However, my laptop is a different issue. I have serious issues with Gateway. My laptop is about a year old and it is already experiencing problems shutting down randomly and not working. Gateway customer service is horrible and is not making me feel valued as a customer. If I cannot resolve the issues with my laptop then I am considering to switching to a computer company with more reliable customer service. Perhaps Dell will be a better solution. Does anyone know how their customer service compares with Gateway?

Most importantly, teams should be introduced to the simulation in more detail than a mere, "Please read over the assignment and ask any questions you may have." After reading the assignment, I felt prepared for the simulation. However, our first two quarterly reports took much longer than necessary and caused great undue stress. An entire class day should be devoted to explaining the simulation and perhaps completing the first quarter in class.

Other than that, the project went smoothly. One other point of advice may be to examine potential ways to hold the interest of the groups for the entire semester. There was a definite waning interest as the semester progressed and the simulation turned monotonous. Motivation among team members fell drastically. I have no suggestions at this point, but I believe several were brought up in class the day that we reflected on the simulation.

I have decided that my main goal in life is to "Work to live, not live to work." I hope to find a career I can fall in love with, but I anticipate having a happy, successful life outside of business. My other goals included such things as "starting a family," "traveling," and other similar achievements that I cannot wait to accomplish.

I will work at finding more specific goals, such as graduating from college. Goals such as this one can provide me with opportunities to fulfill other lifelong dreams and aspirations. I think this is a great activity and a good assignment to include in the Learning Plan.

I shared in class how my parents own a manufacturing company, FesslerUSA. FesslerUSA makes shirts, namely high-end ladies tees. Well, business was up and my parents were happy, but they were faced with an ethical dilemma. Abercrombie & Fitch, a clothing store extremely popular with my generation, was a customer of ours. Their screenprints that they sent for approval did not match my family's core values. They were very crude and just something my parents did not want to manufacture. It was a small issue, but Abercrombie submitted new designs and the problem was solved. Then Abercrombie came out with an XXX magazine that included naked photos and an interview with a porn star.

My parents stopped doing business with Abercrombie, making their ethics a higher priority than keeping Abercrombie as a customer. I am proud of my parents for holding on to their ethics and I hope I can maintain those same ethics as I go into the workforce.

I suppose I should take responsibility for this mistake; I should have considered that the numbers we had to go upon were mere estimations. Still, I am a little angered by this mistake. The HR simulation may be similar to actual HR practices, but I think random computer calculations like this undermine the effectiveness of the simulation.

As for "losing points," if we are not graded on the success of the simulation, I see little benefit to taking away points from our simulation. Rather, the punishment should be something that affects our goals or something we are striving for, like a blow to our morale rating.

My dad met a lady who happens to work in the Swaps and Derivatives Department at one of the largest investment banking firms in Cleveland. What a neat coincidence. I could use my networking skills, shoot her an email, namedrop, and perhaps get a foot in the door and apply for an internship.

That would be stellar. Here is where we encounter an issue of what we have been discussing in class for the past several days. Training. I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THE "SWAPS AND DERIVATIVES DEPARTMENT" IS IN AN INVESTMENT BANKING COMPANY. I'll take my first BAFI course in the Spring, and hopefully that will start to prepare me for the internship. However, all this talk in class got me to thinking about the training procedure and how they would train me, provided I even got the internship.

I'll keep you updated on the email, interview, and all the details. Who knows, maybe I'll "job shadow," do some "simulations," and maybe get some "hands-on training." This could be fun!

A friend of mine was tested by the Career Center at Case and was given some additional literature about the MBTI test. After looking through his handouts and researching about my personality type on the internet, I found that the ENTP is also described as the Inventor personality. I am not too sure about that description, but everything else fit me to a 'T.'

I did hear from my friend that the ENTP personality is rare, less than 1% of the population has that personality. I do not know about the validity of that percentage, but I would like to know more about my personality. I have a twin brother, do you think he would have a similar or different personality? What about my parents? What about my girlfriend? I intend to try to get my close friends and relatives to take the MBTI, just to see what happens.

- Ben

Examining my skills and assets, I can see that I am clearly a people person. I scored highly in the extrovert category on the MBTI and am personally rewarded by motivating and encouraging other individuals. While I have always considered a career in sales, I feel that a career in Admissions might be more personally gratifying than a business-oriented career.

Brett was actually the Assistant Director of Admissions at Penn State University, which was an added plus to my interview. I actually called several schools before calling Penn State's Office of Admissions, namely the other schools that I was accepted to before deciding on Case. However, with my personality, I feel like I would prefer to work with a larger Admissions department at a larger school than at a small school like Case.

Brett gave me a the specifics of his job and revealed that he juggled his personal life and his professional life very well. He had a fiancee and was very content in his role at Penn State, not planning on any career changes. However, he was less specific when I asked him about any personal gratification he derives from the process and rather vague about his reasons for entering Admissions.

I am unsure whether this idea is just a phase or if I should actually consider a career in Admissions in my future. Perhaps I should look into interning in the Admissions department at Case this summer. I am definitely considering an orientation leader position to help introduce incoming freshmen to Case. Perhaps a job in the Admissions department could complement my experience this summer.

- Ben

My interviewer was very nice and cordial, and we actually got along great. I definitely got the vibe that he liked me as an interviewee and would have offered me a second interview in a real-life situation. I answered most of the questions to his satisfaction and spoke rather well, in my opinion. He did reveal that he would have preferred to hear some more content in a few of my answers. I answered eloquently and briefly, but he would have proposed something a little more concrete and direct.

For instance, he asked me why I was better than my classmates and why he should hire me. I danced around the question of who was better and may have used phrases like "many of my classmates are also very qualified." I think I was more concerned about coming off as cocky or overconfident than I should have been. He wanted me to sell myself harder. I am the superior product. I need to communicate that. Next time....

However, one thing irks me about my interview. At the end of the interview, he switched into the role of a career advisor and took another look over my resume. He asked me, "Why are you participating in a Mock Interview if you're only a sophomore?" I have heard since the day I was born that the earlier I start preparing for my future, the better. The sooner I can find a good-paying job that will look good on my resume, the better. I was taken off-guard by his comment, for he felt I should wait until my junior year to even begin the internship search. In fact, he thought that I should "try manual labor this summer!" Those were his words, practically verbatim!

Manual labor?!? Does anyone else think that my guy was ridiculous? Shouldn't I start now looking for internships? An internship now will at least help me narrow down my field of interest for the future. I just found my interviewer's comments strange.

- Ben

We discussed in class about the necessity of having clearly defined roles within any team or group. We attempted to define our roles within the group without having actually run the simulation and had to do some adjustments after last week's group meeting. It took too long, each of the members was annoyed, and our work was sloppy. Basically, it was a bad start.

This week fared exceptionally well. We had adjusted our job descriptions at the last meeting, so I sent out the revised job descriptions and expectations to each member before the meeting. At the meeting, each team member took notes to write their reports for the Quarterly Report and we discussed the decisions that needed to be made. The meeting moved very quickly and smoothly. I think that with each meeting we will improve our communication and ability to make the decisions necessary for the simulation.

I greatly enjoy my role within the group. I feel I am doing a rather good job at facilitating the communication between group members and being the "leader" in an organizational sense. However, I feel that each of the members of the group should have an equal say in our decisions because we all have the same amount of experience going into this project. I am more than happy stepping back from the role of being in charge of it all and allowing each member to make a decision based on what he feels is best.

One of my roles for our last assignments, and for our Quarterly Reports, is combining each member's input into a fluid, cohesive paper. We received our Team Plan and Quarter 1 Report back and got very good grades. I think my group members, seeing my success with the last assignments and my willingness to allow each member an equal say in the decision-making process, will hopefully form a positive opinion of me as a team leader.

- Ben

As my learning styles inventory and MBTI stated, I am one who is far more likely to dive right in and do a project than sit and think about it. Additionally, I favor the concrete experiences of actually completing an assignment to reflecting about it afterwards or applying it to myself. This weekend was the first chance that I actually did an in-depth self-analysis using all the tools we were given in class.

It left me rather intrigued. I got the basics out of the way immediately: describing my personality, introducing the reader to my family, demonstrating some skills, etc. When it got to the reflection part about the MBTI and the other tests, however, I just sat back and stared at my laptop computer screen. As an aside, never try to do homework outside when the weather is nice. For reflecting about my personality lead to reflections about why I came to Case, whether I was truly enjoying Case, what I wanted to do with my life, and other probing questions that I generally stay away from.

I will not get into my answers to all those probing questions, and not all of them even had answers. Still, after finishing the assignment, which was much later due to my wandering thoughts, I feel like I have a better hold on who I am and the aspects of my life on which I wish to focus. I recommend doing something like a Learning Plan every so often, just to "get your head in the game." I liked it.

- Ben