the next 48 hours

after a long time of searching, after IPVG and Microsoft, my action consultancy (internship) started. well it started 3 weeks ago. i have a study with Global Business Power Corp (GBPC) about the power industry in the Philippines regarding the Independent Power Producer Administrator. so i had 3 weeks to study, and now i have 48 hours to finish my paper. :(
while my classmates are poring over our cases for the 2nd year electives. i have to consolidate... err write my report.
i've been absent from this blog for quite a time. the power industry has a lot of complications now especially with the deregulation ongoing. but there's a lot of opportunity in it as well. it makes me rethink if i really want to go to Singapore after b-school...

summer and a MS internship

so eventually I was able to find an internship/action consultancy. after 3 weeks of interviews, here come Microsoft. but still no terms of reference or contract yet. that part is a bit slow. so i'm still wary of what might happen.

so a mac user working for his internship in MS. unfortunately im not allowed to talk about the project outside of MS. there is a sense of secrecy for the project which is in the area of marketing.

i'm organizing the UP Social Dance Club's grand reunion this coming May 30th. It's been a long time since we ballroom dancers have congregated, danced and caught up on our life stories. our former club director, Tom Pena is also coming for a visit from UK.  So it all fits in. about 3 years ago, the club was dissolved in the university of the philippines and a new and similar organization was made, for reasons beyond ideas and egos which should not be discussed anymore. it also is a good time to celebrate a grand reunion since this is the year of UP's centennial.  there have been reunions in the past but it's always been by batches and some pseudo-reunions. hopefully there will be a big turnout on May 30th. many people have been hitched. a few have become mothers, and fathers. People have changed and gained weight or lost it. This will be a fun event. But i'm planning to make it just a casual night out of dancing... an lots of photos. I guess that will make it more dynamic, less fixed cost and no more waiting for latecomers so we can start the program. in the end, what's important is that we KEEP ON DANCING! 

the song of despair

it seems that an MBA is an anomaly. in the search for my action consultancy (internship), companies who should be bringing their cases/problem to consulting companies and paying roughly 100K-200K PHP(sometimes more) are employing MBA undergrads for 100PHP a day or 8 hours. it's demeaning considering my tuition here at AIM. at 100PHP a day, it seems like I am back at UP where i was a library student assistant... but with more brain work to be done.  

is this the case of all businesses right now? or is it only in the philippines? 

i wonder what will be the state of businesses when we graduate this december. most of my batch mates are contemplating to go abroad after the MBA.  this is brain drain all over. ah... why did the gunslinger cry at the watch tower?

the ballad of the forlorn mba

on account of being the last paper to be submitted, everyone is slacking off to catch their breath.  almost half of my batchmates have started their action consultancy or internship while the remaining ones are still looking for companies.  as for me, i'm slacking off for a few hours before i journey to my POTFin analysis of Apple Inc.  i actually found a harvard case as a model since organizationally, there is not much literature online.

its a sad thing that we AIM students are having a hard time getting internships even here in the Philippines.  I don't know if this will be the trend when we graduate. That is if we do graduate.  There are still some issues with the administration about the grades. but there is not much that we could do. so we focus on our action consultancy and then what? some might not be accepted back into the school?  the thing is, even with the problems with the current MBA16 batch, the administration has already decided to accept the next batch for this May. I wish them good luck.

blog-forward

everything just finished today. well for me at least. some people have to take the MCS exam tomorrow. our CAN group got exempted. very unlikely but we did. somehow we pushed through in the last minute and got the exemption. we just finished the OM exam about an hour ago and it was quite ... well simple. anybody who has done top-down programming in college would have no problems... but common sense would really help.
so first year business school is unofficially over (until tomorrow officially). but there are still 3 papers to submit. 1 individual, 1 by dyad partners, and the last one is by ad-hoc teams. I need to finish my part for the Chinese Nuclear Power Plant business plan tonight. I'm still researching about Apple for now.
I guess as early as now, I am feeling nostalgic. the pressure, we all hate it but we live by it. Although there have been flaws in the delivery of the MBA16 program, there are learnings. The problem is, even with the difficulties, the administration still wants us to pass our quantitative subjects! I would understand the process issues that we have, it is like a reflection of the real world outside. But then some of us are looking into another perspective. Whereas 8 months ago we were idealistic and hungry for learning, right now we are looking at finishing the course, getting our individual diplomas and getting out of the school. Its a bit sad, the issues plaguing MBA16 and the attitude of my batch. I understand what they are feeling and sometimes, I feel that way too (hmm, sounds like a song.)
we had our last strategy class this morning and it was like an eye opener. we look too much at business and corporate life that it reminded us about ourselves and individuals, as brother and sister, daughter and son, husband, wife and lovers, how business ethics should not be at the expense of other human beings. it was like a graduation speech, yet we are not yet graduates. i appreciate that class by professor Gallegos. I think that will be something sort of a guidebook for me. There is too much angst in my life, within and outside the mba arena. i guess there is still hope.
ashton kutcher, in 'a lot like love' was advised by his deaf-mute brother... Oliver, this is your life. It doesn't wait for you to get back on your feet.

and so with my nostalgia i continue to write on this blog. i'm actually done with the report this blog was initially for, but it seems my life is now connected with it. including my laziness. and so my blogging continues... to infinity and beyond!

financial management 2

in three days we will have our exam in financial management 2 (FM2). this will be a make or break exam for some of the guys and gals who already got a 2 unit failure here at AIM. fm2 is the hurdle to get into 2nd year. the thing is, there is no wash grades for it. and given that there are three teachers for it, its kinda hazy from corporate finance to derivatives and instruments, to risk management. i seriously hope that AIM look into the delivery of their 16 month program. the only people who would probably pass fm2 would be those who have functional knowledge of finance. as to passing, i could only hope.

reflections

i finished my social dancing walkabout. it wasn't a blast. but it was ok. i was able to address the issue of teaaching 3 dances in 3 hours. the most notable would be how they learned the tango in an hour only. the tango a latin dance but it is considered a standard dance in dancesport. i learned tango the hard way. strict tempo dancesport isn't much fun. plus my teacher's were too nerdy, the footwork and tempo was draining... it was hard to enjoy the dance. but in a lot of ways i am thankful for that training. it helped my form a lot and only minor quirks remain to be corrected. but the speed was something i'm not up to par yet.
anyways, around 10 pairs had fun doing the swing, chachacha and tango. everyone was quite excited with the tango which was nice because most of the time in group dance classes people shy away when its tango time. there was a low turnout of participants, partly due to scheduling and communications. the email system here at aim is still buggy. 2 of my emails did not push through on that same day. some 2nd year MBA and MDM friends were asking me why their class wasn't informed of the issue. apparently the posters i left at the elevators weren't enough or they were too busy/engrossed to notice it. marketing isn't a strong suite of mine. i had problems attracting female participants in the walkabout and i owe a lot to Rosie, Bingo, Kristine, Johnson, Lan and Diamond for helping me find other females and in taking photos. i could have made sure by advertising to the class presidents about the walkabout but then the low turnout was optimal in teaching everyone. i also thought i could have pre-enlisted the participant and have them pay me in advance. but revenue generation was not really a risk factor. and besides, at 100php the dance session was a steal. i could charge 15 times if it wasn't my walkabout.
im thinking about how to present the walkabout report. hmm... it seems i'll have to be creative...
only a few more weeks and 1st year b-school is officially over , the hype over passing FM2 is high among us whose passage to second year is contingent on that course. and our professor isn't something to be trifled with. so we are gonna be on an overdrive in our next two sessions for FM2. goodluck to me and my comrades.
i'm looking forward to my Action Consultancy with IPVG, i had fun in our interview. half of the time we were laughing as if we were college students in the cafeteria. perhaps, it was in their culture. IPVG CEO Enrique Gonzales says his company is like the 'Apple of Asia.' and Apple is one of the two companies i would like to work for after my mba. 2nd would be Google. IPVG can come as third :D back to their culture, it was a lot of fun being there alone, and yet we were not talking about monkey business but the current issues RA had as operations manager of the e-games division. the thing is it seems he's been too busy lately, that he has replied or filled up the Terms of Reference for our Action Consultancy. i'll just have to pester him a bit and drop by his office sometime.
the next five weeks is filled with deadlines for papers. we even have this presentation for Management Communication where one of us in the CAN group will act out a world leader in a speech. I was thinking of doing Ghandi but i have too much flabs. hahaha.