At the beginning of the year they told us that the first semester would be the hardest and I really hope that they were right because that was quite tricky. Having said that I did survive and ended up with a 3.4 GPA and two internship offers. I'm not going to be kicked out and I have somewhere to go where they will pay me in the summer (Richmond, VA).
So all in all how did it go?
Not bad. There are some things I'm disappointed in, some that beat my expectations. There are two aspects of the course that are fundamental in differentiating it from other programs. One is the career specialization aspect. The other is the lockstep aspect. The fact that everyone in the program does the same core courses simultaneously is vital in creating a cohesive program from a group of students who all have very different focuses but it does create some problems. It is very difficult to balance a course where there is a wide range of experience and skills in the class. qualified CPAs going through the fundamental accounting analysis course sitting next to people like, erm, me for instance. I found that in every course except for marketing I experienced this problem at least once, in some more than others.
The finance course was the hardest.
The University of Wisconsin has two very good financial specializations, Applied Corporate Finance, and the flagship Applied Securities Analysis Program. The financial management course is therefore taught at a level that challenges those in these programs and sets them up for the courses they will take this coming semester and next year. Which is great. However, for the rest of us who really need to understand the underlying concepts but don't need to be able to mathematically prove each and every formula, not so good.
On the plus side, the AC Nielsen Center and the MBA Careers Center is great, really incredible. The marketing research program has 12 first years and 9 second years. At present I think all 9 second years have job offers from top companies, I believe 8 have accepted. To my knowledge only one or two first years don't have offers at the moment. One because they already had something lined up for the summer, one because they are not a U.S. Citizen or a Permanent Resident and that really cuts down on the number of companies at which you can intern.
If the story about George Bush having to be talked out of bombing Al Jazeera is "outlandish" then why is this man facing trial under the Official Secrets Act for telling the world about it?
