Moore BBA Stuff

The attitude of a champion

2007-12-22T20:23:00.000-05:00

I found the most amazing quote today when reading a story about Tiger Woods. This is him explaining to a group of people how he views life:

I view my life in a way ... I'll explain it to you, OK? The greatest thing about tomorrow is, I will be better than I am today. And that's how I look at my life. I will be better as a golfer, I will be better as a person, I will be better as a father, I will be a better husband, I will be better as a friend. That's the beauty of tomorrow. There is no such thing as a setback. The lessons I learn today I will apply tomorrow, and I will be better.

What a fantastic attitude! It explains a lot about why he's a champion. Always work to be better in everything you do. Every day is a gift; time is the only thing each of us have, and when each day is gone, we'll never get it back. So what seems to be a reasonable exchange for that day? Sitting on your couch and not doing anything? Probably not. Ask yourself this question: What can you do to give in exchange for this day?

At the end of the day worth living, you will have tried things, risked making mistakes, and actually made some mistakes. As Tiger says, that's just the cost of trying to be better. What makes these mistakes worth it is that you learn from them, that they make you better. It is only by trying things, and inevitably making mistakes and learning from them, that you can get better.

So get out there. Look for some possible course of action. Figure out how you might differentiate yourself — and do it.

BBA class in China

2007-05-10T10:23:00.000-04:00

Just wanted to note here that I will be accompanying 35 students from Jim Walsh's BBA class to China during the next two weeks. I figure that my recent furious rate of posting will decrease and someone might notice and wonder what's going on. I will try to post some comments in my other blog (for those of you who might care).

Slacking seniors in high school: beware

2007-05-08T22:22:00.000-04:00

Recently, there was a real nice article in the New York Times describing how colleges are dealing with admitted students whose grades during their senior year have fallen off dramatically. It seems that universities are really cracking down so that students don’t waste their senior year. The University of Michigan is specifically mentioned for the steps that it is taking.

First steps toward success in college

2007-05-07T09:22:00.000-04:00

I have been reading a lot of online posts recently about choosing a college, about going to a specific university, and about the relative ease or difficulty or prestige (or lack of same) between different schools. And mixed among those stories are the comments made by students saying “I got good grades in high school and I got a really high test score, so how hard can college classes really be?” Well, I’m here to tell you right now that they’re hard enough.

A couple of months ago I looked at the first semester business school grades (after one year of LS&A classes) of 120 BBAs here in light of their high school grades. The main finding might shock some people (but only served to confirm what I had believed): Students who do really well in high school (i.e., GPA of 3.9+ and an A in AP Calculus) can do really well at Ross but also can struggle to maintain a 2.0 GPA, and sometimes even fail to maintain that.

The first steps that any student can take toward success in college are the following:

Forget how impressive your high school academic record was,
Respect your peers (because they probably had a record as good as or better than yours),
Respect your professors (because they were the smart kid in some high school and then some college class 5 to 15 or more years ago), and
Respect the material (even if it looks something like what you studied in high school, you’re going to be tested on it differently in college).

The sooner that you realize that what you did in high school doesn’t count for much when you’re in college the better off you’ll be. We are all glad that you were an excellent student in high school. We are thrilled that you participated in so many extracurricular activities and contributed so much to your community. These are all wonderful things. All of them have gone into making you what you are today. Let’s sit back and enjoy thinking about them for a minute.

Okay, that was quite enjoyable.

Now let’s get back to the current situation. Those accomplishments don’t count for anything tomorrow when you’re sitting in a college classroom (or later when you have a job) — it will all be about what you do at that time, how you contribute to that community, how you compete and cooperate with those students. This isn’t really anything special to the college admissions process. This is how it will be for the rest of your life so you might as well get used to it. What you have accomplished is what has gotten you to where you are today, but what you accomplish today determines where you will be tomorrow.

Our changing admissions rate

2007-05-04T08:19:00.000-04:00

I recently received a question from a student related to the recent change in the admissions rate from 47% (for the class of rising juniors that we admitted last summer) to 30-35% (for the class of rising sophomores that we will be admitting this summer). The question is the following: “Does this mean the average GPA is going to go up and getting in is going to get a lot harder really fast?”

Short answer (that probably doesn’t answer the intent of the original question): I have no idea if the GPA is going to go up this year and I won’t until the end of June when we’re all done.

I would be really surprised if it’s going to get that much harder to get in that quickly. The rate changed so much this year because our whole structure for accepting applications from UM students changed. We used to accept applications from sophomores. These students had taken Econ101, Econ102, Math115, and one (or both) intro accounting classes. By the time these courses were done, it was pretty clear to students 1) whether or not they were interested in business, and 2) whether or not they could succeed in and would like taking business classes. The result of these two factors was that students self-selected themselves out of applying to business by the end of their sophomore years. There are now fewer classes for convincing students not to apply to Ross, so the end result is that Ross receives more applications. I believe it’s currently the case that there are no more students entering UM at the beginning of their freshman year who are interested in business than there were a couple of years ago. The difference in the number of applications is that fewer of these students have been convinced not to apply to Ross. I hope this changes in future years (that is, I hope that the number of applications goes up because more students are interested in business), but I don’t believe it has happened yet (though it may have).

Now, in several years if my plan for global domination succeeds (evil laugh echoes off the walls of my imposing maize & blue castle), then it might be the case that applications will be up because there simply are more students entering UM with a plan for studying business. But I don’t think we’re there just yet.

So, what does this all mean? To me, it means that students this year competed with basically the same number of UM students that they did in the past — it’s just that more of them hadn’t removed themselves from consideration by Ross.

What’s the end result of this in the short run? I believe that the UM GPA of admitted students won’t change by a significant amount this year; it didn’t change much last year. Further, I don’t believe that getting into Ross is going to be any harder than it was in the past — as long as you take into account the fact that we now have a two-phase admissions process. I believe this might have made it slightly more difficult to get in for the average student because we might have (I hope) gotten the attention of more highly attractive high school students and subsequently gotten them to apply to Ross simply because they could get in right out of high school. But the data for this certainly isn’t in yet. We probably won’t have an answer to this question for another couple of years.

So, if you assume that half of our preferred admit class are made up of applications from students who would not have applied to or chosen to attend UM/Ross without the PA program, then that would mean that we have 50 fewer spots for our usual set of (historically, very high quality) applicants. Given that, you might think that next year it would be harder to get into Ross.

But have you considered the fact that we have already thought through this and might be thinking of increasing the size of the BBA Program? If that were to happen, then it might not end up being any more difficult to get into Ross than it was before — it might just end up being a larger (really high quality) program than it was before. (We of course would like, in this scenario, to be both larger and higher quality.) Now, don’t go thinking that the Dean or I have approved this change for next year. We haven’t even discussed it. I am simply saying that this type of change is at least going to be considered. (I haven’t presented the reasons for not getting bigger — and these are fairly reasonable — so don’t think it’s a straight-forward case for increasing the size.) And what matters to you is that it is a complete and total unknown at this point so don’t think that you can guess what we’re going to do by deciphering my writing. (“Oh, he’s clearly not going to make it bigger! I should give up!” or “It’s definitely going to get bigger. I can just cruise from here and wait for my acceptance letter.” No. Resist the temptation!) Because even I have no idea what we’re going to do.

So, don’t despair. Just do what you think you should do in order to increase your chances of getting in. Continue to get advice. But do what you can to ensure that your record is high quality, apply to the program, and let the chips fall where they may. You won’t help anything by worrying about this type of detail.

How to find good classes and professors

2007-05-03T08:42:00.000-04:00

Recently a student asked me what resources are available to him to find good classes and good professors. I asked my advisors, who in turn asked some students, and got a variety of answers. I have combined what I know with what they told me and this is what I have come up with.

Public sites. Students said that they are careful to note how many people rated the professor (obviously not much impact with just a few ratings). Also, remember that students who go to these sites tend to have strong feelings one way or the other.
- RateMyProfessors.com
- RateYourProf.com
UM sites.
- Course evaluation forms: The Michigan Student Assembly has a form (for current UM students) that allows you to search through the data collected on the official course evaluation forms that professors hand out at the end of the semester.
- Course evaluations: If you’re a Ross student and are interested in Ross professors, then use this site that is provided by the school to get course evaluation data.
Word of mouth: This is what students mostly rely on. (They should at least use the Ross advisors.)
Ross Student Advisors: If you are a Ross student, then you should definitely check in with an advisor when you are choosing your classes. They have sat in on many classes, have gotten feedback from many previous students, and understand how different courses relate to each other. They also have a broad and fairly deep understanding of the LS&A and engineering curriculums.

This seems to be the range of resources that students use to find good classes and good professors. I will update this list if I learn of other resources.

The concept of an MBA feeder school

2007-05-02T09:44:00.000-04:00

I have heard several discussions recently about the attractiveness of schools, and in rating a school higher because it is an “MBA feeder” school. The way that the rankings usually have it is that a “good” MBA feeder school has a high percentage of its graduates attend an MBA program; you can guess what a school might look like for it to rank low on this scale. I gotta tell you that I do not understand why this is used as a way to rank undergraduate business schools. And don’t think this is just sour grapes. Ross generally does well on such rankings.

Here are the different scenarios that I can come up with for a student who graduates from Ross:

A student graduates from Ross. Gets a job, loves it, gets big raises. Happy with career. Never goes back to school. Might become president of the world, for all we know. Note that this counts as a negative in the MBA feeder school ranking since this person never gets an MBA.
A student graduates from Ross. Gets a job, hates it, changes jobs and industries through personal contacts. Happy with new career. Never goes back to school. Note that this also counts as a negative.
A student graduates from Ross. Gets a job, hates it, goes back and gets a masters degree in social work. Happy with career. This also counts as a negative.
A student graduates from Ross. Gets a job, hates it, goes back and gets a Masters in Financial Engineering (from an engineering school) or a Masters in Supply Chain (from a business school!) or gets a J.D. (from a law school) and works in corporate law. All three of these count as a negative.
A student graduates from Ross. Gets a job, loves it but can’t be promoted because of company policy that requires an MBA. Goes back to school. Student may or may not end up liking new job. This counts as a positive.
A student graduates from Ross. Gets a job, hates it, goes back and gets an MBA. Student may or may not end up liking new job. This counts as a positive.

How is it that the first four don’t help Ross while the last two are good for us? It’s not whether or not a person changes careers or jobs. It’s not whether or not a person made a good career choice out of undergrad. It’s not whether or not a person goes back to school and ends up getting a job in business. It’s not how successful he or she is after getting the BBA. It’s not how successful he or she is after getting the MBA. The only things that count as positives are if a student graduates from our school and, for some reason, feels that he or she must get an MBA. It’s simply the fact that the BBA student ended up getting an MBA. This is the measure of success.

One way to ensure that a school does poorly on such a ranking is to place its graduates in jobs that they will love and will get promoted in. Two ways to ensure that a school does well on such a ranking is 1) to place its graduates in jobs that they will hate or 2) to place its graduates in companies that require MBAs in order to be promoted.

Does this make sense? Should this be something that influences how highly an undergraduate business program is ranked and, through its influence, how attractive the program is perceived to be?

If you did not get into Ross as a Preferred Admit

2007-05-01T09:33:00.001-04:00

If you did not get into Ross as a Preferred Admit, don’t fret and don’t frown. We admitted less than 10% of the applicants to the program. (I would have been a borderline case for admissions; I have great sympathy for those of you who did not get admitted.) We turned down lots of applicants who, based on what I read in their applications, would have a very good chance of succeeding at Ross. (Should we be bigger? Maybe; we have to compete for space and resources with other Ross programs. Can we get bigger right now? No; the construction process makes it quite cramped right now — though this will be better 18 months from now.) When these same applicants apply next year, they will have a much better chance of being accepted. The acceptance rate for the 3-year program is more in the range of 30-35%.

The question becomes what the student should do in order to improve his or her chances of getting in next year. We will look at highlights from your high school application to UM (not to Ross; we don’t care one way or another if you applied to Ross out of high school) so you won’t lose “credit” for your good deeds from high school. Though we will note your high school accomplishments, we will focus on what you have accomplished since you graduated from high school. The following are some productive steps that you can take in the following year:

This summer you should do something with your time that is productive in any way possible (paying job, volunteer, or whatever). When you do something, there’s a chance that you will have stories to tell later. And it is with these stories that you can convey a sense of who you are to other people.
You should be sure that you get good grades next year. A 3.6 GPA is about the average for students entering the business school. Certainly, some admitted students have lower grades than this (it is an average, after all) but all other things being equal, it’s better to have higher grades than lower grades.
Take Econ 101 and one math class (at least Math 115). If you perform well in analytic classes, it helps your chances of getting into Ross. If you take only analytic classes, that’s not so good. If you don’t take these two classes, then we won’t consider your transcript. Analytic skills are an important prerequisite to succeeding at Ross since so many of our classes build on this particular foundation.
Take LS&A classes that interest you. You might find a double-major or minor opportunity. Or you might change your major! You just never know. But you’ll certainly do better in a class that you want to take.
During school you should be involved in a couple of activities and/or projects that show that you can accomplish something

That’s about it. We’re looking for smart doers with different people mixing those two ingredients in different ratios. The clearer that you can make it that you fit this description, the better chance that you have of getting in.

Note the following: If you think that your grades don’t measure up but you have some other significant accomplishments that outweigh your grades, then please go ahead and apply to Ross if it’s what you have always wanted to do. Don’t let outsiders talk you out of it. Do all that you can do and let us make the admissions decision. Maybe you’ll get in and maybe you won’t — but at least you’ll know for sure.

Specific dual majors and minors

2007-04-29T21:31:00.000-04:00

I have previously written about Ross’s support for dual majors and minors (in other disciplines); read this post for a better idea of what I think about this. However, I haven’t ever listed the wide variety of disciplines that students have pursued for their dual or minor. Here is a list of them:

Actuarial math
Applied statistics
Asian Language & Culture
Asian Studies
Brain, behavior, & cognitive science
Cellular & molecular biology
Crime & Justice
Economics
Environment
French & Francophone Studies
Gender, Race & Ethnicity
German Studies

History of Art
International Relations of the Middle East
Industrial & Organizational Engineering
Latin
Mathematics
Organizational Studies
Philosophy
Political Science
Psychology
Russian & East European Studies
Spanish Language, Literature, Culture
Statistics

Don’t read this as an exhaustive list. Read it as an indication of the variety of possibilities that lie before you as a UM/Ross student.

Preferred admit activities

2007-04-29T19:57:00.000-04:00

My attitude to the preferred admit (PA) program might surprise some people. (And I’m writing about it here so that incoming students don’t end up being surprised.) My goal for the PA students is that they use their freshman year to immerse themselves in the activities and culture of the university while at the same time becoming acquainted with Ross. The University of Michigan is a complicated enough place without us overwhelming the PAs with a bunch of Ross-related requirements. The diversity of options (programs, people, events, classes) at the university is probably our greatest strength. I want the PAs to be comfortable about all of the resources outside of Ross available to them so that they can take advantage of them during their time at UM.

We don’t let the PAs simply roam around the campus without interacting with us. We started off the year with a short orientation whose purpose was generally to allow the PAs to meet each other and to get introduced to our staff. Starting soon thereafter we offered a series of weekly seminars (attendance required) just for the PAs. The purpose of these seminars is to introduce the PAs to business and to Ross. The following are those seminars that we offered this year. Next year will most likely be somewhat different but the general structure and purpose will be the same.

Introduction to stock trading
Time management
Using the school library
Self-assessment workshop
Retailing
Career assessment
Strategy

Accounting
Dual degrees
Financial services company
Clubs and Internships
Marketing
Microsoft

Medical device manufacturer
International Business
Entrepreneurship
Global Sustainable Enterprises
Finance
Global equipment manufacturer

We will be updating this series of seminars over this summer so don’t hold up this list to me as some kind of promise for future services to be rendered.

In addition, during the year PAs can use both their LS&A advisors and their Ross advisors to help them put together their academic plan. Given that many of these students are planning on working toward a dual degree or minor, these academic plans need to be constructed fairly carefully.

What we are trying to do is to give PAs a bit of a head start into business and Ross since they are “our” students. For those sophomores who do not get into Ross as PAs, the information that we provide to PAs is not something that they wouldn’t be able to pick up during their time at Ross; however, this does allow PAs to learn about business and Ross without being under the academic pressure of upper-level classes. We think this low-key introduction to business provides a reasonable place to start for students who we want to integrate fully into the university’s life.

What classes you should take

2007-04-29T17:51:00.000-04:00

Students frequently ask what classes they should take. “What are the best classes?” This is a both an easy and difficult question to answer.

Take as many classes as you can that you are interested in. The more you are interested in them, the better you will do (all else being equal). Why would you take a class that you’re not interested in? I would hope that you would be taking classes to prepare you for the world, and possibly for your work life. And if you think it’s fun to have a job when you don’t enjoy what you’re doing, then you need to talk to more people who have jobs.
Take as many classes as you can from professors who are extremely passionate about their class. Even if you’re not completely enamored with the material, it’s almost always fun to take a class from someone who really loves the material and passes on that love to you. Those were some of my best classes (when I was sitting in a room as a student).

Yes, sometimes you will have to take “required” classes, and these aren’t always the most fun. But look for a professor who really loves the class (if you have a choice), and hop on for the ride. Might as well make the most of it.

Tonight’s graduation ceremony was a good one

2007-04-27T22:21:00.001-04:00

The graduation ceremony for the BBA class of 2007 (and other programs) was tonight. It was actually a fairly nice program. Steve Case, formerly of AOL Time Warner, was the main speaker. He made four main points:

Business is about people, passion, and perseverance.
Business is a great vehicle for bringing about social change.
The next big opportunities are in health care and the environment.
Business people should take bigger risks than they are accustomed to taking.

Lots of good points can be made here. Given his background these points carried additional weight. I enjoyed listening to him. Before him there were some pretty good speeches by students — funny, passionate, and insightful. Good stuff.

Trying to describe the Ross & UM experience

2007-04-26T14:14:00.000-04:00

One of the more difficult tasks that I have as BBA Program Director is to answer the question “What is it about Ross & UM that makes it so special that I (or ‘my son’ or ‘my daughter’ or...) should go there?” Well, it’s not hard to answer — it’s just hard to answer in any kind of succinct and compelling way. The difficulty is that our strength is in the diversity of options that a student has when he or she is here. A student has many different paths that he or she might take:

Finance is our most popular option but we also have significant numbers of students who go into accounting, consulting, marketing, and general management development programs.
Chicago is a popular destination for students, and so is New York. But when a student says that she is going to work in Atlanta, Cleveland, or Washington, D.C., no one is really that surprised.
Many students go directly to work for a large company, but we also have a significant number of students who go to law school or to work in more entrepreneurial environments.
When students are here, they can be involved in classes or programs that take them to Washington, D.C., Shanghai, Hong Kong, or Central Europe.
Many students are involved in dozens of different community service events around southeastern Michigan while they are here.
Student summer experiences range from working on Wall Street or consulting companies to going through Domestic Corps to work with not-for-profit companies.
About 10% of our students have a dual major or minor in subjects ranging from Economics to Spanish to History of Art to Political Science.
For some students, their favorite class was their business statistics class (if you can imagine) or their business law class or their finance class or their Bottom of the Pyramid elective or their Corporation & Society elective... The list is quite long and shows how many different types of students we have.

I think you can see how hard it is to describe the Ross and UM experience in one short simple sentence. So, what we’re doing to try to help this process along is to make videos about specific experiences that BBAs have had during their time at UM and Ross. The first one (that we just posted) is about Neal Uppal and the fantastic Domestic Corps/internship experience he had during the summer between his junior and senior years. You can see this movie if you go to the BBA home page. We will be posting more of these during the coming year.

Having flexible course registration along with cohorts

2007-04-26T10:16:00.000-04:00

In a previous post I discussed the complex relationship between the decision of whether or not to have cohorts and the ability of students to have a flexible course registration process. Here at Ross we need a flexible course registration process — or, at least, we need one at least as flexible as the one we have now. A more flexible process would probably also be welcome as long as it could be implemented in a reasonable way by a reasonable number of people working a reasonable number of hours.

It would be easy to implement a very flexible system if we just got rid of cohorts — the practice of putting students into groups that persist across courses. Simply let students register for whatever courses they want that are still available when their registration time comes up. Of course, this doesn’t allow Ross to continue to use cohorts.

I have talked with about 30 seniors over the last two weeks in some depth about this issue. I can’t give you any conclusive proof that what they told me is perfectly representative of the rest of the class, but I can tell you that these students really, really are happy that Ross had cohorts (or “sections”, as they call them):

Many students bond with their section-mates so much so that they become their best friends.
Section-mates are a student’s support group as she goes through a difficult set of core courses.
A student’s section is her home in which she can gain a sense of community in a large university.
A student’s experiences with her section-mates are some of the dominant thoughts as she reflects back on her time at Ross and UM.

Any decision to abolish the use of sections would alter the environment of the school and is outside my current goal: to improve the flexibility of the registration process (within the confines of our cohort-based system).

I have received several recommendations from students and staff related to this situation and we’re beginning to narrow in on a proposal. I have already run this exact scenario by about 20 seniors and they liked it. Note that the following isn’t necessarily implementable within the university’s registration process, but it’s worth thinking about. I am writing all of this so that I might hear from students and staff what they think about it.

Here’s the process that I’m thinking about:

The University publishes its schedule, including Ross courses.
Students know which section to which she is assigned for the current year.
Students look at the Ross courses and bid for electives.
Students are notified which electives they successfully bid for. Students have these classes loaded into their schedules.
Each student looks at the Ross electives that she got into and the UM electives that she wants to get it. The student determines if these electives conflict with one of the core courses to which he or she is assigned.
If the student doesn’t find such a conflict (which would be the normal state of affairs), then the student doesn’t need to do anything and registration proceeds as normal.
However, if the student does find a conflict, then she would petition to opt out of the section assignment process for a specific course. Petitions would be more likely to be approved if the student had previously (that is, several weeks or months ago) set up a long-term course of study that requires a certain LS&A or Ross elective to be taken (for example, in order to complete a dual major or minor); they would be less likely to be approved if the student simply wants to get out of an 8:30 section of a course. Of course, the student would end up not being with her section, but this would be a decision that the student thinks is best for her overall.
Before any UM students begin to register, all of the students who did not opt out of section assignments would be pre-loaded into the appropriate sections for the core courses. The students who did opt out of these assignments would not be pre-loaded into courses.
During registration, students would register for courses as usual; however, students who opted-out of their core sections would also have to register for whatever section of the core that is available. Students would not be guaranteed a spot in a “better” section or even a different section during open registration. He or she would simply be taking a chance that a better section might be open when his or her registration slot comes up.
After registration is over, students who for some reason still want to change sections would go to the CTools course swap Web site that we have set up. At this site, the student would attempt to swap her spot in one section with a student in another section of the same course.

I’m not sure how to handle students who are not able to get into a core course section that does not overlap with the electives that she has gotten into. The real problem that I see with this is whether or not there is time to do all that this process requires. I look forward to hearing 1) from students about whether or not this process seems reasonable and which parts might be more important than others, and 2) from staff about whether or not this process can, or even should be, implemented.

Again, I’m sure that I will be writing more about this at a later time.

Stressed, happy, and sad

2007-04-25T11:26:00.000-04:00

No exciting news here today, just a bit of reflection. It is such a stressful time of the year for everyone: students taking exams and worrying about their grades, faculty grading term projects and exams and worried about assigning grades, and lots of events for everyone that can be fun but can also be stressful if you are trying to ensure they go off well.

It is also, certainly, a happy time of the year. Students are done with classes (who cares what I got in the class because I’m done!), faculty are soon to be done with grading (and that’s always a relief), and the daily press of scheduled events is soon to be over.

However, mostly, for me this is a sad time of the year. Students have to say goodbye to their friends who they won’s see much, if at all, over the summer. This was always the worst part of summer for me when I was a student. I hated for summer to come because I would have to go home and live with my parents. (Not that they were anything but good to me, but they weren’t my friends and I had to live by their rules and all of that. They were paying the bills so it’s not like this was torture. Ah, the pains of growing up.) I’ve also spent quite a bit of time with seniors over the last few weeks and have seen, up close and personal, what goods kids they are and what good representatives of UM, Ross, and the BBA Program they will be as they go out into the world. I’m going to miss having them around. And I’m also dedicating myself to have more frequent contact with more students. I’m in the midst of trying to figure out just how I can do this.

We had our BBA Celebration in Rackham Auditorium yesterday. It’s a beautiful facility and one that I always enjoy visiting for whatever reason. (That’s not to say that I won’t enjoy having the event in the auditorium in our new building in two years.) I had a great talk presenting to the graduating students my summary of their experiences here and my hopes and good wishes for them for the future. Then with the sharing of good food, highlighted by a chocolate fountain, we went on our way. We’ll see each other at graduation one last time.

And before I know it, it will be September and we’ll start the process all over again.

Class size for BBA Program

2007-04-23T13:18:00.000-04:00

Over the last five years or so, the BBA Program has had about 350-360 students graduate per senior class. We had never before had such a large graduating class. Given the high yield rate of students who were admitted to the program and students who ended up enrolling in classes, we usually admitted no more than 360-370 students after their sophomore year.

Now we’re playing a different game. We are admitting students directly from high school and after their freshman year. The yield rate is much lower for the high school students than the freshman students because they have not yet picked a college to attend. The school now has two decisions to make: what percentage of the graduating class should be admitted directly out of high school, and how large should the graduating class be? I’ll take these questions one at a time (though, of course, they are related).

Since Ross had never before admitted high school students, we have been conservative in our first two years related to the size question. We enrolled a class of 70 students in 2006 and hope to enroll around 100 students in 2007. We will continue to monitor the performance of these “preferred admit” students as we strive to determine how to create the best possible class of graduating BBAs.

As stated before, recently we have had graduating classes of around 350 students. We are in a transition period here at Ross because of the construction. We are going to have access to limited classroom space here on the Business School campus until sometime late fall 2008. However, after that, the Ross School is going to have more space than ever at our disposal — not a lot more for classes, but some. The question becomes how are we going to use it (as a school). Do we have a larger Day MBA program or BBA Program? Or do we add specialized degree programs such as the Masters in Supply Chain? Do we add more programs jointly with other schools and, if so, which schools? Do we add more electives, and to which program? These are not easy decisions to make and have not been fully decided yet.

We are looking at all possibilities. We know that there are students who are not in the BBA Program who would like to be in the program and would succeed once enrolled. But, as discussed, the situation is not that straight forward. I will write about this as more decisions are made.

Cohorts or not?

2007-04-16T13:39:00.000-04:00

At the Ross BBA Program we currently cohort our students; that is, we assign students to specific sections across several different classes. Cohorts provide the benefit of giving the student a set of students with which they can bond more strongly than they could without the cohort because of repeated interaction with those students. As such cohorts provide a more socially safe environment for students.

Not all is positive related to cohorts. Students don’t get to know as many students as they might otherwise; in a program as small as the Ross BBA Program, that probably should be addressed. Further, academically cohorts aren’t always positive; students can get too comfortable with each other; students can get slotted into defined roles from which they find it difficult to extricate themselves; and faculty can have a hard time breaking into the culture that the students have defined and created (from previous classroom experiences with each other).

I have been thinking a lot recently about cohorts and related issues:

Should students be grouped into cohorts for their core classes?
How long should those cohorts exist — that is, should they have different cohorts each year?
How rigid should Ross be in enforcing the assignment of cohorts — what type of reason should a student have that would enable him or her to opt out of the cohort assignment?
If students are not assigned to cohorts, how can we ensure that attractive sections (e.g.., those not taught at 8:30am) are at least theoretically available to all students? And, even if we can ensure this, should we ensure this?

Generally, over the last couple of years I have moved Ross to a more flexible policy related to requests to get out of specific cohort assignments. The reasons for opting out that I have looked favorably upon come from students who have an academic plan in place for their remaining time at Michigan (and have had that plan for a while), and a specific course that is needed to fulfill that plan conflicts with a core course assignment. We want to be as supportive as possible of students who want to challenge themselves academically.

Now that we have a three year program with two fairly significant years of core courses (instead of just one as we had before), we have started out assigning students to cohorts one year at a time. That is, a student’s cohort in the sophomore year will be composed of different students than in the junior year. We believe that this will provide students with a “home” in which the student will be comfortable but will also allow him or her to meet more students during the course of his or her time at Ross.

This issue has come up more frequently for two reasons. First, we have more students getting dual majors and minors so their schedules have to be planned better, are more specified, and have less leeway. Second, the classrooms that we use for BBA core courses have less extra space than we used to have in the old building and less space than we will have in the new building. This means that we can’t simply move a student from one section into another because it is entirely possible that there would not be a chair for the student to sit in.

I have not decided one way or the other what to do. I am trying to come up with the best solution for the most students. If you have any thoughts on this from whatever perspective, please let those thoughts be known. I’m sure that I will have more thoughts on this later and, eventually, I will provide more information about what we end up doing.

Representing the BBA Program

2007-04-14T11:03:00.000-04:00

When you’re meeting people, you may not realize it but you represent groups that you’re affiliated with. The other day this point was made to me when I received a very nice email from the Dean’s executive assistant (Audra Asher) that relayed a conversation she had with the Dean. Here’s the background.

The Management & Organizations (M&O for those of us at Ross) core course for juniors had an assignment in which student groups were to investigate an organization from several viewpoints. One particular group wanted to interview the Dean. They sent an invitation to him a couple of weeks early and asked for 30 minutes of his time. They arrived on time, conducted the interview with several students taking turns leading the interview, told him when their 30 minutes was over, wrapped up the interview, and sent a thank you note the next day.

The note that I received from Audra was effusive in her praise for the group and thanked me for helping prep them for the meeting. Well, let me tell you that I had nothing to do with prepping them. They did it all themselves. From my way of looking at things, this was just BBAs being BBAs. I have the utmost confidence in the ability of BBAs to act appropriately in these professional situations.

The Dean doesn’t have much time or many opportunities to meet with small groups of BBAs in the course of his day. When he does, it’s probably because of some issue that has come up and needs to be addressed. This doesn’t leave him much of an opportunity to have a reasoned, thoughtful exchange of ideas with the students. This was one such opportunity and he and Audra came away extremely impressed with this group of students. Better, he also left the interview feeling pretty darned good about BBAs and the BBA Program. The Dean represents all of the students and programs at Ross (BBA, Day MBA, Evening MBA, Global MBA, Executive MBA, MAcc, Exec Ed and, soon, Masters of Supply Chain) to a wide variety of audiences. The more good stories that he can tell (and this is definitely one), the better he can sell the benefits of hiring or working with the BBAs.

The students went into this meeting with the goal of getting some information for a group project for a core course. I’m guessing that they didn’t give a second thought to these ancillary effects when they were in the meeting. Of course, that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. And that’s just the point that I’m making. Any particular student isn’t just one person — he or she represents the BBA Program, Ross, and the University of Michigan (among other groups). If that person does well (or poorly), he or she is affecting his or her own reputation and that of the other groups with which he or she is affiliated.

This happens whether or not the student realizes it. It happens when students are at a hotel participating in the BBA Formal; it happens during job interviews; it happens during a student’s group projects in his or her LS&A classes; it happens when the student is working with a company during a class project. All of these affect the reputation of the BBA Program and Ross. All of our students are our ambassadors. We professors take this role seriously; we staff members try to admit students who will represent us well. We all try to instill in these students the pride that we feel in working at Ross. It does all BBAs good when a single BBA conducts him or herself professionally or takes pride in a job well-done. I continue to take pride in my association with BBAs. It’s an easy thing to do.

Interest in the 3-year program

2007-04-04T15:38:00.001-04:00

This last weekend was the deadline for applying to the 3-year admissions cycle of the BBA Program. Again, we are quite blessed with the interest that students express in the program. Nearly 900 students — historically, these have been very qualified students and I don’t expect this year to be any different — applied for admission into an entering class that is severely limited this year to less than 280 students. The reason for this limit is the size of the classrooms that we are using while we are in temporary quarters. We simply cannot squeeze more than 70 students into the classrooms that we will be using until December 2008 (a conservative estimate for when our new building will be done). After that date we should have a bit of leeway as to how many students we are able to accept into the program; for now, we are going to have to hold tight to that limit.

As in years past, I am very much looking forward to admitting a strong group of smart, hard-working students who are interested in integrating the study of business into their undergraduate studies. Thanks to all who applied to us. It’s the competition among these many strong applicants that makes us great.

Purpose of having freshman and sophomore admissions

2007-03-31T07:34:00.000-04:00

The Ross School has two paths by which students can gain admission to the program. The first is the “preferred admit” program for high school seniors and the second is the standard program for college freshmen.

Our preferred admit program allows us to target those high school students who have both built a very attractive resume out of high school and know that they are interested in getting a business education. After gaining admission to this program, they can become full-fledged Ross students their sophomore year if they maintain a 3.3 GPA during their freshman year while taking several required classes (including microeconomics, freshman writing, and a math class).

The standard admissions program yields us several types of students, all of whom have done well at Ross in the past:

Students who are late bloomers and distinguish themselves more in their college application than they did out of high school,
Students who discovered their interest in business after enrolling at Michigan, and
Students who, though they distinguished themselves in high school and were interested in business, were not chosen during the preferred admissions process. Unfortunately, there are lots of students who I would like to admit into the program out of high school that I simply don’t have slots for in the PA program. This means that they have to re-apply after their freshman year and I can only hope that they do so.

Concerning the relative sizes of the PA and standard admissions programs, I would like to balance them so that the third type is minimized while still allowing a strong and large group of the first and second types. It will probably be several years before we know what the proper balance should be between the two admissions paths. I have a feeling, though I am not sure, that there is an actual difference between the students in the two admissions paths — not in their performance or eventual career success but in their interests. We like the diversity of student interests that we have always had here at Ross, and I don’t want us to mess that up. If having two separate admissions routes helps us maintain our general diversity, then we’re going to have two admissions routes.

We have strength in finance, consulting, accounting, operations, marketing, etc. We have a strong job placement success in the Northeast and Midwest (because that’s where our students are generally interested in working) though we generally are able to provide some help in placing students wherever they want to go. I think this diversity is a strength of ours. I will continue to be a strong proponent of maintaining these two paths so that we can learn more about the strengths of each and maintain the diversity of our student body.

Competition for preferred admit program

2007-03-30T09:52:00.000-04:00

We are extremely blessed here at the Ross School. Through a combination of factors, there is a great competition for the slots in the preferred admit program by which high school seniors can gain tentative admittance to the Ross School. (I say “tentative” because these students have to maintain a 3.3 GPA during their freshman year at Michigan before they become full-fledged students of the Ross School.)

This program was approved as a two-year pilot program by the Ross faculty in which we would hope to enroll about 70 freshmen per year. Last year got off to a great start and we were able to enroll a great group of students. This year has been even better. (The following numbers are tentative but are indicative of how competitive the program is.) UM received about 25,000 applications this year. Of those, about 2300 indicated that they would like to be considered for the preferred admissions program. 2300! I went to the Ross faculty and said that, though 70 sounded like a good number a couple of years ago when the program was approved, I’d like to enroll about 100 students this year. I showed them the evidence of the quality of these students and they were convinced. Thus, this year we should have an entering class of 100 preferred admit students.

We do not know if 100 will be the number of slots for this program into the future. I bet that it’s going to increase in coming years but we’ll just have to see how the applications look. For now, I’m glad that we have been able to provide an avenue for these students to get into Ross right out of high school. I look forward to seeing great results from them (and all Ross students) in coming years.

Work load

2007-03-14T10:46:00.000-04:00

In BusinessWeek’s recent ranking of undergraduate business programs, they reported that Ross School students report that they put in more hours per week studying than students at other schools. I wouldn’t dispute this. Probably surprisingly, while I think that putting in the work is a good thing, I’m not going to hang my hat on this and say that this indicates that we have the best students around. While I do think that we have the best students around, I’m not sure that this indicates this. To me, it simply indicates to me how interested they are in their studies, in getting a good grade, and in making sure that their transcript looks like they want it to going into each recruiting season.

I think this willingness to work hard is a distinguishing characteristic of Ross students. The fact that it’s distinguishing manifests itself in two ways. First, first-year students (from other schools and, especially, other universities) find the transition to the demanded and expected workload at Ross very difficult indeed. Many students have been able to get good grades in other schools without putting in the hours required at Ross; they find this new work load unexpected, at the least, and, more likely, hard to comprehend. “I’ve always been able to get good grades while partying three to four nights a week!” We hear this every year and we have to break the news that it’s no longer possible to live that way consistently and get the grades they are used to getting.

The second way that this willingness to work hard manifests itself is in the success that our students have both in getting good jobs in demanding professions (consulting, financial analysts, et al.) and in making quick transitions to successful performance in those jobs because they are so used to working long, hard hours. BBA’s wildly successful job placement record is a matter of public record so I need not go into that here. Their success in those jobs can be both inferred from the fact that these companies continue to come back to Ross to recruit and supported by personal anecdotes that I have heard from students and recruiters about how well the transition of Ross students goes relative to students from other schools.

Let me close by stating that we’re certainly not all-work-and-no-play. Not like that at all. More like work-hard-and-play-hard. Just don’t come to Ross and think “I’m smart; I’ll do fine.” Well, as far as I can tell, almost everyone here is both smart and hard-working — and if they’re not, they’re really good at fooling a lot of people a lot of the time. It’s a challenging and fun place to be.

BusinessWeek ranks us #5

2007-03-08T21:18:00.000-05:00

The BusinessWeek undergraduate business rankings came out today. We moved up to #5 this year from last year’s #6. It is quite an honor to be ranked as high as this among this group of top notch schools. We are pleased that we have moved up but, as competitive as we are, we would like to receive a higher ranking — but only if it is an accurate reflection of our status. We are continuing to do all that we can to improve the experience of Ross students while they are here and hope that these improvements are reflected in the next rankings.

There are several parts of the survey that are of immediate interest to Ross students:

The best undergrad b-schools: This is the lead article for the survey. It highlights four schools including Ross.
Undergrad Rankings 2007: the rankings themselves. Ross is ranked #5.
Ross profile: there are some errors that I am going to try to get fixed
Business immersion the U of M way: a slide show of the Michigan and Ross campus
Cracking the books: a table listing the (self-reported) number of hours per week that business students say they study. Ross students reported that they work, on average, 21 hours per week, most in the survey. The average for all schools is around 14 hours per week.

Let me know if you have any questions related to this survey.

Winter break

2007-02-26T13:21:00.000-05:00

I don't normally go on the road during winter break — too much to do. But this year is different. I'm taking my oldest daughter to Lakeland, FL to watch Detroit Tigers' spring training for a few days. I'm looking forward to sitting out in the warm sun and chillin' for a bit. I have never been to spring training before so this is a real treat.

A new class on web-based information resources

2007-02-18T20:42:00.000-05:00

I spent much of the end of January and beginning of February designing a new class that I am going to teach in Fall 2007. This course is BIT330, Web-based information resources. All of what I currently know about this course is available on this Web site. On this set of pages I list the assignments, schedule, books and other information about this course. I will continue updating these pages over the next several months, but they are quite close to the form they will have next September.

I think this course would be useful for nearly any undergrad (and, actually, any master student, PhD student, or professor) who is going to use the Web over the next several years to look for information or keep up with current events. Here's the beginning description on the course Web page:

Do you want to learn about how to use Google and Yahoo to a more in-depth level than the average student? Do you want to know where and how to find interesting blogs, images, and podcasts? How about RSS feeds and email alerts? Do you want to know how to use software to monitor Web pages without programming? Finally, do you want to learn how to stay current on developments in all of these areas after you leave UM? (After all, technology is going to continue to change after you leave school.)

Any rising junior or senior at Ross is eligible for this course and would benefit from taking it. Let me know if you have any questions by posting a comment here or, if you would rather not, by emailing me.

The value of an education at Ross

2007-02-16T11:19:00.000-05:00

There has been quite a swirl in the Michigan Daily (the university's daily student paper) about the value of a BBA. First, a student who apparently didn't enjoy his time here at Ross wrote an opinion article and, now, a BBA wrote a response describing his much more positive experience. Speaking as the BBA Faculty Director, I hope that readers take seriously the points made in the second article and discount the first as the rant of a student who is still finding his way.

Speaking as a parent and educator, my position expands somewhat on this. As a student, your education should be a highly personal journey. Each school, department, professor, student, class, and extracurricular activity has something to offer you, and what you can get out of any one experience is different than what someone else can get out of it. For better or for worse. You are unique and bring something different to the table that differs from what someone else might bring — again, for better or for worse. How your strengths, weaknesses, hopes, desires, and attitude match up with each particular situation all goes in to the possible value that you might gain from it.

Further, the actual value that you gain from any one situation (school, department, professor, student, class, or extracurricular) will frequently not be clear to you until many years after you have completed the activity. I know that I did not enjoy the professor of my introductory calculus class as a freshman while I was a freshman but, by my senior year, he had become a valued acquaintance and advisor. I also absolutely never enjoyed my modern algebra class and cannot point to any particular event in my life that would have changed because I took Western Civ. I still cannot point to any specific benefit that I got from either one of these classes. However, looking back I absolutely know that the training (in how to think, analyze, argue, listen, write, and read) I received from my undergraduate education was, if not priceless, valued more highly than anything that I ever will, might, or could own.

Regardless of all of this, a student still has to go to some particular school at some particular university. This is where I feel pretty good about Ross and UM. We have a lot of strength in a lot of different academic areas; we have really hard working, smart students; we have dedicated, smart, interested faculty; we have a lot of resources (money, centers, staff) in many areas. We try to communicate these strengths as clearly as possible to possible applicants to minimize the possibility of having enrolled students who end up not liking or appreciating their time at Ross. While we may not be a perfect fit for everyone, we offer opportunities to many types of people who, if they take advantage of those opportunities, can prepare themselves for success in life (no matter how you want to define "success").

Does this mean we're right for everyone? No. Does this mean that everyone who is admitted should stay because we're so great? No. What it does mean is that many students will, while they are here, have many opportunities to work with many other smart students in many interesting situations. Further, they will not only have the opportunity to have a great, well-rounded undergraduate experience but they will also graduate having had many opportunities to prepare themselves for life after graduation. Other schools and universities probably try to provide the same type of preparation; they are not my concern. It is my concern to do what I can to provide more and better preparation to more Ross/UM students while they are here. We have been and will continue to work on this.

WSJ article on tagging

2007-02-15T09:59:00.000-05:00

In the Weekend Edition of the Wall Street Journal on February 10-11, there was an interesting article "The Wizards of Buzz" by Jamin Warren and John Jurgensen. This article focused on the influence of people who tag heavily and well at sites such as digg, reddit, Newsvine, and, my favorite, del.icio.us. Anyone who takes the BIT introductory class at Ross knows that I think that del.icio.us is a great way to keep your bookmarks, organize your bookmarks, and locate and discover new information. This article highlights the influence that prolific taggers can have on other companies and people.

I was interviewed for this article and thought I was going to be mentioned in it, but it was not to be. Oh well. At least they wrote the article and helped make the point I make in the class that these sites (or sites like them) will be important parts of our Internet future.

Dual majors and minors

2007-02-14T10:48:00.000-05:00

One of the reasons that I pushed for the creation of the 3-year BBA Program was that I thought it would increase the chances for students who want to get a dual major with business or to get a minor along with their business major. Well, we are not even one year into the change to the new program but I can give some preliminary results on this point.

We have increased the number of students who are pursuing a dual/minor from about 3% two years ago to about 10% today. And this number should continue to increase since the sophomores are not anywhere near the deadline for filing (which really is sometime in their junior year). I think this change is fantastic for Ross and for BBAs.

First, though, you may wonder why this increase has occurred. The reasons I can come up with are institutional support, time, and student support.

Institutional support: Rob has worked with Academic Services to make sure that the schools or departments in question can come together to figure out all of the details related to course sequencing and requirements and put them together in a way that students will be able to fulfill.
Time: None of this would matter if students were not BBAs during their sophomore year. This gets them better access to the advisors and gives them three years in which to complete their academic plans for the dual/minors. The student's schedule is less full with business classes because they are stretched out over 3 years instead of 2; this allows them to take longer sequences of courses from other departments (as well as from Ross).
Student support: Our BBA Program Student advisors (Rob, Katie, and Michael) can help students think about the possibilities for making the most of their time at UM and are available to help students put together their academic plan in order to make the dual/minor a reality.

Okay, so it's easier for students and they are taking advantage of the opportunity. I happen to think this is a great thing for students, UM, and Ross.

Students: I think it's a great thing for students because I believe a broad-based, liberal arts education is in the student's best interest. I believe it will lead them to live more interesting, productive, and fulfilling lives. I also think it will make them better employees and better citizens.
UM: UM's strength as an institution is its strength across a wide variety of disciplines and the accompanying strength of the affiliated faculty and students. Attracting more students who have an interest in a broad range of disciplines will only strengthen UM's already diverse character.
Ross: Ross's strength is in general management and its overall strength in many disciplines (as opposed to being known specifically for a strength in finance or marketing). Ross does not really allow students to take 75% of their undergraduate education in business; it's more like 50%. We do not want our students to focus too narrowly on business; we want them to develop their other interests.

The Ross BBA Program wants to attract students who have a broad range of interests. Students should not come to Ross if they want to student finance or marketing (or whatever) to the exclusion of other disciplines. They should come here because they have an interest in business, want to develop it, but know that there's more to life than options or product line extensions.

Welcome back, Scott

2007-02-14T10:45:00.000-05:00

I've been away for a while. I was teaching last semester and it all got to be too much. I was teaching 210 students, grading 350 students, reading and scanning the blogs of 120 groups of students, and scanning the del.icio.us tags of the same 120 groups. Just got to be too much. Didn't see the family barely at all; didn't provide as much direction to the other folks in my department. I'm just now getting a bit out from under it all.

As part of that effort, I'll start posting a few entries here as well.

A couple interesting BusinessWeek articles

2006-10-03T15:01:00.000-04:00

For those of you who might have questions about the newly-structured BBA Program, there are a couple of interesting and useful articles in BusinessWeek:

“Big Changes for Michigan BBAs”, September 27, 2006: An interview with Michele Thompson, head of Ross Undergraduate Admissions.
“A "Luxurious Position" at Michigan”, April 17, 2006: An interview with Al Cotrone, director of the Office of Career Development at Ross.

Taken together, these articles provide a lot of clarifying detail about getting into the program, about the program itself, and about getting a job after graduating.

While I don’t have anything to add to the articles themselves, I am going to take the opportunity and reply to a couple of the more uninformed comments at the end of the Thompson interview:

We have lots of reasons for having a direct admit program, and copying Indiana’s program (or anyone else’s) was certainly not on the list. We added this because we wanted to provide attractive, high-performing high school students with another option. UM’s Office of Undergraduate Admissions had told us for many years that this would be an attractive option for high school students. They have the option of going to MIT and Wharton directly out of high school. We wanted to give the cream of the high school crop the opportunity to apply directly to Ross — given the quality of the applications that we received and the quality of the students who matriculated here this fall, I am happy to report that we have exceeded our expectations (in no small part due to the efforts of Ms. Thompson). Further, we are not going to be going to 100% direct admissions because we know that many students do not decide to go into business until after they get to college.
As for the size of our courses: Core courses have 70 students, while electives usually have between 25 and 50 (usually around 40). I’m an associate professor and head of the BBA Program, and I have office hours twice a week for the students in my sections of the core.
Related to the BBA and MBA: If you get a Ross BBA, then you may or may not need an MBA. It all depends on your desired employer. Some companies require that their employees get an MBA as a prerequisite to moving up in management. Others don’t care about it at all. For others, getting certified as a financial analyst or a CPA is what is really needed in order to advance. It just depends. A typical Ross BBA shouldn’t worry about this type of thing until several years out of school; he or she is very well prepared to succeed in his or her job immediately after graduating. The BBA is neither simply a preparatory degree for receiving an MBA nor a deterrent to getting admitted into an MBA program. It is simply an undergraduate degree that is also very good at preparing a student to succeed in business. Further, it is an excellent preparation for law school or graduate studies in public policy. We have an excellent track record at placing students in the best programs in the country in these fields of study.

So, that’s it for now. If you are interested, or if you have a friend or family member who is interested in the Ross BBA Program, pass along these links.

Taking charge of your classwork

2006-10-03T10:45:00.000-04:00

I’m teaching juniors this year in my BBA introductory course, BIT200. We have had a busy semester already, with a couple of assignments already turned in and several other assignments in progress. I have thrown a lot at them with varying degrees of success.

The primary difference that I have noticed that distinguish the better students from the pack is that he or she takes charge of his or her classwork. She knows what to do on an assignment and, if she doesn’t, she uses her resources (friends, online) to try to determine the answer but if she can’t find the answer, she asks. She understands what’s going on in class and, if she doesn’t, she uses her resources (friends, online) to try to determine the answer but if she can’t, she asks. She doesn’t wait until the last minute to do her homework so that, if she has a question, — guess what? — she can ask.

This is not to say that this person becomes a pest and asks a question every time doubt creeps into her mind, but it is to say that she doesn’t let uncertainty dominate her thoughts. She takes charge so that she knows what to do, she’s on top of her schedule, and she doesn’t rush to finish her assignments just before they’re due.

We can’t always reach this ideal. But this is what distinguishes the strongest students and is a sign of their maturity. It’s not a sign that they are overly compulsive about their work — it’s a sign that they understand how to give themselves the best chance of succeeding.

Important attributes recruiters look for

2006-09-21T08:03:00.000-04:00

In a Wall Street Journal article from September 20, 2006 entitled “M.B.A. Survey: Something Old, Something New” discussing the WSJ ranking of schools granting an MBA, Ronald Alsop reported the percentage of recruiters who ranked an attribute as “very important” to them:

89.0	Communication and interpersonal skills
86.9	Ability to work well within a team
86.2	Personal ethics and integrity
84.3	Analytical and problem-solving skills
82.9	Work ethic
74.5	Fit with the corporate culture
74.0	Success with past hires
72.5	Leadership potential
67.1	Strategic thinking
64.9	Likelihood of recruiting “stars”
53.9	Willingness of students to relocate to the required job location
50.7	Well-rounded
43.2	Student “chemistry”
38.0	Content of the core curriculum
35.7	Students’ years of work experience
31.7	Overall value for the money invested in the recruiting effort
29.0	Incorporates experiential learning into the curriculum
27.1	Career-services office
25.9	Faculty expertise
21.0	Students’ international knowledge and experience
16.7	Commitment to corporate social responsibility

As someone closely affiliated with the Ross BBA Program, I found the above very interesting. While these are recruiters’ opinions related to hiring MBAs, these also apply quite nicely to BBAs, and should tell BBAs a lot about what they should focus on both inside and outside of the classroom. Let’s look at those attributes that at least 70% of recruiters thought was very important:

Communication and interpersonal skills: Your writing and speaking skills, and your experience working with a team getting things done. And working on a team not necessarily just as a leader, but also as a good team player.
Ability to work well within a team: This is amazingly important to companies. Most of your work, actually all of your work, involves working on teams. The more experience you can gain working in teams, the better you’ll be.
Personal ethics and integrity: It is a better situation by far to not have any ethical problems appear in your work or school record. Do not take the easy way out. At the end of the day, your integrity is all that you have. Don’t do anything to devalue it.
Analytical and problem-solving skills: This is one area in which our curriculum really gives the students a workout. We do this over and over again, in many different forms. Our BBA graduates should be top-notch by the time they graduate.
Work ethic: The more that you can show that you are diligent, organized, and committed to getting the job done, the more employers will be interested in you.
Fit with the corporate culture
: This is what fly-backs are all about. This is also what internships are all about. Every day is an interview. They want to see what kind of person you are, and if you are a good “fit”. They’re not worried about whether you’re smart enough, they want to know if they want to have you around the office for a few years.
Success with past hires
: Everything past hires (and past interviewees) have done influence what recruiters think about Ross. That is why you should be on your best behavior when you are interacting with recruiters. You’re not just influencing how the company feels about you — you’re influencing how the recruiter feels about Ross.
Leadership potential
: Many times this comes shining through (or doesn’t!) in your extracurriculars.

What does this tell us? BBAs should work at their teamwork skills, their communication skills, and their analytical skills. They should work on doing “good works”. And they should look for experiences outside the classroom in which they can exercise and develop their leadership ability. This sounds like a good plan, and one which BBAs would be good to think about.

The top business schools: Recruiters' MBA picks

2006-09-20T14:52:00.000-04:00

The Wall Street Journal just came out with its annual ranking of business schools. This ranking is based on evaluations by over 4000 recruiters (completed in early 2006). Ross again did well, ranking #1 for the second time in the last three years. While this is a ranking of MBA programs, it is the ranking that is most closely related to the BBA program. As such I see it as something that I am proud of and think reflects well on the BBA Program. I covered this topic the last time the WSJ ranked us #1, and I’ll repeat my comments here:

...We sell recruiters on the “one-stop-shopping” nature of the University. If they want MBAs, we got ’em; if they want BBAs, we got ’em; if they want engineering students, we got ’em; ditto for LS&A, computing, English, etc. Having a BBA program makes the University more attractive to recruiters than it would be otherwise. And it’s not like the BBA program is the weak sibling of the bunch: it's always ranked in the top 3 or so of any list that I’ve ever seen.

Furthermore, if recruiters come here for MBAs and like, they are (more than likely) also here recruiting BBAs and enjoying the services of our top-notch Career Development office. Speaking of which, the high-quality service of OCD is shared by BBAs and MBAs alike. All of the corporate relationships and alumni and data that are available for MBAs are naturally available to BBAs. This means that you are the beneficiary of services that wouldn’t be there were it not for the fact that we have to support such a large number of students (BBA, Day MBA, evening MBA, MAcc).

Thus, while this ranking isn’t for the BBA Program, students in that program benefit from it.

I gotta tell you, it’s really nice to be able to re-run (with reasonable frequency) text that I use to celebrate one #1 ranking in another column celebrating another #1 ranking. It’s an abundance of riches that we have around here.

Why money doesn’t bring happiness

2006-09-20T07:05:00.000-04:00

There was a recent press release by the UM News Service entitled “Why money doesn’t buy happiness”. This summarizes a study published in a recent issue of Science. Here’s a few comments from the author:

Citing evidence from a nationwide survey of a representative sample of people they conducted recently, they noted that people with greater income tend to devote relatively more time to work, compulsory non-work activities (such as shopping and childcare) and active leisure (such as exercise) and less time to passive leisure (such as watching TV and just relaxing).

“When someone reflects on how more income would change subjective well-being, they are probably tempted to think about spending more time in leisurely pursuits such as watching a large-screen plasma TV or playing golf,” the authors wrote. “But in reality, people should think of spending a lot more time working and commuting and a lot less time engaged in passive leisure and other enjoyable activities.”

BBAs should think about this when thinking about a career. Certainly it’s the case that, all other things being equal, it’s better to have more money than less. The point of the article seems to be that it’s rarely the case that all other things are equal. It’s up to each individual to determine what trade-offs between earning money and other activities are appropriate.

Speaking up in class

2006-09-19T09:55:00.000-04:00

I’m in the enviable position this year of being BBA Program Director while also teaching a BBA class. This allows me to hear more about what’s going on than in previous years. And that’s a very good thing.

A consistent theme that I am hearing from students is that they are having communication issues (not speaking loudly enough, speaking too quickly, or whatever) with their professor in a class. Professors aren’t perfect (did you know that we know that?) so this is to be expected sometimes. Because I use a fast feedback form in every class, it is easy for students to tell me about problems they are having. And because I’m Program Director, they also tell me about issues they are having in classes other than mine. If I hear a common theme in these comments, then I take them to the appropriate party.

This process adds unnecessary and confusing steps to the process. It should be the students who go to the professor directly either during (the best option) or immediately after (second best option) class. Professors generally would like to think that they are teaching you something during class. If they aren’t, and it can easily be fixed, then they almost certainly would appreciate hearing about it so that they can fix it quickly. If students address this in a calm and constructive manner, then this would work out better for all concerned. The best thing about it is that addressing it the first time makes it easy to begin a semester-long dialog about this with the professor so that he or she can find out if the situation is improving. If, for some reason, the faculty member does not respond well to such comments, then you should consider taking your comments to the chair of the department to get another viewpoint on your concerns.

I encourage all BBAs to take responsibility for their education. If you can help improve the educational process for yourself or your classmates, then you should take the steps necessary to bring about this change. It’s another way that you can leave Ross in better condition than you found it.

‘Any college will do’

2006-09-18T09:50:00.000-04:00

An article in today’s Wall Street Journal by Carol Humowitz titled ‘Any college will do’ makes the following point:

Getting to the corner office has more to do with leadership talent and a drive for success than it does with having an undergraduatea degree from a prestigious university...Most CEOs of the biggest corporations didn’t attend Ivy League or other highly selective colleges. They went to state universities, big and small, or to less-known private colleges.

I consider this the best possible news for us, because I consider Ross to be a state university that is also in the position of also being able to be selective. This way you get the benefits of a larger school (resources, range of options, diversity in every possible dimension) combined with the high quality student body that selectivity brings.

The article goes on to say:

What counts most, CEOs say, is a person’s capacity to seize opportunities. As students, they recall immersing themselves in their interests, becoming campus leaders and forging strong relationships with teachers. And at state and lesser-known schools, where many were the first in their families to attend college, they sought challenges and mixed with students from diverse backgrounds — an experience that helped them later in their corporate climbs.

This sounds like it comes directly out of the playbook of our BBA advisors. What we want you to do is to do well in class, but also be sure that you have a well-rounded extracurricular experience that allows you to lead teams, manage projects, and get things done. It’s all in a day’s work for Ross BBAs.

Giving of yourself

2006-09-16T15:20:00.000-04:00

I was just watching a show on The Food Network (while I’m waiting to watch the UM/ND football game) that had a great lesson for BBAs. It told the story of a working mom who quit her job and wanted to become a chef. She did not have any background in cooking (other than cooking for family and friends) — just like BBAs have little background in business when looking for their first jobs (other than the education they receive here and any experience they might have from internships). After a bunch of looking, she found a cooking school where she donated her time to help out the chefs in the kitchen. She wasn’t looking for anything other than a way to learn about the business. She quickly attracted a mentor. Her mentor was excited to work with her because she came with the attitude that she was looking for ways in which she could help, doing whatever was necessary, instead of looking for ways in which she could shine.

She donated her time and learned from professionals for four years. When a position opened at the restaurant next door (owned by the owner of the cooking school), they offered her the job. Why? Because they had observed her for four years. They knew her work. They knew her working ethic and her attitude. It was a natural fit.

BBAs should think about this approach. Go into a job with a humble attitude. Look for ways that you can help. Know that you are competent and able to contribute but that you are a beginner. Realize how much that you have to learn from people who have been doing their jobs for years. Think about and work on giving of yourself, and you might be surprised by the gifts you receive.

Facilities for BBA classes

2006-09-14T08:28:00.000-04:00

I’ve been quite busy in my role as BBA Program Director this week. Many of the issues have had to do with classrooms — specifically, the classrooms that we are using in Mason and Dennison Hall during the construction of our new building. This post is simply to let students and faculty know that we are aware of many of the problems (projectors, temperature control, acoustics) and that we are working on them. I’m fairly confident that you will be hearing about or noticing changes in the near future.

We won’t always be able to address concerns in a way that will satisfy everybody (or anybody!), but we certainly are not able to fix a situation that we don’t know anything about. The most important thing about this whole process is that students and faculty are using the BBA Program Office as a resource to improve the educational process for the BBAs. Which is exactly the point of this office. So I’m a really happy camper right now.

Let’s keep our fingers crossed that changes will be implemented soon. I’ll keep you posted.

Survey of new BBA Juniors

2006-09-14T08:20:00.000-04:00

I recently completed a survey of the 362 new BBA Juniors in my BIT200 class. Its purpose was to help me understand them better, and to understand their technical interests and capabilities better. I learned a lot about them, and I think they learned a bit about me in the process. I’ll share some of the results with you now.

Concentration (or major)

I asked each student to list the one or two areas that he or she is most likely to get a concentration in. The three most popular areas were finance at 43.5%, accounting at 20.1%, and marketing at 10.4%. Of course, these can change by the time they graduate, but it still shows where their thoughts are at when they enter the program.

Computers

These students have access to computers at their residence while they are here, that’s for sure. 99.7% have access to a computer at their residence with 85.7% overall being laptops. 97% of the students have access to a personal (versus shared) computer, and 92% have high speed Internet at their residence. 87.6% of the students have Windows on their primary computer, and 11.8% have Mac OS X.

Cell phones

This one was the first sign (to me) of the wide generation gap between me and them. (What was my first hint?) 99.2% of the students have a cell phone, and 83.2% of the students use their cell phone to send text messages. Wow! The next text message that I send using my cell phone will be my first. I’m just not there.

Social networking software

I found this to be an interesting category. I thought that flickr would be higher, and I had no idea that Facebook was that popular. Concerning Facebook, I would guess that half of my class had at least 100 “friends” and 3-4 students per section had at least 400.

Software	Currently use
Flickr	0.8%
Delicious	12.4%
Myspace	12.7%
Facebook	90.4%

Collaborative software

This set of questions turned up a surprise or two. About a fifth of the students have written a blog and the same percentage currently read a blog. I was surprised about both of these values being as large as they are. What I should have asked is whether they wrote the blog because they wanted to or because they had to. Very few students have contributed to a wiki; I’m not too surprised about this because I haven’t heard about too many academic situations in which wikis are used. Another surprise is that 70% have used wikipedia; I would have thought that more would have used it.

Software	Currently use
Have written a blog	21.8%
Currently read a blog	18.2%
Have contributed to a wiki	3.3%
Have used wikipedia	69.7%

Computer skills

All of the values in this section surprised me. Along with just about every other person, I am susceptible to thinking that everyone else must think and be a lot like me. Well, the data here certainly confirms that this is most definitely not the case. Only 9.1% of students are comfortable writing in HTML (I write raw HTML almost every day --- when I’m not using LaTeX), only a fifth of the students have taken a programming class in high school or college (my favorite languages to program in are python, lisp, and prolog but I can program in many others), and only 4.1% are comfortable using an ftp program (I use one just about every day, and have used one for at least 15 years). If I need any more evidence that the world isn’t a bunch of Scotts running around, then I’m not paying attention.

Skill	Comfortable	Once or twice	Never used
HTML	9.1%	30.0%	57%
ftp	4.1%	10.7%	79.6%
Programming course	20.1%

Excel skills

When interpreting this data, realize that this is self-reported. About 3/5 of students report that they are comfortable using Excel with another 37.5% reporting that they have used Excel a few times. Almost 90% of students report that they have created graphs or charts in Excel at least a couple times. However, about 4/5 of students have never used PivotTables. By the end of this class, students will all report in the left-most column.

Skill	Comfortable	Once or twice	Never used
General usage	60.1%	37.5%	2.2%
Graphs	42.4%	45.5%	11.6%
PivotTable	5.5%	13.5%	79.9%

Access skills

Finally, the following table can be summarized by saying that almost all students know very little about databases. Again, by the end of this semester, all students will report back in the left-most column.

Skill	Comfortable	Once or twice	Never used
General usage	3.0%	22.3%	73.3%
Forms	2.8%	8.5%	87.3%
Foreign keys	1.4%	3.0%	93.7%

Don’t do your best

2006-09-12T07:57:00.000-04:00

Nicholas J. Cotsonika wrote an article in the September 8 Detroit Free Press about the Head Coach Rod Marinelli and the Detroit Lions titled “Your best isn’t enough”. While this was about one of the beliefs of a pro football head coach, I believe it also applies quite directly to BBAs, especially incoming BBAs. Here’s what he had to say:

It’s not about doing your best; it's about doing what is required.

It’s not about doing your best? I have always been taught to do my best, and I have always tried to do my best. I have always assumed I would teach my children to do their best. Why wouldn’t I?

Because when you set out to do your best, you have good intentions, but you limit yourself to whatever you feel — deep down — your best is. ...

How do you know what you’re capable of?

If you set out to do what is required to win, your only limit is being the best. You might achieve things you would not have otherwise.

“A little extra effort, a little extra energy, a little extra study, it may be bigger,” Marinelli said. “It may be more.” ...

Some players have made peace with doing their jobs amid the losing. Others don’t understand the level of work expected of them — like Charles Rogers before he was cut, like Mike Williams.

Rank work on a scale of one to 10. Maybe you’re so talented that you’ve always gotten by working at a two. Then a coach pushes you, and you work at a four. You say, “Hey, I’m working twice as hard as I ever have before! I’m doing my best!” But you’re still not working hard enough. You’re still not doing what is required.

This is what life is going to be like for you at Ross. Our professors, and other students, will push you to perform and work at a level you may never have had to reach before. Before you push back or withdraw emotionally or reduce your commitment to the program because you feel that you’re being asked to do things or perform at a level that you are not capable of, ask yourself if you are giving your full effort. You shouldn’t be focusing on the fact that you think you’re doing your best and still coming up short, You should focus on figuring out what you can do, how you can change, to ensure that you will be able to do what is required of you.

You don’t know what you’re capable of until you give yourself an honest chance to complete a task with full commitment, attention, energy, and attitude. It’s my guess that, given this honest effort, everyone at Ross is fully capable of succeeding at a high level. It’s up to each student (with the help of the vast support staff and advisors here at Ross) to determine how to draw out the level of work that is expected of them.

Back in the saddle again

2006-09-11T22:09:00.000-04:00

For a variety of reasons I haven’t taught in the BBA Program since Fall 2002. Well, this semester I get to teach BIT200, “Personal Productivity with Information Technology”, a 1.5 credit hour course for BBA Juniors. (This coming winter semester we will begin teaching this class to BBA Sophomores.) I am tremendously excited about getting back into the classroom with BBAs again. In my opinion, they are our smartest and hardest-working students. Why wouldn’t I want to teach them?

In any case, I’m simply working like mad getting ready for class. I was up until 5am last night preparing. And I’ve been working just as hard all day today. I can’s wait until the first day of class.

“Co-creation” and the BBA Program

2006-09-11T21:35:00.000-04:00

One of the four core values of the Ross School is “Co-Creation”. You might ask, “What in the heck is that?” I’m glad you asked! According to the School’s strategic positioning statement, this is defined as the following:

Our commitment to innovation in business education together with our relationship to the University of Michigan supports our philosophy of co-creating robust and diverse individual experiences for faculty and students across all programs — from BBA to Executive Education. Co-creation means that each person participates actively in the educational process; that the process is not a one-way delivery system from professor to student.

This core value also recognizes that we have forged and will strengthen cross-disciplinary programs, research partnerships and intellectual affiliations. For example, faculty grapple with the complex, often multidisciplinary problems that challenge our society and students can customize their education with a variety of opportunities.

After reading that you still might ask, “What in the heck is that?” For a long time, you could have put me in that camp, too. But now I’m getting a much better understanding of what it means. And it turns out that it’s really important for understanding all that Ross has to offer to BBAs. Let me take a shot at translating what this means to our undergraduate population.

Co-creation is all about creating a program of study that fits you as an individual rather than simply taking some pre-defined course of study. It’s about taking diverse pieces from around Ross and around this great University and constructing an educational experience that fits you. It’s about working with an advisor, working with representatives of the school, creating with them (get it?! — co-creating!) a set of courses and extra-curriculars that support your goals.

This is a big deal for Ross and the BBA Program and is one of our core values because we have such a set of absolutely fantastic programs surrounding the academic classes. There’s the Dare to Dream competition for those with an entrepreneurial bent. There’s the Washington Campus program for those who are interested in pursuing a life in, or simply understanding a life in, public policy. There’s the Erb Institute for students who emphasize the importance of sustainable enterprises. Study abroad programs in Germany and China for those who think that international business is what deserves emphasis. Double majors in business and music or economics or engineering or ... whatever. It almost doesn’t matter what a student wants to do. If he or she takes the time to define the interest, the Ross School has programs in place that the student can take advantage of.

This is a strength in diversity and a strength in context that is not easily duplicated elsewhere. I have always matained that the strength of Ross is that it is located within the University of Michigan. And this is one way in which the BBA Program fits the strategy of co-creation better than the MBA Program: BBAs have a diverse set of resources throughout the University in which to co-create their educational experience. If another undergraduate business program were to want to compete with Ross in this dimension, it would almost certainly come up short unless it was part of one of the world’s great universities as Ross is. Further, since business schools (any school, for that matter) have little influence over the rest of the university in which they are located, they have little ability to change their competitive position in this dimension.

This same philosophy manifests itself in the Ross BBA curriculum. Yes, students have a core curriculum that they all must complete; however, this is not a large number of hours, leaving a good chunk of the students course work for electives in Ross, electives in LS&A, minors, and double majors. In this case, the co-creation is primarily between the student and his or her advisor who brings a deep knowledge of possible courses inside and outside of Ross.

In conclusion, though co-creation sounds like a theoretical concept, it can actually be seen and felt in many different parts of a student’s experience while they are here at Michigan.

Discussion of BBA Program at a faculty meeting

2006-09-10T20:59:00.000-04:00

For any of you who were around Wyly 2740 at 12noon Friday, you would have had the distinct pleasure of seeing about 75 of our faculty members gathered for a Ross Faculty Meeting. It was our first one of the year, and we certainly had good attendance for it. It’s generally pretty hard to get that many of our faculty members to come to our meeting. And it was good to see so many familiar faces after the summer.

In any case, the exciting thing about this meeting (from my perspective, anyway) is the amount of time that Dean Dolan and Associate Dean Anderson spent talking about BBAs. You have to realize that this faculty meeting time is very valuable time. There are only eight faculty meetings during the year, so to spend it on the BBA Program is exciting. What they talked about, and what faculty members asked a lot of questions about, was the quality of the incoming classes. Rightly, they are pleased to hear about the high quality of these students and our plans for doing all that we can to ensure that it does nothing but increase.

At next month’s meeting I will address the faculty about the funds that the Jones Center has at its disposal for funding the creation of senior capstone electives and leadership development for BBAs. It’s another opportunity for drawing senior faculty members to the BBA Program. Once I get them interested, I have generally found that the quality of the students keeps them coming back.

Meeting with Tom Jones

2006-09-08T20:26:00.000-04:00

Today I had the privilege of meeting again with Tom Jones, the first BBA Program Office Director and the man who gave $10 million to the Ross School which now fund the Jones Center for BBA Education. I had the distinct pleasure of working with him a couple of years ago when he was the outgoing director and I was learning the position from him. I only get to see him intermittently now since he is working up north so I look forward to seeing him around the office.

This was such a great meeting because of all the great things that have happened with the BBA Program over the last year. Let’s review for a minute:

Admissions: we admitted three separate great classes of students
Curriculum: we are about half way through the process of implementing the new 3-year curriculum ordering
Outreach programs: we have implemented significant outreach programs for high performing high schools in the Detroit area
Mastery Project: we started up this program for at-risk students that was quite successful at preparing students for Ross who probably would not have been able to make it without this support
Orientation: we just had a fairly successful orientation that informed over 700 students of many of the exciting programs that we have around Ross
Workshops for BBAs: in the last year we put on workshops about law school, getting an MBA, getting a PhD, personal finances, business etiquette, speed reading, stress management, business presentations, living in NYC, living in Chicago, and venture capital & private equity.
Student advising: we have three student advisors who have done a great job of reaching out to and connecting with students
Washington Campus: this new program for BBAs educated students for a week in Washington, DC.
Study abroad: we have planned two programs for up to 70 total students in Germany and Beijing

Given the above list of accomplishments by my staff, wouldn’t you think that it would be a good meeting?

Welcoming new students

2006-09-02T07:35:00.000-04:00

Wow! What an exciting and exhausting two days that was! Over the last two days I hosted the last class of incoming junior BBAs at a full day of orientation, hosted a dinner for the first class of incoming freshmen preferred admit business students, participated in the new student convocation for the University, and then hosted the first class of incoming sophomore BBAs at a full day of orientation.

My overriding reaction to meeting all of these students is that they are a quality group of kids, and that we should expect a lot out of them in the years to come. These are smart, well-spoken young adults who professors will enjoy having in class, and I think they're going to have a great experience while enrolled at Ross.

We had a productive and informative orientation for the students at the Michigan Theater. They got to hear from Dean Dolan and me to start things off. The rest of the morning was spent on what I termed the “necessities”: ensuring that you graduate (Evonne Plantinga), ensuring that you take classes that you’re interested in (Rob Koonce), and ensuring that you get a job (either Al Cotrone or Lisa Hurst). In the afternoon, we got to spend some time on more interesting topics. First John Kim (BBA ’83), president of Prudential Retirement, spoke for 45 minutes on his reflections concerning work, life, and balancing the two, and then took questions from the students. It was valuable time for the students. After his address, the students heard several short pitches related to interesting opportunities that they will have during their time at Ross. I will discuss more about this topic later but, suffice it to say, many students found something or the other that got them even more excited about their upcoming time at the school. Finally, we closed with a reception and the ever-popular chocolate fountains.

While the day was long, I believe that the students received a useful introduction to their next few years at Ross. At the same time, I got quite excited about the overriding quality of these students, and even more than before I look forward to working with them.

An exciting time of the year

2006-08-24T09:30:00.000-04:00

Students are arriving back in town. The band is practicing. (I love hearing the band play off in the distance or driving by Elbel Field and watching them work on the tiniest details so that they can provide part of the Michigan experience on game days.) Faculty, including me, are gearing up for class. There's a buzz in the air throughout Ann Arbor as students start to arrive on campus.

We've also been busy in the BBA Program Office over the summer. Incredibly busy, as a matter of fact. We admitted three entering classes this last year, two of them over the summer. We read applications from November through July. I’ll have more detail later on this, but we were incredibly successful in our goal of admitting high quality, well rounded, analytically prepared students who have an interest in business.

Other summer activities that I will be discussing in future posts:

The Washington Campus program in our nation's capital
The new study abroad partnerships that we have developed
Our advising program (including our new advisor who came to us from LS&A)
Our outreach program so that we can communicate with students in ways that are predictable and easy for students
Our new admissions director and clarified admissions process
Our high school outreach efforts
The Mastery Project, a joint effort by the Ross School, the math department, and the economics department directed towards preparing at-risk students to succeed in analytical classes and in their careers
The Ann Arbor version of “The Big Dig” and how it will affect BBA classes

And then there’s my on-going work on revamping BIT200 “Personal Productivity with Information Technology”. It's been something like 5 years since I have taught in the BBA Program (that’s horrible!) and I am very much looking forward to doing this again. I would bet that I will have plenty more to say on that topic as the semester progresses.

A difficult time of the year

2006-04-05T11:11:00.000-04:00

Late last week a student dropped by the BBA Program Office and she was not doing too well. Crying, upset. Too much work; not enough play; too much time at Ross; too many assignments; too much groupwork — you get the idea. Since Rob was at a conference and Katie was in a meeting, I talked with her for a while and was reminded that this is a very difficult time of the year, especially for juniors. I had some advice for her that I thought I might pass along.

You're not in this alone. Every other BBA graduate since I've been here has gone through this exact same situation. Others survived this process; you will, too.
Don't compare yourself with other students. The Ross student population leans toward the anal retentive/obsessive compulsive end of the scale. These students have done well in school by 1) being smart, and 2) working harder than other students. Well, put 350 of these students together, and the results are fairly predictable. But, the question remains, how to deal with it? You shouldn't compare your work habits with other students. You can't work harder than all of them, and you shouldn't try. You should know that you are not the hardest working student in all of your classes. You should work toward getting good grades, but you shouldn't expect to get them. You should realize that you will have to work hard but that there is some point after which working will no longer be productive and may actually be counter-productive. Each person is different and you must determine when that point comes for you.
This is not the time of year for a BBA to think about partying, having fun, or working out for hours on end. It's not going to happen — or, at least, it shouldn't if you want to make it through unscathed. There's a time to work and a time to play. This is the time to work. Look forward to taking some time off in May. However, if you came to Ross thinking that you would be able to continue a life of leisure approach to your college studies the whole year round, then it turns out you're sadly mistaken. It's not like we work like dogs all year 'round &mdashp; we certainly don't. But there definitely are times when you need to work for extended hours on multiple assignments. No doubts about that.
Have a plan. If you don't have a daily planner, get one and use it. There's no way that you can keep all that's going on in your head. Determine what you need to do when and write it down in your calendar.
Work the plan, day by day. The next thing to do is to work the plan — but focus on the day's activities, not the whole plan. If you look at all that needs to be done, you'll quickly become overwhelmed. If you need to, make another sheet of paper that contains just the day's schedule and to-do list, and keep this separate from the rest of your calendar so that you don't spend all of your time obsessing about the mass of upcoming tasks.
Know that there is an end to the push. This level of stress and activity will not go on forever. Junior year at Ross is a highly stressful time, and it culminates with a very hectic April. But April ends and so do the demands of the school year. Next year will be better for many reasons, especially in that you will have a year's experience under your belt of how to deal with the ebb and flow of the school year.

Finally, and a point not of much comfort to this particular student, this is one of the primary reasons why Ross is moving to a 3-year program. While we want to maintain a competitive environment with the best possible students, we also think that at some point too much is really too much. The 3-year program spreads out the current junior year requirements over the sophomore and junior years while, at the same time, also putting them in an order that makes a lot more sense. I'm sure that we'll need to tweak things over the next couple of years, but I do expect that the number of students who drop into my office on the verge of tears should go down significantly.

BBA core course requirements

2006-03-23T14:22:00.000-05:00

This post was inspired by a comment posted by student in response to my posting "Grades, college, & life":

i agree entirely with what you say, but how representational is that attitude with the current BBA program? We are required to take 13 courses in the business school, and truly only allowed to elect around 5 or 6 of our own. if we are being required to study material that we are not interested in because of these CORE requirements...doesn't grades become the only motivation?

What an amazingly interesting and useful comment! I happen to completely disagree with it but it's something that I can respond to and recognize as coming from a BBA.

Here's an (extended) excerpt from an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education titled "Has Harvard lost its way?" (by Harry R. Lewis, March 24, 2006). Professor Lewis is a professor at Harvard and previously served as dean of Harvard College. In this piece he is speaking of Harvard but he could just as easily (for my purposes) be speaking of Michigan:

[Harvard] headed toward the conclusion that its students are free agents and for the most part should study what they wish. ... Undergraduate education defined [as Harvard currently defines it] allows professors to do as they wish as well. In an effort to persuade me that I should back the newly proposed, requirement-light curriculum, one professor offered that it meant we faculty members would no longer have to teach students who did not want to take our courses. But the courses from which students learn the most are often the ones they would be disinclined to take without being pressed to do so. The general-education courses I took on Western philosophy stretched and rewarded me, and the core course I teach on information technology and society plays that role for my students. If professors can define their job as teaching what they wish to those who wish to be taught it, Harvard will not carry the centuries-old ideal of a liberal education forward into the next generation. It will instead indulge students' inclinations to learn more of what they know already, while avoiding unpleasant but enlightening disagreements among professors about the relative importance of different studies. Liberal education will be reduced to an easy compromise among academics rather than a long-term commitment to the welfare of students and the society they will serve.

This states my worries about the direction that undergraduate education is going quite well. But here's the essence of it for me: A great university in its undergraduate liberal arts education 1) should help students to (as Dr. Lewis states) "understand the complexities of the human condition" and 2) "challenges its students to ask questions that are both disturbing and deeply important." An undergraduate business education should provide its students with a broad understanding of business in the context of providing a liberal arts education.

When I taught my database and Web site development class (BIT320), it was actually a philosophy class operating under the disguise of a technology class. I wanted to help students think about the world in an entirely different way, one that was not accessible to them before they took the class. I certainly enjoyed teaching this to students electing to take the class. However, the class I most enjoyed teaching was BIT301 — a required introduction to computing for the whole BBA class. This class required me (and my students) to get our heads around a vast array of topics, and required me to figure out how to present these topics in a manner that was accessible though still challenging to students with a wide set of differing backgrounds. In turn, it required students to confront topics that did not immediately appeal to them but that would, to a great extent, be extremely helpful to them as they began their independent lives and careers.

Let me now react more directly to Steve's comments.

First, as he correctly states, the current BBA curriculum requires that you take many courses, leaving little room for electives. Yes, and we consider this a feature, not a bug, of the current curriculum (to borrow a phrase from my IT background). The "we" in the previous sentence refers to the faculty, alumni, the School's boards, and recruiters. The Ross School is not a school of finance, or a school of marketing — it is a school of business. We provide a general business education in the context of a liberal arts education. If a student wants a specialized education in some facet of business, then he or she should get an MBA with a specialization in that particular area of study; that's what a masters is for.

Second, implicit in this comment is the belief that studying something that is required cannot be (or, at least, frequently is not) enjoyed. Well, that's too bad. It does not have to be that way. This is something that is entirely under your control. Do what you can to make every course a positive learning experience. Learn to enjoy the analysis done in business economics, the detailed specifications created in a BIT course, the complexity of the human condition in M&O. These are all completely different, but each are enjoyable in their own way. Try to figure out how to mine each class for its particular gold.

The purpose of action-based learning

2006-03-16T21:03:00.000-05:00

I'm currently supervising, in one way or another, eight different MAP projects. MAP is the 7-week program that almost all MBAs go through at the end of their first year. It is a project in which 4-6 MBAs work on a single problem defined by a single company. It's a difficult but highly engaging process.

It's hard to say exactly what students get out of this process, but they clearly (to me, anyway) do get a lot out of it. I've been thinking a bit about this recently. I alluded to it in an email I sent to a member of one of the teams that I supervise:

You need to focus on developing an actionable plan for [the company] based on data. Keep picturing yourself giving the final presentation and having them ask you "why should we believe you?" — what you're doing now is essentially writing the answer to that question, the question that broadly determines the success of your project.

If the students take this lesson to heart, then — to me, anyway — they have learned what they're supposed to learn from MAP. When you're in business, it's no longer about being smart. It's no longer about doing the best analysis. It's about making your company successful. And this involves doing things and not simply ordering more analysis to be completed. These things usually involve making stuff (faster, more efficiently, more effectively, or just better stuff) or selling stuff (more of it, for a higher price). And, generally, doing MAP drives this point home in a most effective way.

There's nothing like standing in front of a CEO and having him or her, at the end of your presentation, say something like "Yes, I hear you, but why should I believe you? Other smart people have told me to do the exact opposite thing." And you realize that you haven't collected enough (or the right) data in order to back up your conclusions. Or, even worse, "Uh, that's all nice, but what are we supposed to do about all this?" And you realize that you've analyzed the situation but you haven't gotten down to the bare details of what specific people are supposed to do at specific times and what the payoff will be for those tasks.

Business is about doing the right things well. MAP drives this point home for the MBAs.

Handling job fly-backs and multiple job offers

2006-03-09T12:09:00.000-05:00

Sometimes a BBA is in the enviable position of receiving a job offer while at the same time being involved in the recruiting process for one or more other companies. This can sometimes lead to a difficult situation of having a scheduled fly-back (or other significant recruiting event) when the student is close to accepting an offer from another company. Students need to realize that this is a good thing, not a bad thing — but it can quickly become a very bad thing if the student does not handle the situation correctly. In a recent situation, a student accepted a job offer and then cancelled on a non-refundable ticket for a fly-back at the last minute without following up with staff at the School who had worked to build the Ross relationship with that company. This left the recruiting company with a very bad feeling about the level of maturity of our students and left staff at the School with egg on their faces for standing behind the maturity level and integrity of the student. This is what's known as a Very Bad Thing.

There are many facets of this situation that the student needs to be aware of when they consider what to do in this situation. (From here on down, I'll assume the student is a female for the ease of explication.)

The student is a representative of the Ross School and the University of Michigan. The student needs to remember that she is not out interviewing on her own; she is an ambassador of the School and the University and needs to conduct herself as such.
The student is the beneficiary of the relationships that the School and the University have maintained over many years, or that we hope to build in the future. Companies do not come to Ross to interview specific students. They come because we have built up these relationships and because they have had good experience with our students in the past. Current students should be aware of this good will that has been built up over many years and do their best to build it up rather than simply to draw on it or to use it up.
Staff in OCD, the BBA Program Office, the Women's Initiative, Student Life, and elsewhere throughout the School sometimes draw on the relationships built up over time and put themselves on the line for students.
Industries are small worlds unto themselves and word travels fast about a person's integrity. People never really know what the future will hold. Even if the student is turning down a position right now being offered by person A at company B, the student might later want a job in the future 1) at company B, or 2) at company C (where person A might have moved to). You just never know when you might cross paths with the person sitting across the table from you. Further, people do not quickly forget being treated poorly or with a lack of respect. Being put in a difficult position is one thing — but not handling it with delicacy, tact, and respect is quite another.

For all of the above reasons, when a difficult situation comes up, a student should work with OCD (or with other staff throughout the School whom she might have been working with) to attempt to resolve the difficulty. Believe me, these people have seen these situations many, many times. The wrong approach is to back out at the last minute and hope that no one will notice. People will notice and the School will hear about it — and the relationship might be irreparably damaged. This may not hurt the student right now, but future students will lose an option. If this happens too many times, then future students will be in a real bind and the School's reputation will be badly hurt.

So, for everyone's sake, think about the bigger picture and work with the School's staff. In the long run, you and the School will be better off.

Preparing in high school for college math and science

2006-03-08T22:47:00.000-05:00

Margaret Spellings, the U.S. Education secretary recently told a U.S. Senate committee that students need to be better prepared for college-level math and science classes.

One of the big pushes in the plan to enact this is to expand the Advanced Placement program so that more high school students have access to it. I generally support such an idea but I have a couple personal reactions to it. Note these are based on my experiences and don't necessarily reflect official UM or Ross School policy or even some recent research.

First, if a student is at a school that offers tons of AP classes (I'm talking 6, 20, or even more classes), she shouldn't feel compelled to take a huge number of them. Take three or maybe four of them; there's no need for the student to swamp herself with work that keeps her from participating in extra-curricular activities. The student does want to demonstrate to readers of her college application that she was interested in taking a difficult and diverse set of college preparatory courses. She doesn't necessarily want to place out of too many freshman-level classes during her freshman year and start taking lots of classes with "seasoned" sophomores. Doing this a few times in the first year might work out, but do this too many times and her performance can suffer.

Second, but on a related point, a student shouldn't necessarily let an AP class and test be a substitute for college math. College math courses can be quite difficult. Placing out of the initial Calculus class and starting the college math curriculum with the second Calculus class can make the jump to college math quite daunting. I'm not saying that it shouldn't be done; I'm just saying that the student should consider simply taking the college math class even though she took the AP class.

This is what I did when I went to Furman University many moons ago. I took Calculus when I went to Dunwoody High School and actually did fairly well. I went to Furman on a math scholarship but I still took calculus from John Poole as a freshman. I thought it would help solidify my knowledge of calculus, would introduce me to math at the college level, and would (hopefully) provide me with an easy A. The first two held true — though, while I did get an A in the class, the grade didn't come easily.

In any case, I encourage high school students to take as many demanding math and science classes as they can fit into their schedule. It will pay off in college.

What to do in high school to ensure you get a degree

2006-03-08T22:32:00.000-05:00

A new report issued by the U.S. Department of Education studies thousands of students over an eight year period to determine what factors are positively correlated with getting a college degree. According to the press release:

The study ... found that the academic intensity of a high school curriculum is the strongest indicator of postsecondary degree completion, regardless of a student's major course of study.

Specifically, (and this quote is from the article about the study in the Chronicle of Higher Education:

[T]aking math beyond Algebra 2 and three classes in laboratory science (biology, chemistry, and physics) in high school provided greater "academic momentum" than taking three classes in foreign languages and any Advanced Placement courses.

This report also pointed out the positive correlation between getting credit in non-traditional times --- e.g., before college actually begins, or during the summer. According to the Chronicle article, "[e]arning some college credits while still in high school is positively associated with degree completion." Finally, "[e]arning more than four credits during summer terms correlated positively to degree completion, particularly for black students."

How to fairly test and grade a multiple section course

2006-03-05T21:31:00.000-05:00

A student recently asked me about a test she had taken. This course has multiple sections and she had questions about how the test was administered. When a course has multiple sections, the School is generally supportive of the professor's efforts to give the exam in one large sitting. However, sometimes this isn't possible (for any of a number of reasons). So, in this case, when the exam is given at several times, the professor has to take steps to minimize the sharing of information between sessions.

The next step is to figure out how to assign grades on the exam: Should letter grades be assigned within a section or across sections?. This question is pertinent in both core and elective courses because there is a grading curve that applies to each.

Across: A student is compared with students in all the sections. The student's grade is affected by how students perform in other sections; this should allow a more accurate measure of how each student performs relative to all the students in the course. On the other hand, if the student is in a section that does not perform as well on the exam, then he or she would receive a lower grade than he or she would receive if the grades were not determined this way.
Within: A student is compared with other students in his or her own section. If the student is in a section that performs better on the test than other sections (for whatever reason), then that student would receive the same or a lower grade than he or she would have received when in another section. On the other hand, the student would not be receive a lower grade simply because students in another section scored higher on the test.

The across sections method is more appropriate when multiple sections are taught by the same professor or when the professors work hard to coordinate the content presented across sections. This method also has the feature that it discourages students from sharing information about the exam. However, in any case, the professor (or professors) have complete discretion to assign grades in whichever method he (or they) see fit.

Being tough and working hard

2006-03-04T11:54:00.000-05:00

I'm in the middle of reading an article by Bill Simmons on ESPN.com that is transcript of an email exchange with Malcolm Gladwell, a writer at the New Yorker and the author of Blink and The Tipping Point. (Here's a review of Gladwell's work.) In any case, Gladwell wrote this wonderful little passage about believing in yourself and working hard:

Why don't people work hard when it's in their best interest to do so? ... The (short) answer is that it's really risky to work hard, because then if you fail you can no longer say that you failed because you didn't work hard. It's a form of self-protection. I swear that's why Mickelson has that almost absurdly calm demeanor. If he loses, he can always say: Well, I could have practiced more, and maybe next year I will and I'll win then. When Tiger loses, what does he tell himself? He worked as hard as he possibly could. He prepared like no one else in the game and he still lost. That has to be devastating, and dealing with that kind of conclusion takes a very special and rare kind of resilience. Most of the psychological research on this is focused on why some kids don't study for tests — which is a much more serious version of the same problem. If you get drunk the night before an exam instead of studying and you fail, then the problem is that you got drunk. If you do study and you fail, the problem is that you're stupid — and stupid, for a student, is a death sentence. The point is that it is far more psychologically dangerous and difficult to prepare for a task than not to prepare. People think that Tiger is tougher than Mickelson because he works harder. Wrong: Tiger is tougher than Mickelson and because of that he works harder.

Which type are you? Are you putting yourself on the line every day? Or are you giving yourself excuses so that, when you fail, you don't have to doubt yourself?

One good reason to visit me

2006-02-21T07:58:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, a student came to the BBA Program Office because she had a concern about a class. Specifically, she was upset about one section of MO300 getting to take their mid-term as a take-home exam while the rest of the sections took their mid-terms in-class. She didn't think that this was right and, at the same time, didn't feel comfortable discussing it with her professor but didn't know where else to turn.

Well, that's where I come in. She dropped by our office and spoke with Rob Koonce (who advises students). He realized that I shouuld know what's going on, so he directed her into my office where we had a quick chat. I took this student's concerns to the MO chair and then the core course coordinator. We discussed the issue and we now both understand the other's thinking on this topic. I don't know what's going to happen today, but the MO professors are at least better informed as to the concerns of the students and will be able to address them before and after the exam.

Building next year's classes

2006-02-14T07:56:00.000-05:00

Admissions and the BBA Program Office are busy building next year's classes; the deadline for this set of students has already passed. We are currently in the midst of reading applications for next year's freshman class of preferred admits. They are really, really strong. Any concerns that some might have had that we would not be able to attract a group of smart and active freshman have been completely washed away. High SATs, high GPAs, strong analytic grades and scores, tons of activities, several have been running their own business for multiple years, good mix of in-state and out-of-state — good, good, good. We won't know until mid-summer how many of them are going to show up in September but I'm certain we'll be happy with the result.

The application deadline for current sophomores (rising juniors) is tomorrow (Feb 15). This will be our last 2-year program but it will be as strong as ever. Our third deadline, for current freshmen (rising sophomores), is the end of March. This will be our first 3-year program. We are looking forward to continuing our tradition of attracting a group of smart, highly motivated students to Ross. This has been, and will continue to be, the basis of our success.

Overall, adding our senior class to our three entering classes and next year we'll have around 800 students. We are eagerly awaiting the time when they arrive on campus. We are planning several activities for each group of students to help begin (or continue) to build a connection to Ross.

Good teachers and good classes

2006-02-10T14:28:00.000-05:00

I like to consider myself a good teacher. (I'm not talking about how well I fulfill the whole job of professor; I'm simply commenting on my ability to teach a quality class.) I've won awards from students and from other professors that indicate that other people think so, too. That's all well and good.

Now that doesn't mean that I can't get better. It doesn't mean that the next class that I teach is going to be a rousing success. Of course, I hope that it will and expect that it might — but hope and expect are a long way from actually delivering such a course.

Lots of things have contributed to my teaching methods and style. Of course, I've worked with other professors whose work in the classroom I highly respect (Mike Gordon being a prime example). I've observed many great teachers over the years as a student (e.g., Fred Allvine and Eugene Comiskey at Georgia Tech) and as a professor (e.g., Dennis Severance and Judy Olson here at Michigan). I've also built up quite the library of books on teaching; here's a sample of my favorites:

Making the most of college by Light
What the best college teachers do by Bain
Teaching at its best by Nilson
Strategies for energizing large classes, edited by MacGregor et al.
Leaving the lectern by McManus
Classroom instruction that works by Marzano et al.
Engaging large classes by Stanley & Porter
Simulations and the future of learning by Aldrich
E-learning and the science of instruction by Clark & Mayer
Lessons from the cyberspace classroom by Palloff & Pratt

And that's a sample of the books; there are, of course, many other journal articles that I've read over the years that I've found valuable. These are books by researchers and practitioners (that is, researchers who study teaching and teachers) that tell me their take on what they found of interest when looking at the art and practice of teaching. All of these give me strategies that I might use in my future classes.

What does this have to do with you? Well, I would like to hear from students about their best experience in a classroom, and why it was so great. It can be about a full-semester experience and how it all came together on a specific day in just the right way; it can be about a specific day in one particular class that had a great impact on you — whatever. What I'm looking for are stories, especially from Michigan and Ross students, about their favorite experiences in specific classes. Go ahead and name names if you are going to do so in a positive light. I don't know of any professor that wouldn't love to hear that he/she did a great job.

And why do I care? Two reasons. First, in my current job as BBA Program Director I get to hear about all of the problems. What I'd like to do is have a series of positive examples that I can relay both to prospective students and to current faculty who are looking for inspiration. Second, I am currently working through the process of designing a couple of new classes. I want to hear about the approaches used by professors that students find interesting and not just those approaches that other academics find intriguing.

So, if you would take a few minutes, what I'd like you to do is leave a comment for this post that describes the project, in-class activity, assignment, or other aspect related to a class that you really enjoyed or found valuable. There's no deadline — so even if you're reading this years from now, please go ahead and post — but, on the other hand, the sooner you post your comment, the sooner I can take advantage of this information. Thanks!

Grades, college & life

2006-02-09T22:42:00.000-05:00

I just had a chat with a student that reminded me of where many of you are mentally and emotionally in your journey through this school and through your life. And I thought I'd just pass on a few of the main points of this conversation to you.

Grades are important. They are a major component of the decision of admissions committees if you should ever decide to go to graduate school. They are also a major component of the weeding-out process for initial interviews for certain careers. Getting good grades is certainly better than getting bad grades. I got good grades and they certainly helped me in my academic career.

Grades are not important in many ways. They should not determine your self-worth. They are not who you are. They also should not be the reason that you try hard in school. You should possibly end up with good grades as a by-product of working hard in a class that you enjoy and that is important to you for some reason. Not the other way around.

You shouldn't work hard so that you get good grades; you should work hard (because you like something) and then possibly get good grades. This is a real important point. This is one of those "If I had only known then what I know now" things that adults say. Very few college kids understand this. Some of you never will. Some of you will get it during your mid-life crisis. And a few lucky ones get it while you're in college. I didn't get it until sometime in my late 30s.

Another point to be taken out of this: think of how "enjoyment" or "fun" or "goodness" fits into this whole equation. It should be related to the content of the class and how well the class is taught; it should not have anything to do with your grade. I've heard someone say "I didn't get a good grade in that class. I shouldn't have taken it." What?!? If you're taking a class because of a grade, or if a grade has something to do with how you value a class, then you're messed up.

You should take a class because you're interested in the topic. You work hard and try to learn the material. Note that I didn't say "You work hard and try to do well in the class." Wrong-o! You work hard to try to learn the material; as a result of learning the material, you then have a better chance of performing well on projects (and assignments and exams) and, thus, have a better chance of getting a good grade.

This isn't just a semantic trick or some philosophical mumbo-jumbo. It has to do with success. Take a moment to understand this chain of relationships: like topic —> try harder —> learn material better —> perform better —> better chance at good grade. If this doesn't seem right, apply the same concepts to playing a sport: like sport —> try harder —> learn skills better —> perform better —> better chance of winning. Now that makes sense, doesn't it? I'm just applying the same process to school work, that's all.

Still, when applied to school, this may sound hopelessly naive to you. You're probably thinking something like this:

"You don't take classes because you like them. Who likes their classes? You take them just to get through them. You take them to get good grades. And, at the end, if you're lucky, you get a good job because of them."

Well, I'm telling you right now that you might think this, but you would be wrong. The grade should not be the focus of your efforts; the process (the class and the material) should be the focus. Everything else will then flow naturally from that — including good grades on classes that you like and jobs that are related to this material that you like. Again, this is just like sports. Winning should not be the focus of your efforts; performing up to your capabilities should be your focus. If you do so, then winning will come. You can't (or, at least, shouldn't) measure your performance by whether you won or you lost — you should look at whether you prepared correctly to give yourself the best chance to perform well. If you did that, then you have to accept the outcome. As Bill Parcells says, "You are what you are."

Again, the process — in this case, the class and the assignments — should be the focus of your efforts. This statement might not make any sense to you but it's been a guiding statement in my life (since my life started making some sense, anyway). Don't focus on the end; focus on the journey. Focus on the process of learning. Focus on enjoying the class as you sit in it. Focus on the new topics that you encounter. Focus on the challenges that you come across. Focus on how you can apply what you learn to your life. And so on. In our life, all we have is what we do and who we come in contact with. You should focus on getting the most out of both of these.

If you're focusing on the process, you will become more engaged with the material. Having become more engaged, you will learn it better ... and off you go (as we discussed above).

I'm not encouraging you to not get good grades. I'm saying that I think you should focus on the learning process and let the grades take care of themself. I'm encouraging you to think about who you are, how you choose classes, how you think about your classes, and why you're in school. You'll be better for it because you'll learn more and enjoy your time in school more. And as a side effect, you'll also end up enjoying your life after school more. And I think that we can all agree that's a good thing.

Our BBA Program Office staff, and coming changes

2006-02-08T11:20:00.000-05:00

The BBA Program Office is going to be hiring another BBA Student Advisor (like Katie's position that we hired for last year). This is the last piece of the BBA Program Office puzzle that Dean Bob Dolan and I agreed to two years ago when I started in my role as BBA Program Director. This person will allow us to add more outreach and more activities that involve the BBAs; however, it is also a necessary hire given that we will have about 1100 BBAs to advise next year instead of 720. This is a fantastic commitment by the Dean to the BBAs, and every future student will benefit from it.

This person will report to Rob Koonce (as Katie McCartney does) in his role as coordinator of all things related to a BBA's academic life once he or she is here — though, of course, not the stuff related to enforcement and interpretation of rules that Academic Services does (under Evonne Plantinga's steadying hand) — as opposed to their extra-curricular life stuff that Student Life (the group under Amy Cell's direction) handles. Erika Busch will continue to report to me, continuing in her role as liaison to the rest of the school, coordinator of BBA projects and events, and coordinator of communications and outreach for our department.

So, what does this mean to you?

You should go to Student Life if you have any questions related to extracurricular activities.
You should go to Academic Services if you have questions related to your degree audit, class credit issues, etc.
You should come to Student Advisors in the BBA Program Office if you have questions about what classes to take or your program of study. You should also come to us if you don't know where else to go. We're real good at pointing you in the proper direction, in referring you to other departments in the Business School and in other parts of the University.

College students are still maturing

2006-02-08T07:25:00.000-05:00

As described in a news release from Darthmouth University:

Two Dartmouth researchers are one step closer to defining exactly when human maturity sets in. In a study aimed at identifying how and when a person's brain reaches adulthood, the scientists have learned that, anatomically, significant changes in brain structure continue after age 18. ... The results indicate that significant changes took place in the brains of these individuals. The changes were localized to regions of the brain known to integrate emotion and cognition. Specifically, these are areas that take information from our current body state and apply it for use in navigating the world. ... "The brain of an 18-year-old college freshman is still far from resembling the brain of someone in their mid-twenties," says Bennett. "When do we reach adulthood? It might be much later than we traditionally think."

I'm bringing this to your attention because I sense a reluctance among students to come forward and ask for help from people who should be able to help them. Students should realize that asking for help from people who are there to help them is perceived as a sign of particular maturity and confidence and not as a sign of weakness and ignorance.

I fit into the pattern identified by the researchers. I know that I wasn't even an approximation of who I am now until I was in my early 30s. While I am still nowhere close to being able to keep my emotions close to the vest, I am now much better at being able to control my emotions and not allow them to rule my minute-to-minute activities. Even now, as a 43-year-old, I know that I think about relationships and situations much differently than I did when I was 30, let alone 20.

So, this is an admonishment to college students based not on the fact that I'm an old fart — though I'm getting there — but on actual science: Your professors, your parents, your advisors — all these people might actually be able to help you. Many of them actually think about things in a more advanced and sophisticated way than you do. We're not just dense; we see things and think about things in a different way, as being more interconnected and complicated. Going to your peers some times, many times, will not be enough because they are at the same stage of development. It's not that we're smarter than you; it's that we've had experiences that have shaped our brain (and, thus, our thinking) in a way that will happen to you but hasn't happened yet. It's not that you won't be able to think as an adult; you simply might not be physiologically able to do so at this stage of your development. We won't always give the right advice — we're not perfect — but we should at least be able to give you a different, and valuable, point of view.

Summer internships

2006-02-07T10:45:00.000-05:00

It's that time of year — internship season. Looking over possible companies, bidding for interviews, preparing for the interviews, hoping for callbacks, preparing for a callback, the torture of that process, waiting for an offer, and — you can only hope — the strain of choosing among several good offers. This essay is, generally, not applicable to students who have to — get to! — go through this last step. I'm addressing this essay primarily to those students who are worried about their internship.

Let me get this out of the way right now: If you work this summer in any capacity, you have the opportunity to impress a future employer. Suppose that you want to work for some random industry (let's call it "Investment Banking") but you only get an internship in another industry (let's call it "not Investment Banking"). Your life is not over. Your career path is not set. You have not been proven a loser. You do not have to change your life and career goals. This is a wonderful opportunity; it is not punishment.

Let's look at the positives that might come from getting an internship — any internship. You will gain lots of transferrable skills. These are actually the skills that future employers are most interested in. You will gain experience working with a variety of people, not just other Ross Business School students. They might have, heaven forbid, grey hair, but they might actually treat you like a real human being after working with you for a while.

You will also gain experience getting things done in an organization. This is different than getting things done at school. You will have incomplete information and a less clear path to the information you do need. You will learn when to ask for help, when to ask for information, and when to just buckle down and get it done.

You will learn about organizational life. This is very different from academic life. You will learn to work with many bosses and many more co-workers, all with very different experiences and expectations than what you've come in contact with at school. You will learn to socialize, enough so that you have a network of friends but not so much that it gets in the way of getting your work accomplished. You won't have homework, but you might be expected to work until late at night. But other nights you will not have any work to do. No homework at all. You will just be able to explore a city, read a book that you actually want to read, go to a movie, rent a DVD — whatever! It's a very different feeling than always having homework hovering over your head.

You will learn about how a big company (or a small company) works. Either one would be useful. And they are quite different than each other, and quite different than how a university works.

You also might learn what you do not like to do — even if you actually did think you would like it going into the internship. This is a very valuable lesson. This will help you eliminate a bunch of companies that you might otherwise want to interview with. And do not forget that what you do not like now is not necessarily what you will not like in the future. Surprisingly enough, when you are 30 you will be different than you are now. (At least I hope so.)

You will make contacts that you will be able to use in the future. These contacts might be for future job recommendations. This person might be someone whom you hope will hire you at some point. And do not forget that these people can change jobs, too. Just because you wouldn't want to work in this particular company in the future, this does not mean that you would not have the opportunity to work for this person at another company. Every day that you are at your internship is an interview for some future position. You'll never know when you're meeting a person for the first time that might end up hiring you, or having the possibility of hiring you, in the future.

Finally, it is actually often easier to convert a "non-big-company" experience in which you get real responsibility into great talking points for companies in the fall (during your interviews for full-time jobs) than it is to convert the experiences you might get as an intern at a large company. Remember that it's not the company that counts, and it's not the position that counts, it's what you do in that position at that company — no matter what the position or company. (Thank to Al Cotrone for bringing this last point to my attention.)

So, take that internship. Keep a positive attitude. Work hard. Set goals. Get things done. Make yourself valuable. And have a good time.

Extracurricular participation for BBAs

2006-02-03T08:25:00.000-05:00

The Ross School of Business BBA student certainly has a lot of clubs that he or she (I'll say "she" from now on) might participate in. The questions are:

Why participate in the clubs?
What clubs to participate in?
How to participate in those clubs?

A student might have many reasons for participating in clubs — giving back to the community, strengthening connections with a culture, finding social activities, playing sports, or what not — but companies make important implications from looking at a student's set of extracurricular activities.

With this set of activities, a student sends a strong signal about her ability to manage her time, her ability to work in a group, and her ability and willingness to lead a group. A student should generally not have a long list of extracurriculars at any one time because that indicates that she is not able to make choices and she is probably limiting her ability to make significant contributions to those clubs. Even if the company isn't hiring in a position that seems like a leadership position, with most every hire it is looking for a person who might soon be able to handle small, informal leadership positions (running a subcommittee or group) and then, one day, be able to take on more significant, formal leadership positions (manager, director).

So, to answer the above questions: Participate in clubs for any of the above reasons; participate in the clubs that you are interested the most in; and work to accomplish things within the context and structure of the club. (I've written on this topic in a previous post.)

BBA Program Office goings-on

2006-02-02T12:39:00.000-05:00

There is a lot going on in the BBA Program Office that you might not be aware of so I thought I'd give you a quick update.

Staff

I now have three people on my staff:

Erika Busch: in charge of communications, coordination with the rest of the School and University, and on-going projects, among other things,
Rob Koonce: in charge of academic advising, the Mastery Project, community outreach, among other things, and
Katie McCartney: advisor to BBAs on academic and undergraduate life.

Workshops

Since the most recent workshops on going to law school (that the Law School put on for us) and living in New York City (that Katie and Tony Tsai put on) were so successful, we're looking into related workshops: living in Chicago, pursuing an MBA, pursuing a PhD, etc. Let us know — by coming by and chatting with Rob, Katie, or myself — if you have any particular requests that you think a good number of students might be interested in.

Visiting classes

Rob & and Katie are continuing to visit classes so that they might be in a better position to talk about them.

Career Guides

We are nearing completion on our career guides. These will provide students with a recommended list of classes for particular careers. We will publish these on our Web site for easy reference.

BBA Newsletter

Erika has been, and will continue to, publish the BBA Newsletter every two weeks. If you've been missing it, this email attempts to highlight events and resources that are, or should be, of particular interest to BBAs.

Orientation

We're working on BBA Orientation for next year. We've taken a long, hard look at the suggestions you made at the most recent Orientation and have incorporated many changes into our planning for next year's programming. Just FYI, we weren't too surprised by most of your comments. We saw the same problems that you saw. More on this in a later post.

Problem resolution

I've been working with students to help them resolve issues they had with professors last semester.

Washington Campus

We've been working with Professor Siedel to put on the Washington Campus program that will have its inaugural session this May.

Study Breaks

We're arranging to have a BBA Study Break again this semester. It was quite a success last semester in its first offering.

Printing problems

We've been talking with the Dean's office about the printing problems students have been having. We're getting close to resolution, I believe.

I just wanted to make sure that you know that we've been working hard for you this year — even if you haven't been aware of it! I have a fantastic staff, and and they make up a fantastic resource for you. I hope you can make the time to get to know them.

Changing businesses

2006-02-02T12:17:00.000-05:00

A company does business long enough, and it probably thinks it's safe. Well, let's see:

As of January 27, 2006, Western Union is no longer delivering telegrams.
No matter how good it actually is (and no matter how many times I read it as a kid — yes, read it!), the Encyclopedia Britannica isn't exactly raking in the money any more, is it?
GM, Ford. That's all I'm going to say.
Sears and/or K-Mart.

I'm sure that there are a lot more, but these came immediately to mind.

To anyone who is of a certain age, the above list is shocking. If I had been told that those companies would be in trouble in their "core" businesses, I would have had trouble believing it.

The lesson: Don't ever be satisfied. Don't get comfortable. Keep working. Keep improving.

Having trouble with a professor

2006-01-30T11:20:00.000-05:00

Periodically, students come to me describing some level of difficulty they are having with a professor (for whatever reason). Usually, by the time it gets to me, it's late in the term, it's difficult to address, and the solution is (frequently) not going to benefit the student much. So, let's now examine the process you might follow if you have trouble with a professor:

Talk to the professor directly. Be constructive. Have a conversation; don't accuse. Speak, listen, respond, and repeat. Work on determining if there has been a misunderstanding and clarify it. Figure out in this conversation what you can actively do to help the situation improve. Be clear about what you would like the professor to do to help the situation improve.
If the above process didn't seem to help, and follow-up meetings with the professor don't seem to be helping, then you should — early in this communication process — talk with a BBA Student Advisor (Rob or Katie). They should be able to provide an experienced viewpoint and will be able to give you advice on what next steps you should take.
Generally, if the above process fails to lead to a satisfactory conclusion, you should contact the professor's area chair. I would recommend that you stay in contact with an advisor leading up to this meeting. The advisor might also recommend that you come talk with me to get my take on things.

Why do I recommend that you talk with an area chair instead of with me when you're looking for further resolution? Because the professor's area chair is the person in charge both of setting the professor's teaching responsibilities and reviewing the professor's performance each year. In my role, I am not involved in supervising the professor in any way. I certainly can provide one professor's view of a situation (after all, I am a professor), but I am more like a liaison among students, faculty, area chair, and the rest of the Dean's Office than someone who has some power to yield in this situation.

Generally, I don't like to worry about these issues too much, and I generally don't have to. We have a very good faculty here at the Ross School and, on the whole, the faculty wants classes to go well for all concerned. Given the large population that we have, this isn't always going to be the case; however, following the above process should generally lead students and faculty to better conclusions than otherwise would be available.

Do what you love

2006-01-28T22:17:00.000-05:00

Paul Graham has written a great essay "How to do what you love". What he says in this essay resonates quite directly with what I have told BBAs for many years but, of course, he says it better than I ever did. I highly encourage any Ross BBA to read this essay as you embark on your career.

The main point of this essay is that you should try to find a job that you enjoy because you will not only enjoy it, but you will do better at it. One of his main points is that you shouldn't decide on your career too soon. He writes about a friend who is a doctor but doesn't like her job:

How did she get into this fix? In high school she already wanted to be a doctor. And she is so ambitious and determined that she overcame every obstacle along the way --- including, unfortunately, not liking it. ... Now she has a life chosen for her by a high school kid.

This leads him to wisely recommend that it's better to "seek jobs that let you do many different things, so you can learn faster what various kinds of work are like."

If you are thinking about choosing a career, you should read this essay.

Helping to define a new class

2005-02-09T23:45:00.000-05:00

Next winter semester I will be teaching an introduction to business class to freshmen and sophomores. This will be a very large class – 3 sections of up to 400 students each.

I am asking for a favor from you. Seniors especially. I want you to think about what you know now, what you knew then, and what I might be able to teach to underclassmen (and women).

I have created a wiki for this course at on my server. A wiki is a Web site that anyone who visits can contribute to. This site, and the course it reflects, is nowhere near being done. I'm still changing many things about it but I am narrowing in on a specific list of topics for the lectures. There is a page for the list of lectures. Each one of the class days is a link. Think about what you might want to be covered on any one of those days. Any time over the next month or so, contribute to the appropriate page. Simply add comments at the bottom of the page. I promise to thoughtfully consider any idea that you add.

When was the last time that you were asked to design a class? I bet the answer to that is "never." I hope you contribute, and reward the faith that I have in all of you. Please be sure to sign your name on the contribution so that I know who to go to if I have some follow-up questions. Thanks.

Goings-on in the BBA Program Office

2005-02-09T22:49:00.000-05:00

It's been a while since I've given you any updates about what we're doing in the office so I thought I'd give you an update.

Rob Koonce, the BBA Student Advisor, is fully engaged with the University, the School, and students. If you have any questions about what classes to take, or if you have any ideas about how to improve the BBA Program, come by and talk with Rob. He's a real dynamic guy, and cares a lot for students. Come by and chat sometime.
We've been talking with LS&A Honors, the Residential College, the Comprehensive Studies Program, Office of Undergraduate Admissions, LS&A Advising — pretty much anyone who has anything to do with freshmen at the University.
Erika Busch, the BBA Program Associate (she helps me coordinate BBA-related activities with the rest of the University), is coordinating the updating of the BBA Web site. We're trying to create a place for people to go for information about the BBA Program, whether or not they are high school students, freshmen, sophomores, BBAs, or other UM students.
Erika and I are working on next year's orientation. We've gone through all — and, yes, I mean all — of the evaluations from last year's orientation. (Thank you very much!) We're probably going to cut it down to 1 day. We're going to make sure that we include interaction with your sections, interaction with ambassadors, and a keynote speaker. We're also going to be sure that Amy Cell, Director of Student Life, will be on the agenda so that students might have a better idea of ways that they can, and should, get involved with activities in the business school.
Rob is also working on developing a study and quantitative skills program for freshmen and sophomores. We'll have a full announcement about this soon.

And, finally, we're beginning to plan for the transition to the new building. We still don't know when it's going to happen, but it's going to happen, so we've got to start thinking about all of the things that need to be done. More on this later.

So, in general, we're staying busy, trying to make the BBA Program better for you and future students. Any time that you think of something that we might want to know please come by and speak with either Rob, Erika, or me.

Finding old course evaluations

2004-12-12T09:28:00.000-05:00

Before walking into a course for the first day, you might find it interesting to look at a summary of evaluations this professor has received. If you're a student at the Ross School, you can find this information at this Web site.

Evaluate professors fairly, consistently, and intelligently

2004-11-30T20:34:00.000-05:00

It's getting to be that time of year again: course evaluations. (I have written on this topic before.) Course evaluations are very important to faculty, especially assistant professors and visiting and adjunct professors. For assistant professors, course evaluations are the major metric that goes into determining if a professor's teaching is adequate. For a visiting and adjunct professor, course evaluations are the major determinant of whether or not the faculty member has a chance at receiving another employment contract.

While the importance of course evaluations are of less formal importance to associate and full professors (who have tenure), they still tell the faculty how the semester went and provide guidance for ways to improve the course. This information is also used by the area chair to determine teaching schedules and by the Dean's office in doling out pay raises.

In any case students should take the responsibility of evaluating professors seriously. Make an effort to attend class on the day that evaluations are given out. This is as true for students who have gone to every class period as it is for students who stopped attending class a long time ago. If you have not been attending the class because you didn't value the way the professor spent the class time, then you should definitely go to class in order to fill out a course evaluation. If you don't go to class and fill out an evaluation, then you might as well be giving the professor your full endorsement.

Every year several courses get much higher evaluations than they should get because so few students attend class. I have seen professors get a 4.5 in a course --- a pretty good evaluation --- but only 15 of 50 students have filled out the evaluations. This isn't a reliable sample, but it's the only one we have to go on, so we have to use it. It would be interesting to know how those 35 students who didn't fill out the evaluations would have scored the professor, but students, faculty, and the administration will never know.

If you think the professor did a very good job promoting learning during the semester, then give him or her a 5. If the professor was average, a 4 is appropriate. (Remember, an evaluation of 4.2 or above is generally considered acceptable by the faculty when reviewing teaching performance.) If the professor should have been better (for example, if he or she frequently got in the way of the learning process and didn't seem to attempt to improve), then a 3 or lower is appropriate (and disappointing to the faculty member, and a strong signal to the School).

You should not evaluate professors punitively. You should evaluate them all on the same basis, and you should complete the process thoughtfully. The evaluation is important to the faculty member; it is important to the School; and it is important to future students.

Sharing documents for group projects

2004-11-30T19:40:00.000-05:00

Group projects are a way life here at Ross. Computers are also deeply embedded in our lives. Combine these two facts together, and you come to realize that students need the tools to share documents that they create in the completion of their group projects.

The University has made two quite powerful tools available to students to support this activity:

IFS: This is the long-standing, well-established --- if not well known --- way that the University has supported file sharing among students. It works very well. I've used it for years.
CTools: This is new this year. CTools allows every student to create a Web site for every group project that is similar to those you see in CTools for a course.
1. Click on Workspace setup
2. Click on "New"
3. Select "Project Website" and then click on the "Continue" button
4. Fill in the descriptive information on the next page, and then click on the "Continue" button
5. Select whichever tools you want to use. Be sure to select "Resources" if you want to be able to share files within your group
6. Publish the site
7. Click on the Tab with the site name
8. Click on "Site info" on the left
9. Click on the "Edit access" button
10. Click on "Add participant"
  1. Put the uniqname of each member of your group in the "Username" textbox
  2. Select the button "Assign all participants to the same role"
  3. Click on the "Continue" button
11. Assign each group member the "Member" role
12. Notify each participant (or not)
13. Click on the "Finish" button
This site is now available for sharing files among just these group members.

Of course, these tools are not perfect. However, they go a long way to providing the tools that can make group projects and the associated file handling much better.

A "concentration" at Ross

2004-11-30T17:52:00.000-05:00

The Ross School of Business does not have majors. Your diploma will say "Bachelor of Business Administration" but it won't say "Finance major" or anything like that. Just "BBA". But for many, many purposes (e.g., resumes) students like to label themselves, to state what it is that they're interested in. At times like these, the lack of a major can be problematic.

So, what's a student to do?

Essentially it comes down to a self-directed course of study, and you let the market determine the outcome. If you want to call yourself a finance concentrator, but you only take one finance class, you can still say that you have a finance concentration. But during interviews companies will find out that you haven't taken enough finance classes and you won't get any finance job offers.

So, you can call yourself whatever you want with whatever number of classes you want, but you should back it up with the appropriate set of classes.

And just what is appropriate? In different areas, a different number of courses seems to be needed for a concentration. It's probably 2 or 3 courses after the required course(s) in an area; however, this is just a rough rule of thumb.

In my time as BBA Director I haven't been able to find any official or even unofficial documentation on this very subject. Since I think it would be useful for students to have some direction in this matter, I have been gathering information from faculty and as many sources as I can find. Over the next few months I will be gathering information from seniors to help this process along. We'll be publishing this information in a new BBA Web page at some point.

BBA Student Advisor

2004-11-30T17:07:00.000-05:00

I am very excited to announce that the School has hired its very first Student Advisor, Robert Koonce. Robert started Monday, November 29.

Who he is

Robert comes to us with a wealth of experience:

Dept of Education (Washington, DC), Office of Vocational and Adult Education
Assoc Athletics Director of Academic Support and Career Development, University of Maryland -- College Park
Asst Athletics Director of Student Services, Tulane University
Asst Athletics Director of Academic Services and Recruitment, University of Pennsylvania
Assistant Academic Advisor, University of Michigan
Research Associate, Office of the VP for University Relations, University of Michigan

Robert also has an MA and PhD/ABD in Higher Education Administration from the UM School of Education.

The above skims the top of Robert's qualifications. He's also brings a dynamic presence, one that I'm sure will help the School reach out to a broader audience, including younger students, parents, and the rest of the UM community. Robert is already well-connected in the University, including Undergraduate Admissions, Student Affairs, Engineering, the Athletic campus, and many others.

Please help me in making him feel welcome.

What the position is

The purpose of the BBA Student Advisor position is to be a resource for students and potential students who have questions, concerns, or issues about academics at the Ross School of Business. Typical questions for the advisor from current BBAs would be the following:

I'm thinking about going into corporate finance (or whatever you say). What courses should I take this semester?
I'm a marketing major (or whatever). Are there any particular courses in other departments that I should think about taking?

The advisor is also going to be a resource for high school students and LS&A students who are interested in getting in to the Ross School.

What's the timing of all this

Robert will be getting familiar with the School and University during December. Starting in December he will be available for counseling. I'll have an announcement at the beginning of the next semester reminding everyone of this.

Appropriate classes for sophomores

2004-11-17T10:27:00.000-05:00

Recently a student asked me what classes he should take in the Winter semester of his sophomore year. He already has taken Acc272 and he is wondering whether or not he should take one of the core courses (perhaps marketing or finance).

My answer: I don't think he should take them early. He should take the core courses with his cohort next year. They will provide a good support network (both for helping and commisserating) in these courses. So, what should he take?

English: 225 (Argumentative writing) or 229 (Technical writing). Both of these courses would be great preparation for the business school and for work, generally.
Stats: 350 (Introduction to Statistics and Data Analysis). The business curriculum is analytically challenging. This course prepares you well for the analytical work you'll be expected to do in the business school. You should know that you will be required to take a statistics class in the Ross School; however, if you feel weak in this area, this course can provide you a good leg up on what you will need to do while you are at Ross.
Econ: Any of the 300-level econ courses (if you have already taken both 101 and 102) provide very nice preparation and education in an area that is the foundation of the study of business.

Are there other courses that you might take that would be good courses? Sure there are. These are just ones that come most quickly to mind.

Other criteria that you should use when deciding what courses to take are the following:

Take what you are interested in! If you're interested in the movie industry, take a course over there. If you're interested in sports marketing, take a course related to that. But, by all means, think about what you want to do with your life or, assuming you do not know what that might be, what you are interested in on a day-to-day basis.
If you can, come into the business school with enough credits so that you can take just four classes in your first semester in the business school. This can make all the difference in the world in your experience --- i.e., it can markedly reduce your anxiety level.

That's just about it. Take what you want to; don't rush to get in to the business school; and take good classes that train you to think, write, and analyze. What bad can come of that?

Three great opportunities

2004-11-05T11:36:00.000-05:00

One of the key phrases used in marketing the Ross School of Business is "co-creation". This has all the markings of an empty marketing phrase, and I don't blame you for thinking that it is. But it's not, at least in my thinking. This term refers to the ability for Michigan students to make their educational experience what they want to make it, and to contribute to the formation of that experience. We have tons of options for students. One graduate of the School can have a very different set of experiences than another graduate, both inside the classroom and outside.

I have been made aware of several great opportunities for BBAs recently. You should take a look at each one and see if one is right for you.

Studies in Washington

I am currently working with two separate organizations about setting up programs in which students take some classes in Washington, DC. One of them involves one week in the summer and the other involves a semester of working and studying in DC. There will be more later, but the Michigan in Washington Program is having an informational session on Thursday, November 11 from 4:30 until 5:30 in the Eldersveld Room on the 5th floor of Haven Hall (in the PoliSci department).

Domestic Corps

Another opportunity is with the Domestic Corps. As it says in their Web site:

We are a fellowship program providing MBA and BBA students with challenging, action-based internship opportunities with nonprofits serving economically distressed, culturally diverse communities throughout the United States.

The Domestic Corps' Annual Report features Joe Ament's (BBA 2005) story about his assignment in New York City. The story on pages 4-5 is by James DeVaney, BBA 2001. This program is one that many students have found to be fulfilling. You should check it out yourself.

Solar Car

The Michigan Solar Car Project is something that you can get involved with during the year. Michael Brackney, BBA 2006, is the Project Manager for the Solar Car this year. He is always looking for more quality people to contribute to his team. This opportunity, like the ones above, provide another way to distinguish yourself from the crowd.

While you're here at Michigan, I hope you find a way to make yourself stand out in a positive, fulfilling way.

A great benefit

2004-11-02T13:58:00.000-05:00

One of the really fantastic things about my job is that I come in contact with some really great young people. One of them is Chris Stallman, a junior-year BBA. I met him the first week or so of the school year, and got to know him better when we had lunch. If I could trade on inside information without getting in trouble, I'd invest in Chris (and several other students every year). I'd make money without a worry.

He's had dozens, if not hundreds, of articles and stories done about him because of the Web site he started while in high school. Take a look at the latest article.

Hints on installing Service Pack 2

2004-10-28T14:04:00.000-04:00

As I noted in a previous article, I had a lot of trouble when I installed SP2 on my Windows XP machine at home. Today, David Pogue, techology writer for the New York Times, wrote a guide to installing SP2. I recommend this highly for anyone considering installing this set of patches

Course bidding announcement

2004-10-25T15:09:00.000-04:00

BBA2s should have recently received an email from Academic Services (specifically, Evonne Plantinga) announcing the new course bidding process that is going to be used for the Winter semester. Course bidding allows BBA2 students to inform the system about which courses that are offered by the Ross School are most important to him/her. This is new. BBAs have never done this before. BBAs don't know how it works. Every single BBA2 should (must!) go to a workshop that Academic Services will be putting on in order to learn about the process. These workshops will be on both Friday, October 29th (1-2 PM in D1270) and Tuesday, November 2nd (4-5 PM in D1270).

Here's a portion of the text of the email announcement:

Course bidding is an internal Business School utility much like on-campus interview bidding. Students are allotted bid points (1000) and given a window of time to bid (Wednesday, November 3rd at 10 am, through Wednesday, November 10th at 10 am). After the close of bidding on November 10th, the system will compile the highest bids, regardless of the time they were entered, and generate course rosters and waitlists accordingly. We will then forward the results to the Registrar and preload you into the electives for which you successfully bid, along with your assigned section of CSIB 390 (which you will not have to bid for). This means that when your registration appointment time arrives, some classes will already be in your schedule, because you went through course bidding!

In preparation for course bidding we recommend that you begin to review the Winter term course offerings through Wolverine Access or the Registrar and start to plan which courses you would like to take next term. Also, be sure to check out "BBA News" on your iMpact log in page for updates or news related to this. Updated course bidding web pages will be posted shortly!

So, what does this mean? This means that, relative to the Ross School courses that you want to take, it does not matter what time your registration appointment is. What matters for these courses is the number of points the students bid on the course. Here are some possible scenarios:

Students might bid all 1000 points on a course that they want to get, sacrificing the chance to bid for any other Ross School course.
Students might bid all 1000 points and still not get in a course because more than the enrollment limit bid the maximum number of points on the course. At that point, names are selected randomly to break the tie.
Students might bid 1 point on a course and still get in because fewer than the enrollment limit for a course bid on it.
Students might not bid on a Ross School course at all, but still end up getting in when they go through the registration process, because fewer students than the enrollment limit bid on the course and the course did not already fill up with people who had earlier registration times.

The above are all the "edge" cases. The standard case is that more students than the enrollment limit bid on a course. The bids are ranked from high to low. The students with the highest bids get in the course. We think that this is a better outcome than the former system: students who lucked in to earlier registration times had better odds of getting into the courses they wanted.

After the process is over, we will be sure to run a survey to find out how the process went and what might be improved. Check back here for an announcement.

Given that this whole process is new, if a BBA2 is going to take any business school courses other than the CSIB core course, then he or she needs to go to one of these workshops.

Announcing the new 3 & 4 year BBA Program

2004-10-25T08:37:00.000-04:00

Overview

The Ross School of Business will welcome its first class of 4-year students in September 2006. After a year-long process of examining its program, surveying current students and alumni, and looking at other schools who are leaders in undergraduate business education and with whom we compete for applicants, the Business School Faculty approved the creation of a curriculum that is taught over 4 (or, slightly compressed, in 3) years. The School of LS&A, the Provost and, finally, the Regents also approved and strongly endorsed this move.

Curriculum

The basic story to be told here is that the curriculum is changing very little --- it is simply being arranged better. (A PowerPoint file shows how the curriculum is changing.)

Freshmen: World of Business (new course; more on this later); 1.5 hour courses on Writing and on Computer & Data Skills
Sophomores: 2 accounting courses; Quantitative Methods (Business Statistics); Applied Economics
Juniors: Financial Management; Marketing Management; Operations Management; Behavioral Theory in Management; 1.5 hour courses on IT Management and Presentations
Seniors: Corporate Strategy; Law

Freshmen who are in or who plan to get in to the Business School will take English Composition, Econ 101 (Micro), and Calculus. All of the other UM distribution requirements stay essentially the same. If a student enters the program as a sophomore, then he or she would take the freshmen classes as a sophomore.

Benefits of the new curriculum

The benefits of the curriculum's new structure are the following:

Introduction: Students receive a comprehensive introduction to the study of business in the World of Business course
Sequencing: Foundation courses can be completed before the junior year begins so that the major disciplines can rely on the fact that students in the class will have solid theoretical knowledge
Liberal arts: Students have time and space in their schedules to take upper-level liberal arts classes if they desire. Further, students can even double major with or get a minor in an LS&A department.
Reduced intensity: The Business School portion of the student's education will not be so intense. Certainly, as any current BBA student can tell you, a reduction in the program's intensity will by no means make this a laid back experience; what it will do is make the experience more bearable and even enjoyable.
Study abroad: The School now has an opportunity to develop study abroad opportunities during the summer before the junior year.
Earlier elective opportunties: There is now more space in a student's schedule during the junior year to take electives in his or her chosen emphasis. This means that students will have a better foundation for his or her internship.
Conclusion: The School now has space in the schedule to offer senior-level capstone electives that integrate the student's educational experience.

General concerns

Although this change will have many positive effects on students, it is certainly the case that problems or difficulties will arise during the transition to the new program. The following is a discussion of some of them.

Admitting the right students: This is clearly the big concern with the move to the new structure. Under the current process, students complete two years of undergraduate education before they apply to the Business School. Under the new structure, applying students will be, at a minimum, high school seniors or college freshmen. With this move to the new structure we are betting that we will attract more good applicants from high school than we will make poor "admit" decisions on. For the first two years of the new structure, we will admit 70 students as incoming freshmen; the balance of the class will be made up of rising sophomores. Over time I can foresee the School going to a three-tier admit process: 1/3 direct admits as incoming freshmen, 1/2 preferred admits as incoming freshmen (but who don't become Business students until their sophomore year), and 1/3 admitted as rising sophomores. (Yes, this adds up to more than 1; however, I'm assuming that some of the direct and preferred admits won't end up graduating from the Ross School.) This would allow the Business School to take advantage of the University's undergraduate admissions program, increase the number of students who are with the Business School for 4 years, and minimize the risk of admitting students right out of high school.
Quality and diversity of student body: One of the problems with having a 2-year program is that it created a two-hurdle process for someone to get admitted to the Business School: first, get admitted to the University as a freshmen; second, get admitted to the Business School as a junior. This discouraged many attractive applicants from applying to our School and, instead, led them to attend schools that have 4-year programs such as Wharton, Indiana, or Washington University (St. Louis). We plan on creating procedures that will help us attract and allow us to keep a student body that is of higher quality and greater diversity than the one we now have.
Timing: We are going to admit 70 students in Fall 2006 as preferred admits. In Fall 2007 we will have 70 direct freshmen admits and 280 or so direct sophomore admits. In Fall 2008 we might begin the process of preferred admits, but that decision will come at a later time.
Continued existence of current program: We will have incoming classes under the 2 year program in Fall 2005 and Fall 2006; the last graduating class of 2-year BBAs will be in April 2008.
Relevance of current program: Given that 1400 BBAs will graduate in the next 4 years under the 2-year curriculum, we will continue to give this program our attention. Besides, any efforts that the School makes to improve the infrastructure surrounding the 4-year program will also improve the 2-year program.
Over-emphasis of business: Given that an undergraduate education is meant to provide a broad-based education for a young student, some worry that expanding to a 4-year program will make the program too narrowly-focused on business. On the contrary, the faculty believes that this change provides the ability to broaden each student's education. There has been no change in the basic liberal arts requirements to graduate with a degree. There has only been one business class added to the School's requirements for graduation (the World of Business course). The timing change of courses provides space in the schedule for students to take more upper-level liberal arts classes, even allowing for minors and double majors.
Availability of resources: Given the schedule described above, the 2006-07 calendar year will see lots of students taking classes in the Business School. This will also be the first year that we have over 1000 BBAs enrolled at the same time: 70 freshmen, and 350 sophomores, juniors, and seniors. Further, we will probably be heavy into the construction phase for our new building (?) by then.

Conclusion

If you have any questions or concerns about the BBA Program, post it here.

Winter electives

2004-10-25T08:04:00.000-04:00

I asked professors in the Ross School who had electives that they thought students should know about or might not already know about to submit information about the course so that I could post it here for your consideration. There are some really nice & interesting classes listed below, if I do say so myself.

BBA2s

ACC/FIN 335: Applied Financial Analysis and Portfolio Management

Professor: Richard Sloan
For more information: Prof. Richard Sloan
Location of the course: Tozzi Center

This course is targeted to BBA2s with an accounting or finance emphasis. Students will work in the Tozzi Center and learn how to use the technology to manage a real investment portfolio. This is the only BBA offering in Tozzi for the year.

Both BBA1s and BBA2s

CSIB/MO 470: Strategic Management of Knowledge in Professional Service Firms

Professor: Lynn Wooten
For more information: Contact Professor Lynn Wooten at 763-0486 or by email at lpwooten@umich.edu

This course provides an overview of the knowledge employee (e.g. accountants, advertising executives, attorneys, consultants) role as organizational problem solver and enabler. Through case studies and experiential exercises, the class introduces students to the strategic architect of professional service firms. During the second half of the semester, the course will have an action-based learning component. Students will work as entry level consultants on a scenario-based consulting engagement that unfolds over several weeks, culminating in a live presentation to an executive board. This Web-based simulated consulting engagement utilizes the latest learning technology to provide a unique networking, and virtual problem solving, experience.

LHC306: Enterprise Organization

Professors: Norm Bishara and Dana Muir
For more information: The course Web site or the professors

LHC306 is useful for all BBAs because it gives a good, practical overview of many of the legal issues facing businesses. Students interested in investment banking, entrepreneurship, or finance will want to take LHC306 because of its coverage of entity organization, securities law, secured financing, and mergers and acquisitions. These topics and general corporation law also will be indispensable to those going into consulting or those considering running their own successful business someday. Future CPAs also should be interested in LHC 306 because it covers concepts that are tested on the CPA exam including the basic laws of entity structure, such as LLPs, LLCs, Partnerships, and Corporations. All BBAs will find the employment law material useful and interesting as they are almost certain to be employees and/or employers at some point in their careers.

ACC318: Financial Statement Analysis

Professor: Reuven Lehavy
For more information: Prof. Lehavy

This course integrates many of the concepts covered in the strategy, finance, and accounting courses into a systematic and coherent framework for analyzing and valuing companies. We first learn how to discern of the nature of the business and its potential risk and success factors. Next, we acquire rigorous tools to understand the firm's financial statements and evaluate its financial performance. Based on the business and financial analyses, we next learn how to forecast the firm's future performance. The final--and perhaps most important--step is the detailed study of how to convert the financial projections and forecasts into an assessment of the firm's value. This capstone course is a must for any business school student. Students who have taken this course previously rave about it (you are encouraged to ask for their opinion!).

BIT358: Human Interface to Information Technology

Professor: Judy Olson
For more information: Judy Olson

Most applications fail because they are built with little knowledge of what the customers really need and what they can do. You can’t find anything on the screen; a small slip creates a huge loss of data; it is too hard to find the features you are looking for. It doesn't have to be this way. The secret is understanding customers' real needs and their capabilities, and then designing to delight them.

This course teaches you how to:

assess the customer needs for digital products,
figure out the functionality of a new digital solution, and then
design an interface to it that is easy to learn, easy to use, and fun.

The course ties together learning and doing. We progress through the whole product development life cycle from product concept (from talking to potential users), to designing it, mocking it up, and advertising it. Past projects included a Palm Caddy (for golf advice), a new interface for selecting movies on demand on airplanes, enhancements to eBooks through a web interface, and new ways to check out at grocery stores. The core of successful design is understanding human beings! So, this is a combination of software development methods and psychology --- quintessentially people-centered.

This course is taught by award winning teacher Professor Judy Olson, who is a leader in the field of Human Computer Interaction (sometimes called CHI for Computer Human Interaction), recently elected to the CHI Academy recognizing her pioneer role in the field. Well organized, interactive, and fun!

Living in "the box"

2004-10-18T07:24:00.000-04:00

BBAs view the world in a way that differs from other students. It's not good or bad per se but it leads to certain outcomes that the BBAs, their professors, and others may not foresee. In this article I will be broadly characterizing and even drawing a caricature of BBAs; it won't be wholly correct but I am attempting to highlight how the behavior of BBAs differ from other students in the School.

While attending the Ross School, a standard BBA sees his or her life as a set of exclusive "boxes":

Anything that is in one box is generally unrelated to and even interferes with anything that is in another box. What does this tell us?

Any time spent at Ross-sponsored events interferes with activities related to getting a job. Since students see job-related activities as important (no matter how mundane), they will not go to the event except in the most exceptional circumstances.
What is learned in a class is not readily transferred to club related activities. This is because classes form their own self-contained world.
What is said in a business class has little effect on what other events you might go to. Again, this results from classes forming in their own self-contained world.
BBAs see their education as having two parts, the business part and the LS&A part.
BBAs don't see social activities and school events as being related either to their ability to get a job or to their career.

A belief that is not represented in the above graphic is that the business classes are the most important activities in the student's life. Activities perceived as being unrelated to business classes are allocated far less time than others. However, for BBAs the "Other obligations" box does not shrink very much since the student views this time as inviolable. Further, the "Getting a job" box can grow nearly without bounds during the student's time here. Combine all of these observations and you get the result that time for Ross events and LS&A classes can shrink to mere shadows of themselves if growth of the others is left unchecked.

Let's contrast this with how MBAs seemingly view their lives:

In their world many more activities are directly related to their business education: classes, clubs, events, networking, and getting a job are all fairly closely related to each other.

Students believe that information that is learned in one is, and should be, fairly closely related to each other. This means that the skills and knowledge learned in class should be nearly directly transferrable to what the student thinks they will do in their job.
Students are more likely to go to business school sponsored events since these are closely related, and should be, to their classes and to getting a job.
Students go to classes and participate in clubs because they think that these activities will affect their ability to get jobs.
Students spend lots of time networking with other students (in clubs, during events, in class-related activities) because they believe that this will help them get a job.

The above descriptions are not perfect, but they should help guide the thinking of any faculty teaching a class or anyone putting on an event. Further, I hope that BBAs reflect on the above description and their own actions so that they are aware of the choices they make and their underlying assumptions. I am not hoping for a change in those actions; I just want the students to realize what they are doing and to end up making the choice that they are comfortable with and that is best for them in the long run.

Evaluating professors

2004-10-15T08:05:00.000-04:00

One of students' common misunderstandings about life at the Ross School is the importance of teacher evaluations. Students usually state the belief that the School needs to emphasize teaching more in the tenure decision and make student evaluations a more important component of the evaluation of the professor. (To understand the tenure process better, you might want to read this post.) To address the second point first, the student's teaching evaluations are the major teaching-related metric the school uses in the tenure case. We don't use any formal peer feedback; this is actually a point of periodic discussion among the faculty because many think that some peer feedback should be used, but that is a discussion for another time. Thus, student evaluations are of vital importance to a candidate's case. Students should take this responsibility very seriously. The average student evaluation for Ross classes is about a 4.4 (if my memory serves me correctly); anything above 4.2 is considered acceptable without further thought during the tenure decision process.

Now, as to whether teaching should be emphasized more in the tenure decision. Actually, as far as I know, the Ross School emphasizes teaching more than any other major research institution. And, to be clear about it, this is a research institution. In my opinion the whole of the University of Michigan is what it is, and it enjoys the reputation it enjoys, because of the quality of the research the faculty engages in. The Ross School is part of the University and the faculty must fulfill its research obligations. Faculty make names for themselves and for the school by doing useful and widely-referenced research. This attracts other faculty and Ph.D students to the school, helping to perpetuate our name. Teaching doesn't have the same impact; this may not seem fair or right but that's how it is in academics. However, this is not to say that good teachers are not valued here at Ross. They are, and the fact that I received tenure at all shows that teaching is highly valued by the school. Many professors at Ross care deeply about teaching; however, we are a research institution and all that we do must take that into account.

The disconnect that students probably feel results from the fact that, once a professor receives tenure (that is, he or she is an "associate" or "full" professor), then his or her continued employment doesn't really depend on how well he or she performs in the classroom. To some faculty, teaching is how they made a name for themselves in the School and is quite enjoyable. To others, teaching is hard work and something that takes away from the time that they can research. This is one of the reasons that the quality of classes can vary so much.

Some thoughts on the tenure process

2004-10-14T09:02:00.000-04:00

In the following I address the tenure decision process at the Ross School of Business, the importance of teaching to that decision, the importance of research to the School, and, finally, how a person might make sense of a specific tenure decision.

In reading the following, you should be aware that I am a professor who relatively recently went through the tenure process (and was granted tenure). Given this, I am aware that some of the following may seem self-serving. Further, the following opinions are from me and do not represent the official position of anyone anywhere. It's just my take on things right now.

I'll start with a quick overview of the tenure decision (many details are left out), Just as being a student involves more than going to class, being a professor involves much more than teaching classes. It also involves doing research and performing service activities (committee work of various sorts, etc.). A newly-minted Ph.D. student starts his or her career as an assistant professor. This person works for about six years and then puts together his or her tenure case. The case is composed of items related to research and teaching. The former consists of a research statement that summarizes his or her work, several of his or her best papers, and a list of the names of 20 researchers from his or her field that the candidate thinks would be willing and able to provide an informed opinion about the candidate's research. (These letters are written in confidence so that the writer can express himself or herself without reservation.) The teaching-related items are a teaching statement that is usually a comment on past performance and future plans, and the numeric student evaluations from classes the candidate has taught.

At the beginning of the seventh year the candidate's department evaluates his or her case. The general decision criteria used is that the candidate must be either a great researcher or a great teacher and must be very good in the other. The school then goes out and asks for letters of recommendation. Once the school has received these letters, the department's tenured faculty read them and come to a recommendation about the candidate. This is passed to the school whose interests are represented by various senior faculty and deans. The school reviews the case and arrives at some sort of consensus on it. If positive, the decision is forwarded to the University Provost; if that decision is positive, then it is forwarded to the University Regents. If the decision by the school is negative, then the process usually stops at that point.

If the candidate is approved by the Regents, then he or she becomes an associate professor. As a tenured professor, this person essentially has a lifetime employment contract. Unless the person breaks serious laws or is involved in equally serious ethical violations, then this person doesn't have to worry about getting fired. That's why the tenure decision is so important. The motivations for the person have changed overnight. Before tenure the person is motivated to work so that he or she might get lifetime employment security; after tenure the person is motivated to work by his or her own intrinsic value system. For the employer (the university) there's now no "stick", only "carrot".

A full professor (or simply "professor") is someone who has gone through an additional process some time after the original tenure decision. This can occur anywhere from 3 years to 10 years later --- or never. This additional title indicates that the School respects his or her intellectual accomplishments and trusts him or her to make long-term decisions related to the School.

Now, as to specific tenure cases and trying to understand a specific tenure decision. In the first place, I have certainly not agreed with all of the School's past tenure decisions. That is my right. I'm sure that if I'm involved in tenure decisions in the future, others will not agree with my decisions. It is an inherently contentious, difficult, ambiguous, and extremely important process. It is a difficult one for all but the most seasoned tenure observers to attempt to divine. It is doubly difficult for students because they generally see only half the picture.

As discussed above, the official measure of a candidate's teaching quality is student evaluations. (See my previous post on this topic.) As for the research decision, that can be a point of contention even among informed observers and participants. This is why the school asks for so many letters. Look at what groups can stop the tenure process: research peers from other institutions, the candidate's department, the school, and the University administration. There are hundreds of reasons for someone not receiving tenure, many of them not related to the quality of the candidate's research. It's really tough to know exactly what the reasons are unless you're in on the decision process. Even then, it can be difficult to articulate why a particular decision is made. Think about your own decisions about whether you like to work with someone or not. Sometimes you are able to articulate those reasons but sometimes you are not. It's the same here but it's a very important and public decision.

Tours of Residence Halls

2004-10-08T08:20:00.000-04:00

I have already gotten volunteers to show me around around a few residence halls:

MoJo: 10am
West Quad: 12noon, 4:15pm
South Quad: 1pm
Stockwell: 2:15pm

I explained the reason for these tours in the following email that I sent out to all BBAs:

This is definitely not your average email from a professor.

I have a request of someone...anyone.

I have been appointed by President Coleman to serve on the committee "Residential Life and Learning: Building on Michigan Traditions Task Force". This is a long-winded way of saying that I'm on a task force that is going to come up with recommendations about both the new dorm that is going to be built and the renovation of Mosher-Jordan and Stockwell.

What does this have to do with you?

I am going to be at a retreat all day Sunday. (Doesn't that sound like fun?) We're going to be talking about what's needed for the new dorms. It seems to me that I should know something about the current dorms. But I don't. I don't know anything about them. I haven't been in a dorm since 1984 when I was an undergrad. If you can't do the math, just believe me when I say that it's been a while.

This is where you come in. I'd like a student to give me a tour of one of these residence halls, preferably MoJo or Stockwell --- but it can be any one of the larger ones. Shouldn't take more than 30 minutes to an hour. I'm available all day on Friday. I would really appreciate anyone who steps up to the plate on this one.

Don't feel you have to show me your dorm room. (I know that I would have had issues with a professor seeing my dorm when I was in college.) I'd just like to have a student show me around sometime tomorrow (Friday, that is, Oct 8, 2004), preferably before 4pm or so.

If you can help me, please respond to this email. I'll post a message on http://rossbba.blogspot.com once I've scheduled something. Thanks in advance for helping me out.

So, here I sit in my office at 11pm on Thursday night, reading my materials in preparation for the retreat. I send out this request, and within about 5 minutes I get three responses. I don't know whether to think that's really cool (which it definitely is because you're helping out a professor in need) or that it's a sign that some students are studying a lot (which it most definitely is). So, I guess I'll just go with "What is both?, Alex."

"Power of the Student" by Jessica Shatzman

2004-10-07T10:51:00.000-04:00

An article in this week's Monroe Street Journal by Jessica Shatzman entitled "The Power of the Student" was simply tremendous. The pull quote summarizes it fairly well:

It makes sense that a teacher would be more engaged teaching classes where the students show excitement about the subject matter they are learning and about learning itself.

I've told this to students for umpteen-many years. Certainly, as a professor I understand my responsibility in setting the tone in the class. No doubt, it's a big deal. But I have had the hardest time getting students, especially those who are having a difficult time with some particular professor, to understand that, unless they pick up the ball and run with it, they're never going to have a good class. It is the students who carry the day, who get other students involved, who pick up the professor's energy. Professors can try to invigorate a class but it's the students who actually make it happen.

One of my (or, possible, my only) strengths as a professor is the energy I bring into a class. In a perfect world this shouldn't matter, but it does. It seems that students pick up on this energy and feed it back to me, the other students, and the material. However, students should realize that it works the other way, too. There's nothing more exciting to a professor than realizing a group of students in a classroom are excited about and interested in the class's material. Nothing. The excitement that he or she feels will help invigorate the professor and almost definitely increase both the quality of and the energy delivered in that day's (and future days') classroom activities.

Try it out, sometime.

Thanks, Jessica, for raising this issue.

Productive Wednesday meetings

2004-10-06T11:50:00.000-04:00

I have now had three Wednesday afternoon meetings with students over the past three weeks. (Funny how that works out...) Though I have invited 20 students to each, I have had no more than 5 students show up for any one meeting. That's too bad, as far as I'm concerned anyway, because we have had some very good conversations. (Hmmmm. Maybe it's because so few students have shown up that we've had good conversations? No. Cancel that! I want everyone to come!) More importantly, I know that I have learned a lot about the program. I think I can also state that students have either learned something or feel that they have been heard (that is, they had some gripes to share and they shared them).

As a result of these meetings, at least one (what I would call) significant change is in the process of being addressed. The fact that the LHC305 final was scheduled for December 23rd was brought to my attention during one of the meetings. We're working on this, and we hope to have an announcement soon.

A less significant, though still positive change, also occurred because of an off-hand comment in one of these meetings. "Boy, I hope our section doesn't have a bunch of 8:30am classes again next semester." Uhhh, I didn't know you did. I made a note to myself, checked with Student Services, and ... make it so! We have verified that there has been a relative balancing of 8:30am classes across sections. Seems only fair.

Other students have been able to discuss (with me and with other BBA1s and BBA2s) concerns about professors, worries about presentations and interviews, and other general issues related to school. Where possible, I have helped the student resolve an issue or just facilitated a discussion among the first- and second-year students that generally address their worries.

This position of BBA Program Director is relatively new, and I am new in this position. As such, the position is not well defined. Further, given the structure of the school, my organizational power is rather limited. I have to rely on my power of persuasion and general all 'round good looks to get things done. (Hmmm.) Since I have a limited supply of each, I need input from you to help me figure out what problems to focus on. These meetings are one way that you can have an effect on my priorities, the BBA Program, and the Ross School.

I hope to see more of you at these meetings.

Competing with other graduates

2004-10-05T08:11:00.000-04:00

Our graduates aren't competing just with graduates of other Big 10 schools, Wharton, MIT, and the rest. They are also competing with graduates in Vietnam, for example, who would work for a lot less money than our graduates:

World'Vest Base hires recent graduates with accounting or finance degrees, but no experience, for a starting salary of US$100...a month, little more than an unskilled factory worker earns in neighbouring China. [from this article]

Yes, I believe there's a difference between our graduates and the above graduates. And, yes, I believe that the difference favors our graduates. However, am I willing to say that our graduates are worth 40x as much in all cases? No, I'm not. I do believe that our graduates can prove themselves to be the superior long-term investment for many companies because of their potential for leadership and management.

Every BBA student should be able to answer the question "Why should I hire any Ross BBA and pay him or her $4-5000 per month when I can pay a company overseas much less than that to get the same work done?" I am guessing that the answer should do with the student's potential to advance in management, with the potential based on the student's demonstrated experiences in clubs and previous jobs. While developing these leadership and management skills, the student should be able to contribute to the daily work of the company with his or her analytical skills and ability to work in teams to complete projects and accomplish tasks. The quality of communication skills the student uses in presenting the pitch would be just as important to the potential employer as what is said because this is how the potential leadership and management skills would be expressed.

It is for the above reasons that I believe that leadership development and communication classes are among the most important courses that a BBA takes while at the Ross School. It is also why I believe extra-curricular activities are so important: they give students the opportunity to practice the leadership and communication skills that they are developing in class.

The luck of the draw

2004-10-04T07:37:00.000-04:00

Current students of the Ross School of Business are very lucky. We have had incredible success attracting companies who are interested in recruiting our students. The long list of corporate presentations that we see now, and the list of companies who will be interviewing and hiring later, directly reflects the strength of the economy. It surely also has a lot to do with the quality of our students and the education they receive. Companies would not be interested in coming to (or coming back to) Michigan to recruit if they weren't happy with the students they hired. However, a couple years ago we had far, far fewer presentations, interviews, and hiring going on. Students definitely weren't complaining about the fact that there were too many presentations, and "I don't have time to go to them all!" I promise, that wasn't happening.

I don't think that anyone could reasonably infer that this year's students are that much better than the students two years ago. Certainly, Dean Dolan and many others are doing a great job getting the word out about the Ross School, and the story that we can tell about the school and our educational philsophy is a compelling one. But, again, I don't think anyone could conclude that this year's students are that much more amazing than the ones who graduated in recent years.

So, what's the point in bringing all of this up? Am I somehow feeling compelled to beat up on our current students? Far from it. I think they are simply marvelous; however, I want them to go through this job seeking process with an air of humility and thanks as opposed to an attitude of conceit, that they are somehow deserving of these opportunities, even more deserving than others. Students do not somehow deserve to get lots of interviews. They do not deserve to have people wait on them hand-and-foot. They are qualified and are worthy of the opportunities, to be sure. I just hope that they are thankful for the opportunities they do get.

Choosing corporate presentations

2004-10-01T06:18:00.000-04:00

The Ross School is having great success this year at attracting companies to recruit our students. This has raised a "problem" for students: which corporate presentations to go to? The right answer to this question depends on whether or not you are in your junior or senior year at Michigan.

Juniors should stay relaxed about attending corporate presentations. Think of them as something that you can do when you're not studying. They are useful to go to, but you shouldn't obsess about them. (That's for the seniors to do.) Don't think "Oh, look at all of these that I'm going to miss!" Instead, at the beginning of the week pick out 0-4 per week that you might be interested in. When the time comes for the presentation, if you don't have some studying (or eating or working out) to do, then go to the presentation. Get there on time, sit in the back, be quiet, and observe.

I'm emphasizing that juniors should generally be on the quiet side for several reasons. First, presentations in the fall are generally targeted at seniors. If the presentation says that it is also for juniors, it is most likely for informational purposes for that group; in the winter they'll come back and talk to you about internships. Remember, if you don't get good grades (first) and stay active in your extra-curriculars (second), then you won't need to worry about scheduling lots of interviews and call-backs when you're a senior. Stay focused on what's important (your health, grades, friends, activities) and the recruiting cycle will take care of itself during your senior year.

Second, you don't have much of a background from which to formulate a question. You should wait until after you've had a course in marketing before you ask some corporate representative a question about their marketing job ("What does someone in marketing do?"). To clarify, it's not that you shouldn't ever ask questions, it's that you should ask your questions in an informal, relaxed setting when others with more pressing concerns (like getting a real job) aren't waiting to interact with the representative. Do this now with the understanding that, next year, juniors will do the same thing for you.

Third, and related to the previous point, corporate representatives generally go to many campuses, and you are being compared not only with other Michigan students but with students from other business schools around the U.S. These other students might be in 4-year programs and might have already had 2-3 years in business classes by their junior year. So when you open your mouth and ask a question that shows that you don't have even a basic understanding of the company, their industry, or the career under discussion, you are casting doubt on the company's belief that the school is educating reasonably intelligent business students. When you go to a corporate presentation you are certainly not expected to understand what makes a certain company special, or how that company manages the careers of their employees, or what entry-level positions are available at a specific company. But, if you ask questions, you certainly should have a basic understanding of the company, the company's industry, and the career for which the company is recruiting. If you don't, then do your homework, get the representative's card, and ask permission from that person to send them a question later if one should arise. You can use that later opportunity to ask any legitimate questions and thereby make a positive impression on the representative for yourself and the school.

Juniors should go to presentations from multiple career paths and industries. Stay open-minded. You may think you know what you want to do, but you're more than likely wrong. You're just a kid and you don't exactly have a lot of work experience to fall back on. The average person changes careers X times, where X≥1 --- so, more than likely, your first career is not going to be your last. Another way to think about this is that the career you choose to work in first is probably not going to be the right one for you. (Don't worry. This is a good thing, not bad.) Two conclusions can be drawn at this point:

You should gather information about a variety of careers and industries to help ensure that your first decision is a good one.
Accept the fact that your decision is probably going to be wrong and take your first job for the learning experience that it will be. You'll want to work at this job hard, try to learn all of you can from it, and make good impressions on all of the people you come in contact with. Everything that you do in your life gets added to the puzzle that is you, and you will be a better person if you learn from all of your experiences.

Let's contrast this with seniors who are going to presentations in the fall to find a company that they would like to work for --- and that might want to hire them. They have all sorts of different concerns than juniors, and the questions themselves should be of interest to the juniors as a way of teaching them about how companies can be compared with one another:

"Do you have a training program?"
"Do you have a mentorship program?"
"What have been the career paths of BBAs who you've hired before?"
"What's the culture like? Give me some examples of what you mean."
"Contrast what it's like working with your company with what you know about working with other companies."
"What makes your company special?" or "What gets you excited on a day-to-day basis about working for your company?"
"What's the average day like of a person in (this particular entry-level position)?"
"How much travel is involved?"

In short, learn what you can from presentations but don't make them out to more than they actually are. The presentations are a good way to learn about companies and about what it's like to work for them. Otherwise, take care of yourself, your grades, your friends & family, and stay involved in activities that interest you.

Securing your computer

2004-09-30T08:29:00.000-04:00

Walt Mossberg, the Wall Street Journal's technology writer, came out with his fall personal computer buying guide today. In it he also discusses how to secure your computer so that bad guys don't take it over. He has a real nice set of recommendations to follow. He's not paranoid; people really are out to get him and you.

All of these recommendations might sound over-the-top; however, every year I have students who come to me and tell me how their computer is now unusable and that they're now having to re-install their operating system. This is especially prevalent among students who share a computer (in a fraternity or sorority or just off-campus housing). You should set up the security on these computers tighter than ever because you can't trust the computing habits of all the folks who use them. Some of these programs cost money. Spend the money somehow: get a job, get a loan from mom and dad, share the cost among everyone who uses the computer. But somehow, some way, buy the software and get the automatically updating version so that you won't lose all of your work at the end of the semester when all of your papers are nearly done.

I have ZoneAlarm Pro running at work and home at all times as a firewall to stop both bad guys from getting in and bad guys who have already gotten in from sending information out. Once I installed a router with NAT at home the attacks that got through to my computer dropped by way over 90%. To stop viruses I use VirusScan Enterprise since that's what the UM makes freely available to all of us. This runs at all times and scans my computer every night. To stop spyware I run SpySweeper every night; this software recently has contributed much to my peace of mind while using my computer.

In the "I know I'm going a bit overboard but it actually ended up helping" category, I also downloaded Spybot Search & Destroy and Ad-Aware. Both of these are quite effective and would (I'm guessing) be just as good as SpySweeper and caught a couple things that SpySweeper didn't to begin with. But I'm currently using SpySweeper and am very happy with it.

My mail program is Thunderbird from Mozilla. It has its own built-in spam filter that works quite well and gets better the more that I use it.

The most important thing that you can do, even if you don't do any of the above, is to stop using Internet Explorer and start using Firefox, the browser from Mozilla. It's fantastic, it's safe, it's easy to switch to. I've even gotten my wife and my mom and dad to switch to Firefox; they were able to do it without a problem. It automatically brings over your bookmarks and whatever else you want from IE. Don't hesitate; do it now; make the switch.

Buying a computer

2004-09-30T07:19:00.000-04:00

Walt Mossberg, a very good writer for the Wall Street Journal, has come out with the fall version of his personal computer buyer's guide. If you're in the market for a computer (Windows or Mac), then his guide is a good place to start for recommendations about what to buy.

Below I'll comment on some of his recommendations:

Windows or Mac: I own Macintosh, Linux, and Windows computers (in order of preference). I have used PCs (DOS, then Windows) since 1984 and worked for IBM in the early-to-mid 1980s. I have used Macintosh computers since 1989 and Linux computers since about 2001. I love Macs but had to teach so much Windows-specific software (in the late 1990s) that I had to switch to Windows at work. I've switched to Linux at home and will probably be making the switch to a Mac here at work soon.
Security: I'll write more on this in a later column.
Memory: A hugely important factor in how fast you perceive your computer to be. I recently upgraded my computer here at work from 512MB to 1.25 GB. It's made a huge difference in my day. I have so much memory because I tend to work with a lot of applications at once and keep a lot of windows open at once. (I currently have 10 windows open and that's not very many for me; sometimes when I'm programming I have over 30 windows open.)
Processor: I have AMD processors for my machines at home. They're generally much cheaper than their equivalent (and, yes, I mean equivalent) Intel processors. And, yes, the slowest processor on the shelves is more than enough for your computing needs unless you're a gamer or work with a lot or graphics or video manipulations.
Digital connectors: Having USB 2.0 connectors on the front of your computer is really a great convenience. However, if you don't, buy a 5-foot USB cable and a USB 2.0 1->4 cable connector (so that you'll have 4 USB connections to work with), connect it up to the back of your computer, and lay the 4 connections next to your monitor so that it's easily accessible.
Hard disk: Since I don't do much video processing (I'm learning but haven't had the need to do a lot yet) I don't need more than the 80GB I have in my machine. If you do any video processing, then get the fastest and largest hard disk you can find because this will affect how fast you perceive your computer to be.
Memory card slots: I don't worry about this because both my video camera connects via IEEE 1394 and my digital camera connects via USB.
Ethernet connection: Gotta have it if you're going to have cable.
Video system: He hints that you should get a separate video card with its own memory and processor. Do it. It doesn't really matter which one (again, unless you're some kind of video or gaming wizard) or how cheap it is --- just do it.
Audio system: Yep, spend the extra money for good speakers. I have a nice set of Yamahas at home. Here at work I have some fairly nice Sennheiser HD 570 headphones.
Monitor: Along with memory, this is where I spend my money. Here at work I have a 19" flat panel. I just traded in my old 20" CRT monitor for this one so that I could have the extra real estate on my desktop. At home I have a beautiful 21" CRT monitor. It's huge but it has a beautiful screen.
Mass storage: I just got an HP DVD-RW drive that works just great. Took out my CD-RW when I put it in because I didn't have the need for both.
Where to buy: I've bought every way possible --- big stores, small local shop, Web. They all work for me --- and you can get good computers from each --- but I prefer the last two because they allow you to get exactly what you want.

A side note: I recently installed Windows 2000 SP2 at home. After doing so I could, effectively, no longer access the Internet. I did every possible thing I could think of for about 2 weeks. Nothing. Finally, I realized I needed to do a complete backup of my computer. For backups I normally copy the files I need to my Linux machine at work --- but since I didn't have Internet access I couldn't do that. So I decided to install a DVD-RW and back up my files that way. I installed a $99 HP drive so that I could make the backups and...I now had Internet access. Why? I have no idea. So, I fixed my Internet access problem by installing a DVD-RW drive. Make sense? No. Am I glad it's fixed? Yes.

No one really understands computers, no matter what anyone says.

Appropriate and worthwhile extra-curricular activites

2004-09-27T09:01:00.000-04:00

I am in a position in which I hear a lot about the extra-curricular activities of students. Let's see...

I read about their activities on their applications to the business school.
I hear about them when talking to them in my role as advisor.
I used to read applications for jobs when I worked in the real world.
I read applications for positions that I hire for in my current job.
I read resumes of current students.

Given all of this, I consider myself something of an expert on the "formal" extra-curricular activities of college students. In my position as BBA Program Director, students ask my advice about what extra-curricular activities are most worth their time. This is certainly a fair question given all the demands on a student's time.

Joining lots of clubs to make it look like you're active doesn't fool anybody. What looks impressive is to do something in which you have to have a plan and carry it out, preferably over a long-term period. Activities like the UM Solar Car Team are at the top of the list, especially if you are a manager or coordinator of some type. A real job, even if it's part time, that you've held for years is also good, especially if you've earned some promotions over that time. Having a series of positions in a fraternity or club is okay, but it is more impressive if you've coordinated events that have goals and you've worked over time to meet them. Being an officer of some club isn't all that impressive, but if you specify that you put on some event like the BBA Games that required coordination and communication with many other contributors, then it becomes much more impressive.

In addition to building a resume, another (even better) reason for participating in extra-curricular activities is because you want to. Wow. What a concept. This leads you to build a network of friends who have the same interest as you which, in turn, leads to the possibility of life-long friendship. Which is one of the real reasons that college life is such a really great thing.

#1 ranking in WSJ in 2004

2004-09-22T14:05:00.000-04:00

Though this ranking relates specifically to the MBA program, it has a lot of relevance to BBAs. Why do I say this, you ask? We sell recruiters on the "one-stop-shopping" nature of the University. If they want MBAs, we got 'em; if they want BBAs, we got 'em; if they want engineering students, we got 'em; ditto for LS&A, computing, English, etc. Having a BBA program makes the University more attractive to recruiters than it would be otherwise. And it's not like the BBA program is the weak sibling of the bunch: it's always ranked in the top 3 or so of any list that I've ever seen.

Furthermore, if recruiters come here for MBAs and like the Business School, they are (more than likely) also here recruiting BBAs and enjoying the services of our top-notch Career Development office. Speaking of which, the high-quality service of OCD is shared by BBAs and MBAs alike. All of the corporate relationships and alumni and data that are available for MBAs are naturally available to BBAs. This means that you are the beneficiary of services that wouldn't be there were it not for the fact that we have to support such a large number of students (BBA, Day MBA, evening MBA, MAcc).

Thus, while this ranking isn't for the BBA Program, students in that program benefit from it.

BBA Games 2004

2004-09-18T11:19:00.000-04:00

The Fourth Annual BBA Games, held on a not-too-cold, not-too-hot Friday afternoon (9/17/04), were a complete success, at least in the eyes of this observer.

After getting everyone through registration, the games began with competitions among the sections. There was the world's largest kickball games, with dozens of fielders spread throughout the outfield. A couple beach volleyball games were being contested with the ball only going over onto the railroad tracks a couple of times. Sections were also competing in football and ultimate frisbee. A jousting pit was available for those students with some real agression to take out on their "friends".

While this was going on --- actually, during all events throughout the day --- the recruiting tents were filled with lines of students and tables of interested companies. Students got plenty of loot as well: lunch, a BBA Games t-shirt, a Nalgene bottle, lots of software from Microsoft, and the big giveaway, an X-box from Microsoft.

A big "thanks" should go out to Mike Phillips and all others involved with putting on such a well-run event.

BBA Orientation 2004

2004-09-07T10:49:00.000-04:00

Jeff Rich (BBA 1982), CEO of ACS, a company that specializes in outsourcing, gave a highly enjoyable and motivational speech to wrap up the 2004 BBA Orientation. After discussing how he has led his company to the Fortune 500, he discussed what Michigan means to him and what he looks for in new hires. He wrapped up by describing why BBAs are the best ("they're more fun") and then answered questions from students for 30 minutes. Mr. Rich is a strong supporter of the School and the BBA Program, donating much money and time to the School. All in all, it was a great ending to an informative three days of activities.

On Wednesday night new students were welcomed at a buffet dinner on the Portico by the BBA Ambassadors, senior BBA students who volunteered to help junior BBAs through their first year at the Business School. The program that night included Associate Dean Gene Anderson who highlighted many of the exciting activities going on with the School and the BBA Program.

On Wednesday night, Thursday morning, and Friday morning, Professor Kim Cameron talked with the BBAs about self-awareness, learning styles, and time and stress management. Students had filled out computerized instruments over the summer and brought the results to these lectures; Professor Cameron helped them interpret the results and learn about what makes each individual unique and what the overall make-up of the incoming class is. The highlight of Professor Cameron's sessions was an activity in which students were moving all around Hale Auditorium, sorting themselves into groups based on leadership styles.

Thursday afternoon Professor Paula Caproni started the students on several hours of activities that built up their team work skills. Students broke up into their sections and were led through the activities by their Ambassadors. These sections are going to be important to them because it is in these groups that they will take their core courses while they're in the Business School. Students got to know each other by engaging in some activities, including writing team resumes and then sharing them with each other. Each section also came up with their own motto which they later shared with all the sections in front of a highly energized crowd. We ended Thursday's activities with a dinner (highlighted by a very cool chocolate fondue fountain) and a human scavenger hunt.

On Friday morning after Professor Cameron finished his presentation, three BBA alumni from the 2002 and 2003 graduating classes --- Nicole Ernst, Erin Goss, and Molly Stafford --- spent some time addressing the new BBAs. They spoke for a few minutes each and then answered questions from the students. They each provided wise counsel concerning how students should focus their attention, become involved, and learn to love group work. These alumni are already great role models for our current students and demonstrated to the students, by their presence and how they conducted themselves, the possibilities that lie before them.

Mr. Rich's presentation wrapped up the orientation. We believe his presentation and the orientation itself energized the students, got them acquainted with their fellow students, and prepared them for the coming challenges of their time in the BBA Program.

New beginning of year activities

2004-05-27T21:43:00.000-04:00

I am looking forward to the Welcome (Back) reception on September 13 at 4:30pm; there will be some kind of food, probably more like a lot than a little. This is the first time that this has ever been done, and we need to show that School that the BBAs can and will support such an event.

I'm currently working with two of the School's best faculty members to design a new and improved BBA Orientation. Tom started the process and I will be carrying it through to the finish line. I'm really excited about it and you will be too when you hear about it. I won't give you all the details yet (because I have no idea of what they will be) but I will say that it's going to contain a lot more activity-based programs and a lot less talking-head programs. More details to come later.

New Grading Curve passed

2004-05-27T21:40:00.000-04:00

The new Grading Curve passed (by a wide margin). This will be implemented starting with this Fall's classes. The curve is set up in the following way:

Core Classes

≤ 40%: A-, A, A+
≤ 80%: B, B+, A-, A, A+
≥ 20%: B- or below

Electives

≤ 60% A-, A, A+
≤ 90% B, B+, A-, A, A+
≥ 10% B- or below

The faculty feels that the Core Grading Curve gives a little bit more guidance so that there will be more of a distribution of grades within courses. Further, it also offers a bit of encouragement to give more difficult assignments so that there will a wider distribution in scores on those assignments.

We have never had an Elective Grading Curve in the BBA Program. We looked at historical grades and about 80-90% of the classes already follow (or nearly so) this grade distribution. The faculty want to do two things with this curve: 1) Provide guidance for new faculty so that they know the norms of the School, and 2) Encourage faculty that aren't currently following this Curve to change their evaluation procedures so that they have some differentiation in their grading.

I'm very happy that these curves will be in place next year. There should be less anxiety about how grades will be allocated during the year. Anything that can reduce th anxiety level around here is a good thing.

I am named the new BBA Program Director

2004-05-27T21:36:00.000-04:00

I am the new BBA Program Director. I am looking forward to working with faculty, staff, and students over the coming year, and to taking advantage of all of the positive energy that was raised (especially during the last month or so) in relation to the BBA Program revision.

I worked with Tom quite closely over the last couple months and tried to learn as much as I could of what he knows about and thinks about the Program. I hope I've learned enough to be successful. We'll soon find out!

Two pieces of big news:

The new Grading Curve passed the faculty vote (by a wide margin). This will be implemented starting with this Fall's classes. (More on this in a later post.)
The new 3/4 year BBA Program passed (by a wide margin). We (the faculty) have now shown that we are capable of change. This is a very good thing for the School.

On another note, I am looking forward to the Welcome (Back) reception on September 13 at 4:30pm. I am also working with two of the School's best faculty members to design a new and improved BBA Orientation.

Tom Jones says 'goodbye'

2004-05-26T22:03:00.000-04:00

Tom Jones spent the last year as Executive-in-Residence in the role (which he created) of BBA Program Director. He has now retired from this job and is going on to bigger and better things after a summer spent 'Up North' (as we say here in Michigan). As the School's first BBA Program Director, Tom showed the School the value of having such a position.

I'm going to miss Tom a lot. He was a wonderful friend to the Michigan Business School in general and to undergrads in particular. Tom has been a great person to bounce ideas off of. He brought the corporate perspective to the School --- one that is generally missing from these parts. He had a sensibility about him that is so refreshing to someone (me) who generally deals with academics full time and had, honestly, forgotten what it was like to think about the world in that way.