Between Graduation and EMBA 2010 one more weekend left….

After May 8th and 9th class, there is only one more week end left. The final three courses in this semester are Cornell management game, corporate governance and private equity project.

Corporate Governance final was completed last week end. Every one in the class came out and said that here goes the one last exam before graduation. Corporate Governance professor Robert Swieringa is a board member of GE. During the course he was able to provide several real life scenarios he dealt with part of corporate governance.

One day in the corporate governance class we were discussing Harvard business school Al Dunlop Sunbeam case. In the back of class Cornell management game professor Jerome Hass was sitting and observing the discussion. End of the discussion Prof. Hass described his interaction with Al Dunlop in a dramatic and fascinating manner. It was very interesting and also provided an insight about the individuals we discussed in the case.

Major topic discussed between classmates this week is graduation. The graduation is on May 29th in Ithaca. Most of the class is coming to the ceremony. Every one is exited about all the free time they are going to get after the class.

During last two years, we had seen classmates move on to bigger and better roles. We had seen entrepreneurs budding out from class of 2010. Over all, every one started as students and leaving as a life long friends. It is very interesting experience. Management education is entirely different than any other course. You will get an opportunity to see inside the minds of CEOs and board members to understand how they handled specific challenges. Overall this program balanced between management and financial related courses.

I am happy and proud to be part of Cornell Johnson School. I will write back one more time before my graduation.

Life is short, enjoy every moment of it!!!

Final residency in Ithaca.....

Week of Jan 11, 2010 is the final week of residency in ITHACA for EMBA2010. Comparing all four residency week, this week was the hardest of all. We had several deliverable some of them are individual assignments and some of them are team assignment. Most of my classmates are counting number of weeks to graduation already.

The weather in Ithaca was surprisingly better compare to single digits we had during last winter residency. The room I stayed in Statler was facing the Sage Hall and Cornell Bell tower with amazing view of finger lake valley. Sometimes during the late night studies, I just open the screen on my room to see the beautiful view of the tower and the valley.

Two papers taught during residency are supply chain management and financial statement analysis. The financial statement analysis professor Bhojraj is also manages the Johnson Cornell Cayuga fund. He showed us the parker center where students manage the fund. I should appreciate Johnson school for creating a Parker Center. This is like on the job schooling. Parker center has everything required for an investment banker, hedge fund manager or a mutual fund manager including software, hardware and real-time market data feeds. Predecessors to Prof. Bhojraj are managing 100 Million plus funds now and I am sure he will also move on to manage bigger investment units in the near future.

Usually during residency week we go out for Dinner. Due to high volume of school work, we could not go out for dinner except couple of days during this 4^th residency week. After several long hours in Sage hall (Johnson school building), the seven days felt like a month. Finally when we left Cornell campus on Sunday, we were completely exhausted and sleep deprived.

9 more weekends....And 18 weeks left in the program.....

After the residency, the first weekend class started on Jan 30^th in Palisades. Two more papers started this week end. Classmates were busy with identify and finalizing their private equity projects.

One of my classmates Tony arranged an ongoing racquetball tournament. I heard that Tony, Shireen and Omer are the leaders in this week. Hope to see more in the coming weeks.

After a small break during holidays, school work started in full swing again. In the remaining 9 weekend, one is down and 8 more to go....

Thanks for visiting my blog, see you all in couple of weeks.

Thanks

Patham