE Conference last week was fairly interesting. Lots of great speakers, most notably Kevin Roberts of Saatchi&Saatchi, Bill Simon of Walmart, and Bob McDonald of P&G.
Well I better get back to studying, two more tests coming up. Wish me luck.
It's that time of the semester again when tests start showing up. This semester is going by fast, I can't believe midterms have arrived already. I had one test yesterday for Dr. Kali's Emerging Markets class. The test was a normal Dr. Kali test, several short essay questions. If you are interested in international anything, I would definitely encourage taking this class along with International Management. These two classes pair together nicely.
I have another midterm on Monday for Accounting, very exciting. The following week I have a couple more and then things settle down for a bit. Next Wednesday is the annual Center for Retail Excellence Conference. There will be some good speakers at this all-day event, including Walmart US CEO Bill Simon and Procter & Gamble CEO Bob McDonald. Most of the MBA class will be attending this event, so if you're there look out for us.
This week has been pretty interesting and it's only Wednesday. The Razorback football team is 3-0 after beating Georgia in an exciting game that came down to the last 15 seconds. This moved them up to #10 in the AP Poll. This Saturday they will be hosting the #1 team in the country, Alabama. This is the first time since 1979 that to top 10 teams have played in Fayetteville. The game will be nationally televised by CBS. Kickoff is at 2:30 CDT. As you can see, the week holds still more excitement.
Monday night we had our annual internship poster networking event. Each MBA Candidate prepared a poster of their summer internship and stood by them as employers and others walked around to examine each poster. The event is hosted by the Walton College Career Center (W3C), they did a great job putting it all together.
Tuesday was the College of Business Career Fair which was held in Willard J. Walker Hall. The building was packed. Prospective employers were stationed on the first two floors of the building. There were around 70 companies represented at the event. This was one of my best career fairs. Usually I just walk around mingle with the company representatives and grab a few goodies from their tables and move on. However, this year I went a little more proactive, pushing my own agenda. I had resumes in hand and a nice elevator pitch to boot. Many of the companies there were looking for interns and undergrad students graduating in May. As I went around pitching my spiel, I told them what I was looking for and they stood there thinking where I would fit into their companies instead of vice versa. I think made some good contacts. I am hoping to have standing offers before the end of the semester. That may be optimistic with the current economy, but you gotta stay positive.
Friday I am headed over to check out JB Hunt. They are interested in hiring up to five MBA students to bring into their managerial development program. This could be a great opportunity for our class.
From my perspective it appears the job market may be improving. We have many talented folks in our MBA Class, and I'm sure we'll all have offers by graduation. Again I am being optimistic. I do believe that some people in the current MBA Class will go on to do great things. Only time will tell.
This semester seems to be flying by. It's already the beginning of the fourth week of the semester. We're almost a fourth of the way through the semester and mid-terms are just around the corner. Classes are going alright so far. Leadership and Ethics are taught by the same professor and are both very interesting. Accounting is accounting. Nothing fascinating but necessary in the world of business. We're starting our first group project in that class this week. Emerging Markets is also interesting especially since I took International Management this past summer. The two classes provide unique perspectives. Consumer Marketing Research is very hands on. We have to design a research project and execute it this fall. The big class I have for this fall is New Venture Development. We are still exploring ideas for that class, but we have a very capable team. All-in-all the semester is coming along as expected.
As far as work goes, it's been busy. Working part-time makes it difficult to get things done. I've also taken on more responsibility lately. The experience will only help in the future as graduation gets closer. The job hunt is also starting to hit full stride. We have a couple networking events coming up, and recruiters are coming on campus. We'll see if the job market is recovering first hand.
It is still technically summer, but the open of the fall semester has also brought some relief in terms of temperature. We had several days in a row of triple digit heat, thank goodness a cool front came through taking temperatures down to the 80s. This week temperatures are back up but not up to triple digits thank goodness. Enough about the weather, so this first week...
Well the first week is pretty much like any first week. All our professors went through their syllabuses and course matrices. No big surprises there. The classes seem to be fairly interesting. I'll give a more detailed review of classes in a week or so once we get into some material. We've also been getting into groups this first week. This has been different from last semester. We've gotten to pick some of our own groups, which can be good and bad. The big news is that our entrepreneurship team has come together. We have five members, six if you count our programmer. It was a little last minute, but I am very happy with the outcome. The group includes one full-time MBA student, three MMBA students, and one MAcc student. We all have different backgrounds which adds to our diversity. We haven't finalized what idea we will be working with yet, but there are several good ones we are looking at.
Outside of class, I've played more golf this past week than I've played the prior 8 months. My golf game is a little rusty, but not as bad as I thought it would be. I'm hoping I will have more time to play this fall. The college football season starts this coming weekend and Arkansas fans are very excited about this season. It should be a great year for the team. The offense will be one of the best in the country, but the defense is a bit of a question mark. We'll see what happens. Go Hogs!
Last week I took a week off to take a road trip with my girlfriend, Sarah. We drove over 2,200 miles. It was well worth it though. We made stops in Alabama, Georgia, and Florida. We started the trip last Saturday by heading to Decatur, AL. We stayed one night there and visited with an old friend of mine, EJ. It's been a couple years since the last time I saw him and he now has 13 grand kids. It was nice to catch up with him. I used to work with EJ at the International Paper mill in Courtland, AL.
We had breakfast the next morning at EJ's house and then headed down to Auburn, AL. We stopped there for lunch with another friend, Trey. I've known Trey for about 8 years. We used to hang out a lot when I lived in Alabama.
I had seen Trey last year so it hadn't been as long since visiting with him. After lunch we left Auburn and headed down to Valdosta, GA. We stayed in Valdosta a couple nights. Its been about a year and half since the last time I was down there. Most of the guys I worked with work a rotating shift so it's difficult to see everyone. I did get a chance to go in the paper mill and visit with a couple different shifts.
After Valdosta we headed down to Saint George Island, FL. It's a very nice place with uncrowded beaches and a slow pace of life. We got down there unpacked and relaxed. We checked out some of the local sites and walked the beaches.
We stayed three nights and enjoyed every minute. And now it's time for the Fall semester to start.
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