Home run.

Certain recent courses undertaken in the program have kindled my entrepreneurial instinct, for e.g. like the Cornell Management game/Simulation course. This game deals with product/market expansion and segmentation and its influences to a company's share value. Simulation rounds involve making decisions w.r. to finance, operations and marketing management, competing with companies within a given industry. This game in essence allows for product, capacity, market and revenue planning, which in the process, gives you that feel for 'real-world-like' impact of complex managerial decision making perspectives which are very similar to real life situations. In an actual work environment, there are several unforeseen and adhoc organization specific economic influences and finer points of managerial soft-skills.These can create heavier influences in strategic thinking and its application.

The game involves a few decision making rounds, where a team might find itself in one round leading and on top of the world and other rounds perhaps prefer to bury their heads in the sand. Fortunately my team won the game for our given industry, and emerged taking home the grand prize. i.e. an A+ ! Congrats to my team mates - Mike & Pablo!

So I keep telling myself, all it takes is the determination to learn everything you can,with teamwork and patience; strategically then use that knowledge when the right moment comes and be disciplined about it. Business school grads have historically had a lot of fantastic career options and I too sense the same, having embraced the power of knowledge through this program. So in hindsight, if I actually turned down or postponed this opportunity, I probably would have kicked myself for the rest of my life. That said, I am looking forward to a cheerful summer and to continue to add items to the list titled 'things to do after May, once I graduate'!

What matters.

Today marks the end of another tumultuous week for the financial markets in a year that has already been one of the worst on record for the major stock indices. The market value of many companies continued to slide toward levels not seen since the 1990s. The positive side to this anxious economic environment, is that, it does attach premium value towards knowledge and learning, to cope and rationalize the situation.

There is no lack of analytics, decision trees, financial models, process maps and other forms of logical rational analysis, discussing the current state of affairs, be it in academics or corporate America. It's natural to assume that our days are saturated with rational left brain thought patterns. Well, this MBA program has not only equipped me with priceless academic insights gained thus far, but interestingly, has also paved the way to understand the softer aspects of thinking as well.

I have come to the conclusion that harnessing this cognitive skill enables to "connect the dots", if you will. It is in fact, a skill that is equally, if not more critical to leverage in such unpredictable business environments. Developing a personal way of understanding the profound impact of social influences and intangible drivers, be it decision making in business or otherwise, is a true differentiator.It naturally thrives and makes individual change real.