Dina Keswani, Executive MBA '09
Dina Keswani, Executive MBA 09

Monday, March 10, 2008

Doing versus Knowing.

The past school weekend with the final exams for Operations and Microeconomics and zipped up; I felt a huge sense of accomplishment. YES indeed! After crunching those Operations exam questions, soon followed (within less than hour's break) a deep dive into the Microeconomics exam. Having two exams executed consecutively one after another, and on the same day, was a first time occurrence for the 09's and we successfully executed the same.

I will have bitter sweet memories of those Monte Carlo and Littlefield simulations,amongst other useful tools learnt (@Risk, Solver etc) during the Operations course. The best parts of this course were, actually the simulation games, not forgetting that fun beer game! While some exercises were ever so time consuming and to some extent therefore annoying, it did in fact actually concertized the topics we learnt in the class. With the Microeconomics course, I am glad that I have progressed towards understanding what it takes to start thinking like an Economic Naturalist. I also suspect that decision trees will play a useful role in my life.

And in other news...Through a democratic voting process the 09's elected their class reps comprised of 3 female reps and one male. Girl power rocks! I like to take opportunity to wish Eliza, Karen, Raju & Tricia the best with their class rep responsibilities. I was nominated to run as well, but decided not to proceed with the same. Nevertheless, made my vote count (just like it did count during the recent NJ primary:))

In late Feb, the newly-formed Alternative Investments Club and the Private Equity Society hosted an interesting Private Equity at the Cornell Club. Although I could not attend the event, the president of the club(Elie) shared that the event was a resounding success.It showcased reasonable representation from current as well as alumni students, across almost all Johnson school MBA programs. The meeting featured presentations on the legal and valuation issues raised by Fair Value Measurements, as well as a discussion of the legislative environment with respect to private equity.

During the next couple of weeks we will be marching forward, tackling the next two courses namely, Business Strategy and Corporate Finance. I have recently commenced a new role with American Express, that will directly involve applying these two topics in my everyday work. The timing of these two courses and my new role have come at a more opportune moment. I am hoping that these courses will continue to endorse the academic rigor that is synonymous with the Johnson school. It may be also overtly applicable to real world business challenges, that we as executives face or will face in our careers.

Let me move onto a moment of realization. A few years ago I remember being asked whether I think I control my destiny. I looked at the person and said, 'No one else can'.He went on to tell me that apparently no one controls their own destiny, but those who think they do are more often than not,are more successful than those who believe they don't! Similarly, you don't in business school unless faithfully trigger that learning process, truly understand and interpret the learning impact. This bares inclusion and importance in areas of management or in one's career. Such actions may not be executed only owing to proper education of the management principles underlying them. Rather, out of an inherent instinct and intuition that leads towards that successful learning experience and what this destiny means to those involved in creating it. Bottom line: Do your homework, knock that chip off your shoulder and the world is a much beautiful place.