scm14

Expectations for MGMT 251

Thu, 08 Dec 2005 14:56:45 EST

I am not entirely sure of what is going to be covered in MGMT 251, but I get the feeling that the class will be fairly similar to this class. For one thing, we know that the Learning Plan is going to carry over to 251, which I know nobody is very happy about. Also, Prof. Piderit said there would be group work, which I personally enjoy because it makes it easier to keep the workload under control. I am looking forward to having Prof. Piderit because from my experience she seems to know the material and is very helpful when help is needed. I am hoping that the class with teach us a lot of useful things like MGMT 250 did and am looking forward to seeing what the class has to offer.

Final Thoughts on the Class

Thu, 08 Dec 2005 14:22:53 EST

Overall, I was pretty pleased with this class. I got a lot out of the class and at the same time the work load was definitely manageable. I also never realized how helpful the Career Center could be until they came and talked to us all those times throughout the semester. I definitely plan on using the resources of the Career Center as I get closer to looking for an internship and even my career down the road. The teaching crew was also very helpful throughout the semester if we needed any help and in my particular case they were very understanding about my situation after having shoulder surgery. Some college professors would not have worked with me as much as this group of professors did and I really appreciate them doing that. I enjoyed this class.

Final Learning Plan

Thu, 08 Dec 2005 14:15:08 EST

I am sure I speak for the majority of the class when I say that I am basically clueless on what to expect from the final Learning Plan. I do not know how mine will end up because it is hard to come up with specific goals when I am only a sophomore in college. I feel like I have not taken enough of my business classes to know exactly what direction I want to go. Basically, I want to get as specific as I am able to get and try and make a decision on where I would want to be in the future based on this point in my life. I do like the fact that we are able to do the second part in bullet points because I think that bullet points will help me to keep in concise and to keep my thoughts organized. The one thing that I do know is that I will be extremely happy when the Learning Plan is done with.

HR Simulation Final Thoughts

Thu, 08 Dec 2005 13:57:48 EST

Now that the HR Simulation is over with I thought I would take a look back at my experience and give a few of my thoughts. First of all, our group was very fortunate in that we never experienced any problems from beginning to end. I was also very happy to find out that each person in our group carried his or her own weight in the project. The work was distributed evenly each week and we took turns writing up the incident reports. It was beneficial for our group that a person was not shy about giving their opinions. If somebody thought something was a bad idea they would point it out to the group and we would find a solution quickly and easily. I had a good experience overall with the HR Simulation and as I said in class it was nice getting to know the people in my group.

Second Annual Report

Wed, 07 Dec 2005 14:07:36 EST

The second Annual Report was pretty trivial in my opinion. I know that a company has to do Annual Reports, but in our case nothing changed between the years and our report ended up being very similar to the one that we had put together for the first year. There were only two or three new things to address in the second year and otherwise we simply had to update the information from our first Annual Report. I am not complaining about this because we all have a lot of work to do so it was nice not having to worry too much about this second report, but as I said it just seemed a little trivial. Now that our report is completed I feel much better because all that is left for me to deal with in this class in the Learning Plan.

HR Annual Report

Thu, 03 Nov 2005 12:55:21 EST

I don't know about anybody else, but this annual report that we have due next week seems like it is going to be a bit of a pain to write. It sometimes felt as though we were learning as we went in the simulation and we made decisions on a week to week basis. Obviously, we always tried to keep our primary goals and strategy in mind, but at the same time it will be difficult to try and explain what our thought processes were while doing our budgeting and how we allocated our money. The program seems to just mess with you because whenever you make one move something else goes wrong or some of the little imaginary workers are unhappy so it gets frustrating to try and decide what our next move should be. We have been doing as well as the industry average for the most part so hopefully we are able to put together a good annual report.

Jonah Creighton

Thu, 03 Nov 2005 12:42:04 EST

I was pretty surprised at the response the class had to this case. There were some pretty heated exchanges between members of the class base on what should or should not have been done in this particular situation. The case was especially interesting because in our day and time it does not seem like race would ever be an issue in today's business world. I was surprised by this because some of the most successful people in business are African-American. For example, a very successful African-American businessman recently purchased the Minnesota Vikings football team to become the first African-American owner in the NFL. He paid an obscene amount of money for the team, which is a testament to his skills in the business world. I enjoyed hearing the different perspectives on the case.

Learning Plan

Tue, 01 Nov 2005 13:28:35 EST

I am pretty sure that I speak for everyone when I say that the Learning Plan has been handled ridiculously. Everyone that I talked to had at least 12 or 13 pages, which is over the recommended length and now they are telling us that we need to go into more detail about each of the questions on the outline!?!?! All I know is that if I have to go into great detail about each and every question my final paper is going to be about 30 pages long. I also think that it is a little strange that creativity is a percentage of the grade. I don't think there is anything more subjective than whether or not a paper is creative. More importantly this isn't exactly a paper that appeals to my creative side. I'm supposed to answer 700 questions so I'm not really sure where I can fit in all that creativity. I'm going to try and do what they ask, but this whole situation has me baffled.

Harrah's Casino

Mon, 31 Oct 2005 12:35:49 EST

I have to say that I found the Harrah's Casino case study very interesting. It posed an extremely relevant problem that many companies probably face and that is how to reward their employees. The initial method worked well and all the employees were happy, but after it became so difficult to reach the incentive level employees became discouraged. I think this shows that companies need to continually adapt and update their business practices to ensure that the employees stay motivated. It is like anything else in that you do not want the same thing day after day. You want a little change to spice things up and I think that Harrah's needs to change to continue their success.

HR Simulation Part II

Sun, 23 Oct 2005 14:06:39 EST

As the HR Simulation has progressed through the weeks I still have no complaints. Our group is still working extremely efficiently together and we still have not run into any conflicts. We split up the work evenly each week to ensure that one person is not doing more than anybody else. We all talk out what we want to do with the budget as well as what decision we want to make in the incidents that we have to deal with. This has been a fairly painless project up to this point. My only complaint is that it sometimes can get frustrating trying to figure out what decisions to make because whatever decsion is made somebody within our imaginary company will be unhappy about it somehow. The challenge then becomes trying to find the happy medium that keeps all parties as happy as possible. I still look forward to seeing how our company ends up doing.

HR Simulation

Fri, 07 Oct 2005 12:32:36 EST

After doing the first exercises in the HR Simulation I am pretty happy with it. I am happy with my group members and it seems as though we will be able to work very well together. We have been able to make our decisions quickly and easily and we do not have any problems with each other. I am glad our group is as good as it is because this assignment could have been very difficult if we were having internal problems in the group. Any team needs to be able to trust each other and work well together in order to be successful in their tasks. This project has been painless so far and I am interested to see how well my team does.

Myers-Briggs

Wed, 05 Oct 2005 14:27:09 EST

After receiving the results from my Myers-Briggs test I found that I tested very similarly to how I am. When I read the explanation of my type I felt as though it was describing me exactly. I took this test in high school and I actually tested almost exactly the same as I did back then. I enjoyed doing this because I feel that it is important for people to get a sense of their personality. It will also help us to knows certain strengths and weaknesses that we may have and that will be beneficial for us. I think the main reason I enjoyed it though is because of how accurate it was for me.

Thoughts on class

Mon, 26 Sep 2005 17:21:13 EST

Now that we are further into the semester I thought I would take a look at the class. I like the format of the class and the material being presented. For the most part it seems relevant to the business world and can help us in the future. I would like to do more group work because I think it is important for us to get as much experience as possible working in groups. I like the professors and the visitors we get in class. I prefer hearing from multiple people in class as opposed to the same person each and every day. Overall, I am happy with the class.

Mock Interview

Tue, 20 Sep 2005 17:15:28 EST

I had some apprehensions prior to going in for my mock interview, but my interviewer really made it a good experience for me. Mike and I had a great deal in common. My high school football coach was his high school coach. He also knew a couple people that had gone to my school that I had been friends with. He gave me a great deal of advice and tips on how to prepare myself for my next interview. Now that it is over I am really glad that I did a mock interview.

First Blog Entry

Sun, 11 Sep 2005 17:35:10 EST

From the first few classes of MGMT 250 we've had so far I've been pretty happy with it. The material is useful and the professors do a good job of keeping the class interesting. The Career Center visits have been especially helpful considering we will soon be applying for internships and soon enough for our careers. I have not considered using the Career Center before but now I will probably take advantage of their resources. I am interested to see where this class will take us.