Leveling up

My first MBA course is complete -- but the final grades aren't up yet, so I'll save my summary of that until after that point ;)

So I've decided to double up on courses this term -- making me a full time student with a full time job.   Good thing we're going into hibernation season and thanks to COVID I've got an extra 10+h/week that I don't have to commute ;)

First up is Marketing, which so far I'm really enjoying.  Their definition of Marketing is arguably questionable, but it actually makes the topic far more interesting as it leads into business strategy as opposed to marketing strategy that I was expecting.  To me, business strategy would incl things like “these are our values”, “this is our product”, and “we’re going to expand globally”; then the maketing strategy would be built to support the business strategy with “this is our approach”, “these are our key messages” etc.   This course is claiming the entire thing falls under the realm of marketing lol.   And while I don’t agree at all, the business strategy side of things fascinates me, so I’m far happier learning more about that - under whatever title you want to call it - than about marketing-specific strategies.  So yeah, I’m actually loving that course atm.  One actual marketing thing I am enjoying is it's giving me increased insight and understanding into the campaigns we're subjected to all the time.  

Operations I'm not as into admittedly.  I don't know if it's really this simple or if I'm missing the point -- will find out soon enough I guess ;). It's a prerequisite to the Project Management course which I expect to be exempted from based on career experience, so I'm not AS concerned about this one.  Essentially seems to be about efficiency gains.  Which I'm reasonably good at to begin with, and certainly it's a helpful skill to have, so happy to learn more.   Although I'm slightly concerned that the first assessment is an oral presentation that still somehow needs to reference at least six external sources?  lol that will be an interesting deviation from reality.  Am definitely amused that they too position themselves as the critical component of the business around which all decisions should be made; unsurprisingly they don't do nearly as good a job of selling it as the marketing people.  But yeah - could you hear my eyes roll?   Ah well.

So yeah - I'm currently a full time student with a full time job, but really - what else is there to do this term anyways?   Trying to get in as many courses as I can before we have to return to the office :).  Which means clearly there will be a ton of blog posts as, well, it's a fine means of productive procrastination.  I can even do it sitting in front of my textbook ;-P