Easter Weekend

After a busy week at school, it was great to have Easter as an excuse to get together with family.

Monday –  As always, Monday starts with Finance. This week, we had a case write up on Crocs due. After Finance, I met up with a friend to start studying for the Operations quiz on Wednesday. Once I got home, I read a few articles for the professor that I do research for.

Tuesday – On Tuesday, we had a Supply Chain case memo due which was about WalMart in China and environmental sustainability. Instead of starting the discussion on this case right away, the first half of the class we had a guest speaker from Exxon Mobil talk to us about their supply chain. This speaker was a former Northeastern student, and it was a great opportunity to see where Northeastern alumni end up. For the rest of the class we discussed the case and the sustainability summit that WalMart had in China.

After class, I met with the professor to talk about the articles I read the previous night. We are trying to find a good way to wrap up my research before I go on Corporate Residency.

The stats professor held an extra session this week to go over the SPSS outputs for simple linear regression and the homework that is due on Thursday. I’m glad I went. This makes so much more sense now.

After this session, I met up with a few friends to study for the Operations quiz the next day.

Wednesday – Today started with Finance where we talked about mergers and acquisitions. In this class we did a small case from the book.

The Operations class for today started with the quiz, which took up about an hour of the class. After that, we talked about total quality management including Six Sigma.

After class, I went home to complete some research for the upcoming IDP presentation to use my time well before the Mentor Reception. This reception was hosted by the Career Center and allows students to meet the mentors that the Career Center assigned them. Although my mentor was out of town and could not attend, I met some interesting people.

Thursday – In today’s Strategy class, we discussed mergers and acquisitions from a strategic standpoint instead of just a financial standpoint. The case for today was about Newell Company’s acquisition of Rubbermaid. After looking more in depth at the products and strategy of Rubbermaid, it did not seem like a good acquisition for Newell, especially considering how large this acquisition was.

In Stats, we did our final class on simple linear regression. Next class we will start multiple regression, which sounds quite intimidating.

Friday – Friday started early with a 9:00AM meeting with my learning team to refine our IDP. We looked more carefully at our strategy and solidified our reasoning behind our decisions. After meeting for a while, we decided to meet with our Strategy professor to get her thoughts on our proposal. She liked our ideas but warned us that we need to be able to articulate our reasoning because the judges will be looking for gaps during the presentation next week. Now that the most difficult part is over, we can start to write the paper and create the presentation.

After, I went to lunch with a few of my group members. We went to the Yardhouse which just opened by Fenway. The food was fantastic, and there were very reasonably priced lunch combos.

Saturday – As usual, I was up early on Saturday for color guard rehearsal. However, this will be my last rehearsal before they leave for finals. Although this is the first time I have missed WGI finals in 5 years, I know that they will do fine without me, and they are in the best possible hands. I can’t wait to see how they do against the competition.

After rehearsal, Jim and I went up to New Hampshire for Easter dinner with his family.

Sunday – I finally got to sleep in on Sunday. I spent the day with my family to celebrate Easter – we even Skyped with my sister in Montana to make her feel at home. I can’t wait until she is back for good at the end of the semester. Once I got home, I wrote the rough draft for my portion of the IDP paper. I can’t believe how quickly this project’s due date came up, but I am glad that I got to relax for a little while this weekend.

*The views expressed in this blog are not necessarily those of Northeastern University, its staff, faculty or affiliates and are solely the opinion of Amy Foley.*