MBA @ Wharton: Recap of Term 3

[Almost About to Finish Term 4, I figured I'd clear out my backlog on the recap of Term 3!]

If there is only one thing I could say about Term 3, that would be "Whew! Its done." With about 3.25 credits--that's 4 1/2 credit courses, one 1/4 credit course and a 1 credit course--it was a lot of awkward context switching. Add to the mix your day job that pays the bills and occasional family considerations ;-), it got real messy.

My classmate Chairman P has a few posts on Term 3. Here's a funny poem and one on how you age faster at Wharton, especially during Term 3.

My take on the courses this past term:

Corporate finance (the 1 credit course) was an absolute delight. Prof Percival was great at de-quantifying finance; in other words, a good deal of time was spent in class trying to use financial analysis to drive strategy, product mix, cost structure etc. In contrast were the exams, which were mostly quantitative. Calculating NPV's by hand sure seemed like a lot of drudgery... The case write-ups were lesser binary in approach - we had the opportunity to understand a business problem, take our time, use Excel to analyze the data and then finally present a nuanced view point - not just numbers.

Marketing Management was like an introduction to marketing - basic frameworks (5Cs - 4Ps, Segmentation Targeting Positioning - STP etc), basic marketing math - describing the economic value to the customer (EVC), using EVC to set prices, figuring out break-even volumes, sizing up markets (for both volume and profitability) etc. While many of the concepts were tribal knowledge for many of us in the industry, it helps to have frameworks and a strong quantitative bias (only to be expected at Wharton) towards marketing initiatives. I particularly enjoyed Prof Bell's classes and especially his liberal references to marketing literature during his lectures.

For a 0.5 credit course, Marketing Strategy was a ton of work. Most lectures were case based. In addition to preparing for the cases, we had to work out the marketing math (like ad budget, price, market sizes etc) and enter the data into an online system. We spent a great deal of time messing with a market simulation system (called Sabre), which had algorithms that simulated typical market dynamics. In the later part of this course we looked into life-cycle of markets/industries; I think that may be a nice segue into Competitive Strategy - something we'll be looking in Term 4.

I learned a great deal of new concepts in the other two 1/2 credit courses: Matching Supply with Demand, and Managerial (or Cost) Accounting. I have never worked in manufacturing; I enjoyed learning about the type of issues one needs to be aware of with inventory management, use of different supply chain topologies, distribution strategies etc. I would say the workload was medium. Managerial Accounting was the last 1/2 credit course and it whizzed past most of us! Excellent professor and very pertinent material on inventory valuation, internal performance measurement, assigning costs to products etc. Especially in this day and age of corporate cost cutting, managerial accounting certainly teaches you what to focus on when you are looking to cut costs, and the right questions to ask when someone claims s/he cut costs.

Finally, a quick word about the course on communication. The intent is to get you comfortable with various forms of corporate communication - addressing employees, the press, managing crises etc. If you are not a good speaker already, I guess the course could help. But I have to say that its certainly not a conducive environment to prepare and practice a speech, especially when your communications class starts at 630pm or 7pm and goes on till 9. It makes even lesser sense given that you probably had two or three deliverables on that very day and have been sitting in class since 9am!