Week Three
Or should it be "Week Three??" This spring quarter is starting off with a bang and without a nice, slow lead-in. No syllabus days, no easy transition back from our spring break. This quarter has been go go go and I am not mad about it. We are in core classes now (no more intro courses, hence no more syllabus days) and the workload and course material is intense. But with the increased rigor comes increased reward and satisfaction.
My fellow Cohort members have already talked about Staffing and Econ, so I'll be brief about them:
Staffing - the very first night, Dr. Klein tells us that people who have already worked in staffing don't tend to do well in his course. I was a recruiter for the largest privately-held staffing firm in the nation. Great.
Econ - Chuck, as he likes us to call him, is an interesting guy with a very unorthodox teaching method. He doesn't use his beautiful PowerPoint slides and instead encourages us to converse with him about the reading and challenge each others' opinions. I'm guessing he used to be a hippie based on his frequent references to Communism and his use of the word "man" at the end of each sentence. I like him very much. I also said I was going to call McCarthy and report him. He liked that.
Mostly, I want to talk about BMHR840 - Leadership Values and Decision Making. And no, it is not the morning class with Rucci. (Do I seem like a morning person to you?) This leadership class is being taught by Lewicki, better known as the professor who teaches Advanced Negotiations. After registering for this course last quarter, I went on a mission to find other students who had taken it or were even PLANNING on taking it. I found no one. Luckily, I did end up with a couple of friends in the course, and along with another MLHR and an MBA, we have an amazing group.
This class focuses almost entirely on HBS cases. If you like tearing them apart and finding every last morsel of information in them to use in your arguments, you will love this class. Lewicki is an amazing professor. The only adjective I can find to describe him is charismatic. There is never a slow moment in the session and you hang on his every word. He is respectful of your opinions and helps you develop your arguments into a more sophisticated form.
The reading assigned is actually interesting and relevant to your personal development as a leader. One of the first assignments we had to complete was a Personal Integrity Case where you examine a time when your own integrity, or that of a mentor, was challenged, how the challenge was responded to, and what happened. I learned a lot about myself from this assignment, and I expect to learn a lot more before the course is over.
If you are one of those MLHR students who is timid about interacting with the other disciplines in our school, this is a good opportunity for you to break out of that mindset and do so. The class is a well-balanced mix of working professional MBA's, full-time MBA's, Masters of Accounting and MLHR with a smattering of non-Fisher students like the Ag department. It is a safe environment for you to interact and develop yourself while learning from other peoples' value systems.
So next year when you are looking at electives and you are wondering whether or not 840 is a good choice or want more information, come to me. I will a) tell you that yes, it is an amazing choice for an elective. And b) anything you want to know. I may talk your ear off, so let's go somewhere we can grab a drink and some food while we're at it. I'm always thirsty and hungry. Especially for knowledge.
(ok, that was corny. sorry. still come talk to me though.)