Hints on installing Service Pack 2

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

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

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

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"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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:

1. You should gather information about a variety of careers and industries to help ensure that your first decision is a good one.
2. 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.