World Sojourner : 3760

Decided to take Patxi’s accent quiz. It’s pretty accurate - I grew up about an hour south of Pennsylvania in Morgantown.  Between starting there and the various traveling … at least from feedback this seems accurate.

One of my new found skills is cutting numbers 30 different ways using Excel.  Por ejemplo, err, uh for example I just finished my Spanish exam. 

How did it go?

How should I answer that … firing up excel I first created a 2 way sensitivity analysis around what this grade could be and what that would mean for my next test grade.  But, first I built a model of my grades - something simple - Grade, percentage of total, weighted average and the sum of those points.

Good stuff - thank you MBA.

Next I decided that the worst case scenario would be 30%, best 55%, and most likely - 44%.  Then using goal seek, I found the totals for the next exam.  Thanks to the 73.5% on the first exam, even my worst case scenario shows to get a 51% in the class (D equals done here folks) that I’ll need a 50% on the final exam.  Very, very doable.

Now, if I was so inclined I could then use @Risk to see if I took my test 1000 or 10,000 (how much fun would that be?) what my average grade would be given certain circumstances.   Hell if I get idle fingers later maybe, just maybe … no.

Ahh, the joys of an MBE so many ways to cut the information but I still can’t see into the future.

Hasta Luego.

PS - no none of those grades are disappointing to me.  The listening part was a farking nightmare (-35 points off the top), which gave me a top score of 65 so a 55 would mean I only missed 10 points from the max possible.

Link to Notes in Spanish - Learn with Podcast Audio Conversation from Spain.

I have to imagine sometime in my dad’s life, he looked at me and said - that boy is now a man. Frankly, I have no idea when that would be but a couple guesses come to mind - graduating some type of school (highschool, college, uh, uh grad school?) or a first girlfriend. Who knows - maybe getting married did the trick, but I’m certain there was a point.

Heck, even I realised when people called me sir and it wasn’t weird that maybe childhood was behind me.

Well, in the London Business School world that trip to maturity for our first year friends came today, the Finance One Exam (insert organ music here) .

Who knew a 5 foot X inch Italian professor with a PHD from Harvard could strike fear in the hearts of even the vainest, err, bravest student, but she does. Watching the first years study at every turn, cancel meetings or stare blankly during the meetings they did attend made it very clear - they are joining the fraternity. Those who survived. One of my study-group mates said that a 2006 gave her a beer at the end of the test and said, ‘Congratulations, you just graduated.”

When I think back to last year, the thing that I remember isn’t the finance or the marketing or the strategy, but surviving this test. Only had one panic attach during it, not too bad. Sadly, this exam was what I now refer to as the ‘good exam.’ Granted the MBA Programme office has restructured the offering, but with the finance one test - it’ll always be a beast.

Congrats first years - you’re women and men . So go get a job and stop eating all the food in the fridge - ah, yeah, now that it’s over get a little sleep and cut your hair! Enjoy it - there’s still a second one next term and sometime next spring - Management Accounting starts (more organ music please).