The week 1 of my MBA program is over and what a week it has been. There are so many things that I am not sure if I shall be able to do justice to every event that has occurred this week.
Monday started with the continental breakfast. The entire batch was here. I had met quite a few of the students in the Pre-MBA sessions, but to see 110+ students dressed formally in suits and business attire was exciting. I am begining to like the feel of the formal wear, to be honest.
There was welcome address by Dr. Scot Carson and Professor Bill Blake, where they introduced us to the MBA Program team, and the various other teams that the MBA batch will be liaising with. Post that, we had a program overview given by Lori Garnier and then an overview of the norms by President of the batch of 2010, Karim Hemani. We interacted with Karim for a while, where he shared a lot of inputs. One important point he reiterated many times is the need to take the Career Centre's feedback seriously and not get so involved with the Team Based program that we do not pay enough attention to the 'career stuff'. A point well taken and duly noted.
The rest of the day was a slew of presentations by various departments like Heathplans, Fit to lead team, a campus tour and later a dinner. The dinner was excellent, and I specially loved the sushi.
Tuesday and Wednesday were team building sessions taken by Dr. Shawna O'Grady. Dr. O'Grady is an extremely reknowned Team expert in the North American region. I was extremely impressed with the 2 day team building program. I was also introduced to my team on Tuesday morning, and we participated in all team building activities together. Personally, I shall never cease to be impressed by the kind of research Queen's does for assigning teams. The parameters taken into consideration are so many that it is mind boggling. My input to any aspirant is, be prepared to have a team as diverse as you can think of. I am in love with my team, and hope that we do a great time together.
Thursday and Friday, we had another slew of presentations. The interesting ones where the presentation by the BCC (the career centre), International Exchange opportunities and the Team Facilitator meeting. Once again, I must reiterate how impressed I am with the kind of support Queen's gives for team facilitation. They have assigned a team facilitator just for this single purpose. Every student can also choose a personal coach. The role of a personal coach is to talk to the students and motivate them whenever they need. We had a networking mixer arranged by the BCC in Tir Na Nog Irish Pub. Did you know that the Tir Na Nog Irish Pub is the FIRST restaurant/pub in Kingston?? Pretty cool eh? We met up with Mr. Jeff Garrah, the CEO of the Kingston Economic Development Board and a few other people of importance in Kingston.
Saturday was fun in every sense as out seniors (from the batch of 2010) came down to school for a transition dinner. Basically, the purpose of this meet was to ensure that the responsibilities for the various clubs are shared with the current batch. Post dinner, we had a wonderful game of Treasure Hunt and later had a long evening in a local pub close to my place. (Name shall be updated soon!)
Week 2 is going to be long, serious and the grind begins!!! :)
You might want to read the following posts:
Bizgirl's blog on Week 1 - 2010 Student
Appleseed's Blog of Week1 - 2009 Student. We pretty much did similar things this week too :)
Cheers! :)
