Wharton Bootcamp - week in review

Bootcamp in philly officially ended today. All the students I spoke to felt very happy with the way things went. I can say that for me personally the first week definitely met my expectations. There is a lot to say so I will discuss each topic in turn.

Courses:
The first semester consists of 3 courses. Financial Accounting, Managerial Economics, and Management of people. Some of the accounting and finance types chose to waive the accounting course. Those that waived accounting take a business law course this semester and get to take an additional elective later on. I am happy with the courses. Econ and accounting are fairly quantitative, while the management of people course focuses more on the softskills. Overall, the courses are very well organized. The bulkpacks provided by Wharton are well done. In a typical day, classes started at 7:30am with an optional math camp by prof John Siler. Math camp was usually followed by another course lasting from 9:00 to 12:00pm. At noon we broke for lunch for an hour. Classes reconvened at 1:00pm and lasted through till 4:00pm in the afternoon. During some evenings there are additional classes or review sessions. On one evening there was a session to discuss group dynamics. Another evening, there was a session to review econ. Note that for econ, accounting and management, the classes are divided into two sections. The math camp is optional and I was not planning to attend. But my wharton buddy had advised that I attend at least one of the classes to get a taste of the Jack Siler's performance. I ended up going to every session. The man is a wharton classic. These session ended at 9:00 or 9:30 depending on the day. Jack covered some high school math like exponents, factorials, polynomial and exponential functions and then moved into some college calculus with derivatives, double derivatives, and partial derivatives. Towards the end he covered counting theory and some probability. Accounting was accounting. The first week was spent understanding the basics of financial statements like the balance sheet, income statements, and statement of cash flows. I got the impression that as we move further into the course, we will cover each of these statements in more detail. The management of people course is interesting. There is a lot of reading to do in this course and then the material is discussed in class. The interesting thing is that we are graded on participation, so a large majority of the class is compelled to chime in. Talking to some folks, there are mixed feelings about this approach. Some people felt the comments are somewhat forced at times. People expressing comments to get their 2 cents worth. There is some debate however, that not all the comments are conducive to the discussion. Professor McDuffie, however, does do a good job though of bouncing the "beach ball" around to keep the conversation flowing. There is a major project to do for this course. The FAP or field applications project which is worth a good bit. This project is completed in study teams. The course also uses the case method to apply some of the theory that is taught. Microeconomics is a treat. Not necessarily the course, but the professor. David Crawford is an interesting guy. If take his course, you'll know what I mean. He covers a lot of material and he moves fast. The first week alone, we covered the basics of demand and supply curves, market equilibrium, the mechanics of supply and demand curves, production analysis, currency and international trade effects on supply and demand. This course has the potential to challenge those that have not done math in a while. My challenge will be a little different. I follow the math with no problems, but its the context and content that is new. Still, I am enjoying the course so far.

Professors
Overall, I am impressed with the professors. They are all very well organized, prompt and enthusiastic about the material they cover.

We have three courses and five professors this semester. Professor Siler runs the math camp during the first week. As indicated previously, the man is entertaining to watch. Don't get me wrong though, he knows his stuff. Its just that his teaching method is very unique for the material he covers. His approach is good however. I think a lot of the non-math folks appreciate the simplification and context he provides to otherwise mundane math topics. Professor McDuffie teaches the management class. The man is a true professional. He is a very approachable likable guy who enjoys what he does and brings that enthusiasm to the classroom. He is able to draw the class into discussions and motivates students to express their opinions in a relaxed atmosphere. Accounting is covered by Prof. Bishop Lane. She knows the material like the back of her hand. Clearly she must have taught the course a number of times. Yet she brought a great deal of energy to the class every day. She is a very approachable person outside the classroom environment as well. This is true for all the professors I met. Prof. David Crawford is a hoot. Prof. Crawford teaches the econ class. A tall, older, burly man with a forceful voice, he definitely brings a presence to the classroom. He has a gift of using very expressive and colorful language without coming off as offensive. The funniest part however, is trying to determine what his tshirt will say on a given day. On the first day, he wore one that said ...well...I won't ruin it for him. I'm sure its part of his gimmick. Lastly, but certainly not least, there is Prof. Kuriloff. Prof Kuriloff does not teach a particular course per se. But he advises on working in effective groups. In particular study groups. He was the one guy that threw me off during the week at bootcamp. I don't mean this in a negative way. What I mean to say is that I did not expect Wharton lend emphasis to group dynamics in such a formal manner. Prof Kuriloff clearly knows his stuff when it comes to working in teams. The whole study team thing was one I was leery of coming into this program. However, what I found is that the activities and guidance that Kuriloff provides, sets the tone for effective team work. The most notable factor about Kuriloff is that he has a very human touch. He cares about people and uses his expertise to make sure that the teams will be successful. He also is a safety net that students can turn to if the team thing starts to derail.

Food

Excellent. The food is catered in the SCC dining room. All I can say is that it rocks. The wharton folks do take care of us when it comes to the culinary needs of mba students. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner were provided everyday during the week. The food itself was very well done. Great menus and presentation. The catering staff is unbelievably prompt and attentive. In addition to the three meals, there is a small coffee area outside the program offices, close to the classrooms that is stacked with coffee obviously, but also other beverages such as tea, water, sodas, juice etc. This area is refilled constantly throughout the day, so there is never a shortage of beverages to keep you hydrated and caffeinated. There were a couple of very nice touches as well. I had written about the nice dinner on Sunday night. On Wednesday night, there was a barbecue in the courtyard of the SCC. This was a nice touch as it also provided an opportunity to schmooze and mingle with other classmates, the administration, and even the profs who came out It is not uncommon to see the professors in the dining rooms during mealtimes.

Facilities
If you have never been to Penn before, the location of the school is in the part of town known as University City. This is about a 5-10 minute cab ride from downtown philly. The locale has the typical vibrant feel of a large campus.

As previously mentioned, my lodging facilities were at the Inn on the Penn. This was true of most of the long distance commuters. Everybody else, including the DC, NJ, and NY crowd, stayed at the SCC. The Inn at the Penn is nice. However, I personally did not spend a lot of time there other than going to the room at night to sleep. I am not sure about the quality of the SCC, but I did not hear any complaints about them from any of my peers. Most of the time was spent at Huntsman hall or the SCC. Quite a few evenings were spent at the SCC bar on the 5th floor. Since it was all WEMBA students, the bar had a cozy touch to it.

The campus itself is very nice. Locust walk is very picturesque. Huntsman hall, where we spend most of our time, is a very nice, modern facility. All the classes are in the same building and generally on the same floor, although we did have to go to the lower floor on occasion. No big deal. Both the SCC and the Inn on the Penn are only a minute or two away from Huntsman hall. Since I commute, I do not know about the parking facilities. I do recall that they have parking on-campus for about $25/day.

Logistics and Administration
Each class is assigned a class manager that is part of the administration. Ours is Diane. She is basically a project manager that makes sure everything is running smoothly and everybody is where they are supposed to be. Diane kicks butt. She was extremely responsive to a couple of request that I had made. Overall communication between the class and the admin office is handled via communiques. Each student has a folder to check at various times during the day to get any updates or announcements.

I cannot say enough nice things about the staff. Clearly, they are very proud of the program and they do their utmost to keep the program top notch. At all times, I felt the classes and organization of school events was well organized. I did not ever get the impression that anybody was "winging it".

Howard Kaufold has done a good job building the team.

Study Teams
As I previously mentioned, this was the one area I was leery of coming into the program. Study teams are pre-arranged by the time you arrive on campus. Each student is provided a handbook which contains the names of the members of his or her study team. I was impressed by Wharton's emphasis on building a group dynamic and scheduling team building activities that helped foster and accelerate team bonding. By the end of the week, I felt I understood each of the members of my team better both on a personal level and professional level. I think, that as a team, we were able to establish a level of trust with on another that will help us start working together efficiently.

Thats all for now. Off to do some homework.