My exams was over last Thursday, and so is my first academic year at university. It’s really one hell of a ride. The learning pace moves at an unbelievable speed, and the amount of stuff I have to learn in such a short span of time can really put you down on your knees.
But still, I learnt alot from my business course, and so glad I choose this. Of the 13 modules I took up this academic year, I found 5 modules very useful.
- Accounting
- Marketing
- Information Technology
- Organizational Behaviour
- New Venture Creation & Business Plan (One of the modules I took for my minor)
After taking the exams for the first 4 modules and going through the last one during my 1 week holiday back in March, I started to see a glimpse of how a business actually works.
Marketing and Organizational Behaviour let me see how corporate level entities market their products and how to get the best performance from your employees. I learnt numerous marketing frameworks…such as the 4Ps, Michael Porter’s 5 forces, Segmenting Targeting Value…all provide me with great insights in how I can improve the value of my business in the eyes of my customers. Organizational behaviour is more complicated to me…but really showed me how important it is to get your teammates, employees to work together to achieve results and the social dynamics behind them. Very interesting and useful stuff!
I’m have been a IT geek for as long as I can remember, ever since my mom let me play a spaceship shooting game her 486 computer. Now taking this IT course introduced to me all the numerous information systems that corporations use to manage their data and bring these data to the right employees at the right place and time for them to deliver value to the customers. The first few parts of the IT course was a little dull to me, since they were teaching all the elementary stuff such as parts of the computer and the software that runs on them.
Still learnt new stuff though. The most value I found out of the course is about data management systems talking about Enterprise support systems…RFID systems and such. And over the past few months I have been reading in The Economist and other sources about how Google, Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, SAP are in constant competition to organize information for their customers. Realized somehow that information is the future commodity, and decided I will be going into this area to poke around. Quite fascinating how mundane data like how many times a mobile phone user check his or her SMS can actually translate into money.
Of all, I found accounting to be the most important and value added for me. I learnt how numbers can really make or break your business, how all the different ratios indicate the health of your business. Inventory Turnover Ratio…Cost of Goods Sold…Inventory Holding expenses…Impairment loss…and such. To be frank, I wasn’t particularly enthusiastic at the amount of ratios I have to memorize to get through my exams, but I’m glad the curriculum is intense…allowing me to learn so much within such a short span of time, though my grades definitely isn’t good at all. Still can’t generate correct and balanced cashflow statements though, lol.
The module that actually placed everything together in perspective however, is the New Venture Creation & Business Plan module which is part of the Entrepreneurship Minor program I took up. It ran for 1 week during the holiday period, and as with the Entre Minor it was quite intense, working through the nights for over 35 hours. It basically a simulation game, where our cahoot form into small teams and compete with each other. The simulation program is very intriguing…requiring us to built manufacturing plans…employ sales personnel and provide training programs for them….studying user preferences to get across the right message to them in our marketing campaigns…there are some illogical stuff in the simulation, but overall it was a rather complete system giving us a glimpse of how a business runs. It required us to put our accounting skills, marketing knowledge and strategic thinking together to make the right decisions.
Our team actually went bankrupt for that game though, lol. But this module, especially since our team sort of failed the business, I learnt what are the critical factors a business need to have to look out for. And again, accounting shows you where you have gone wrong and what you have done correctly. Great, fantastic stuff.
Come to think of it…it’s unbelievable how time flew by so quickly. I’m no longer a “freshie”…some of my friends are graduating and entering the workforce…and how much I have learnt. Can’t believe the post about my freshman orientation camp was made about 8 months ago.
Now entering into my 3 month holiday break before my second academic year starts. Now aware of how tight time can be, and what my limits are…I have to get my stuff running full steam ahead and on its own before school starts again. From what I heard from my seniors, 2nd year will be even harder. Judging from my slow learning pace…I’m not sure I can build my business and study well at the same time. My 1st semester was rather disasterous so to speak, thinking I can handle everything. Really show me where my limits are.
Alright! What a long post. Back to work!
Entries (RSS)