Archive for the 'Uncategorized' Category
The Olympics are coming to an end here in Beijing. It was a great 2 weeks and the city really had a great and lively vibe to it. I was able to see a few different events and even meet a Canadian Olympian. It wsa a great time to be in Beijing and I was happy to be a small part of it. 
July 2008
Things have been moving slowly over the last few weeks, school, work and personal life all good, nothing special going on at the moment. I am back in Toronto at the end of August and look forward to that. Other than that will update in a few weeks as there may be some big changes for me.
Chris
Well the last few weeks have been a roller coaster for my life, had some ups a few more downs and a ton of stuff in between. A few things have been helping me through all of this my great classmates form Ivey and my amazing group. They don’t know it but the few days I spend in Hong Kong learning really help me get away from it all. Last week was especially good a busy Sunday night and personally chaperoned to the airport gate always is a great plus.
So what was the last class like you might ask Strategic Analysis and Action, more of a reading and pure thinking class than a true pure analysis. The cases were interesting especially companies such as Merck who I knew a bit about from reading Built to Last (a great book). The discussions were ok and I could see that the professor was trying to get a bit more out of us to get some good discussions going but he was not always successful.
I try and take the opposite point of view most of the time just to get the discussions going, but I am not sure if my classmates roll their eyes when my hand goes up or think ok good Chris is going to say something and wake up the class. Wish we had learned some more practical cases that I could utilize directly into my business life.
So what was the last class like you might ask Strategic Analysis and Action, more of a reading and pure thinking class than a true pure analysis. The cases were interesting especially companies such as Merck who I knew a bit about from reading Built to Last (a great book). The discussions were ok and I could see that the professor was trying to get a bit more out of us to get some good discussions going but he was not always successful.
I try and take the opposite point of view most of the time just to get the discussions going, but I am not sure if my classmates roll their eyes when my hand goes up or think ok good Chris is going to say something and wake up the class. Wish we had learned some more practical cases that I could utilize directly into my business life.
I have started a new job with a company called SOHO China. I am the Leasing Director. Photo taken September 2007.
It has been some time since I have decided to write in this blog; the main reason was that well to be honest two of the last three courses I had very little interest to me.
The last course I took was Management Financial Resources & Performance, this was by far one of the most interesting and challenging courses so far in the program.The Professor made the topics interesting and very diverse set of cases made for classes that were a challenge. An update on some of the Cases I think would go along way though and maybe some more Asian Cases.
The cost of debt, the cost of capital, discounted cash flow and all the other good things that come up in Finance are all an interest to me and I wanted to learn more and test myself. It was easy to see that for a few people in my class this type of work was right up their alley and their comments were always informative and interesting, for me it was a challenge and I have to admit most of the time I was in over my head so I relied on my old tactic ask questions when you can and whenever you know an answer get you point in.
I even surprised myself a few times when the professor asked complicated question and I would get the right answer now only if I had raised my hand I could have really turned a few heads.
When we were doing our project our team cohesion really really shined. I did not pull my weight for this project and the other team members stepped up immediately and I am glad to be part of such a team.
I am so interested in this type of business and will try and branch out at my new job and incorporate what I have learned; some more self study will also push me to fully understand all the concepts.
I hope more classes are like this one in the future.
The last course I took was Management Financial Resources & Performance, this was by far one of the most interesting and challenging courses so far in the program.The Professor made the topics interesting and very diverse set of cases made for classes that were a challenge. An update on some of the Cases I think would go along way though and maybe some more Asian Cases.
The cost of debt, the cost of capital, discounted cash flow and all the other good things that come up in Finance are all an interest to me and I wanted to learn more and test myself. It was easy to see that for a few people in my class this type of work was right up their alley and their comments were always informative and interesting, for me it was a challenge and I have to admit most of the time I was in over my head so I relied on my old tactic ask questions when you can and whenever you know an answer get you point in.
I even surprised myself a few times when the professor asked complicated question and I would get the right answer now only if I had raised my hand I could have really turned a few heads.
When we were doing our project our team cohesion really really shined. I did not pull my weight for this project and the other team members stepped up immediately and I am glad to be part of such a team.
I am so interested in this type of business and will try and branch out at my new job and incorporate what I have learned; some more self study will also push me to fully understand all the concepts.
I hope more classes are like this one in the future.
