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Who would have thought a movie can also be a case study?

This is what you get when you enroll into a business school. Everything can be interpreted and should be interpreted in the manner to which it can improve your leadership skill and ability.
Dead Poets Society is our case study for Managing People in Organizations class. We have to analyze the movie and come up with a 20 minute team presentation. I really like the fact that this is the class final exam. It’s one of the best assignment/final exam I’ve ever had!
I watched DPS (it has become Dead Poets Society’s code name for many teams) ten years ago and fell asleep after 30 minutes of it. This time around, it’s totally different. You see many things in there that you can apply management principles to, and many scenes that illustrate the situations we talked about and discussed in class. The assignment is very good for a team experience also. Our team watched the movie together at one teammate’s house and it was really fun. We are all in full gear now and repeatedly citing the quotes from DPS to each other. Our presentation is next Tuesday, and our first module will end on Wednesday. Time really does just fly by……
Wish us luck!! and …. DPS rules!

–Manisa–

Class of 2011

“You’re going to State College?”

“Yes”

“Oh, that’s the number 1 party school in USA, per the latest ranking.  Enjoy your time there.”

By this time I was at the US airport after landing, and the officer saying so was chopping on my I-94. With this expectation, I started my MBA study with SMEAL College. However, it didn’t turn out we were in parties always.  First year MBA study IS overwhelming, that’s why we need the adjusting period (orientation).   But we work hard and play hard here. …

There have been so many eye-opening experiences in this first module.   I had never heard the word “tailgate” before I came here, and I wondered what it meant. With that question in mind, I went to one of the football games.  Oh, wow!  There were so many people here for the game!  If you’re a stranger to football like me, my suggestion is to go at least one.  If you’re a crazy fan of football, then PSU is the best place for your MBA study…. I attended my first corporate sponsored tailgate, played games, cheered for the winners; and chatted about skiing for the thanksgiving vacation, the immersion week fashion show, and our global immersion week- Santiago, Chile, Shanghai China, New Delhi, India, San Francisco, CA!!!!!

Life as a MBA in Smeal will be totally different from your previous work, but we work hard and play hard, in the Smeal School of Business.   MBA is not just about curriculum. ….

Dr. Harrison speaks with the Introductory Lunch Participants.

Early in September, SCMA hosted the first of its kind Supply Chain Introductory Luncheon which provided an opportunity for the first years to get an answer to all their queries regarding Supply Chain Management and for the second years to share their experiences with regard to the industrial relevance of Supply chain concepts and fundamentals, while interacting with senior Supply chain faculty members.  Dr. Thomas kicked off the luncheon with a description and explanation of what a supply chain looks like.  He was followed by Dr. Harrison who described career prospects in the field of Supply Chain Management.  Dr. Novack concluded the program with a detailed description of Supply Chain program at Penn State including reference to the Center for Supply Chain Research, which proved to be a hot topic of interest among the students.  The luncheon was attended by around 50 students.

Brian Ferguson from Sears presents to the SCMA

In mid-September, SCMA conducted a Sears roundtable chaired by Brian Ferguson, VP (Inventory Management Systems & Support) with Sears Holdings Corporation. This afforded an excellent opportunity for the first year students, very early into the Program, to get an insight into the company which is one of the biggest recruiters for Smeal MBAs and to leave a favorable impression on their lead recruiter. The agenda for this roundtable consisted of an overview of the company and elaboration of the opportunities available as well as the skill sets required to be successful in this field. More than 30 students turned up for this event.

Stephanie Bond and Rama Murugan run the grill.

This was followed by the stupendous success of Dell sponsored tailgate on September 26. In spite of the inclement weather, there was a large turnout of current students as well as alumni. The big game against our recent nemesis provided the ideal setting for SCMA to leave a favorable impression with our sponsor company who seemed extremely pleased with SCMA’s organization and conduct of the tailgate.

If you are anything like me, you feel like you can accomplish anything in business irrespective of your gender! However, intellectually, we as females know that there are indeed different ways that men and women approach their professional careers as well as how we are both perceived in the professional arena. There are indeed unique aspects to being a woman in the corporate world. This is what my first encounter with the Women’s MBA Association at Smeal has me thinking more about.

Sitting in the light breeze on the third-floor terrace of the business building in our first association meeting, the incoming class of women was greeted with curiosity and warmth. As we went around introducing ourselves, I began to see a pattern of how accomplished, interesting, and comfortable each of us were sharing pieces of our stories that led us to study at Smeal.

It is at this, our very first meeting that I first heard the term “mommy tracking”. As a married student in the program, this term in particular spurred my interest. I later googled it to fully understand its meaning and came across this article in US News & World Report (http://www.usnews.com/usnews/biztech/articles/070826/3mommy.htm) that summed it up for me. What has it taught me you might wonder? Well, the lesson for me is that as a woman who wants to start a family soon and also repositioning herself to renter the corporate realm, looking more closely at the benefits companies offer to women with families should be a very important part of my company and job research.

- Kerean G. Povich
MBA Class of 2011

Whenever I think of family my heart pounds, and the memories of happy times come to mind.
Coming to Smeal meant to me not only the opportunity to position myself career wise, but it also meant leaving behind the support and loving smiles I got from my family. This mental picture of “my new reality” couldn’t be more wrong. At Smeal, I found family.
Beginning with the orientation to the everyday warmth of the MBA commons (our hangout spot where first and second year students come together), Smeal has become my home away from home. I found friends, advice, smiles, and all this great stuff that for some reason you don’t expect to find in a world class MBA program.
So, like Optimus Prime (Transformers movie) would say: “There is more to Smeal than meets the eye.”

-Ana Salgado
MBA Class of 2011

One of the great things about coming back to school for my MBA has been the interaction with lots of people from diverse backgrounds. From recently-graduated college students, to experienced professionals to world-class academics, Smeal has already started to show some ROI. While classes and other responsibilities can be quite demanding throughout these two years, bouncing off ideas with a peer or a professor is simply priceless. In my case, I am still struggling with the idea of whether to join Corporate America or launch my own business. While I am still exploring what type of start-up to develop, if any, I have been looking at the internet and people within my network for ideas, which takes me to an interesting company that I came across recently: Swoopo.com.

Swoopo defines itself as “entertainment shopping.” Basically, this web-based company offers visitors many different products for them to bid for. However, unlike eBay, visitors pay for each bid they make on the site, and each time someone bids, the time in the counter increases (making it harder for “snipers” to steal away your bid). Additionally, each bid increases the price of the item by anywhere from $0.02 to $0.12 depending on the auction. Furthermore, Swoopo claims that participants can save up to 65% on the suggested retail price of many of the products offered on their site. Moreover, the products offered in Swoopo are brand new and original with the manufacturer’s warranty. This business model is rapidly being duplicated by other web-companies. The question is whether there are enough people out there willing to pay for a chance to win an auction, which makes this business look much like a lottery. What’s your opinion? While you tell me what you think about this innovative idea I will continue debating with myself whether to launch my own start-up or join forces with an established company.

-Oscar Lang
MBA Class of 2010

Well it was Saturday morning and after the tough two weeks of orientation, I finally had a day to relax – uh – not really! The miser in me had promised my wife a book shelf and now was the time to repent for my thoughtless stinginess by building her one. So I cursed myself (Yes happy bachelors – the #1 rule for survival after getting married is to keep your curse words to yourself!) and drove to Home Depot. After an hour spent in finding the cheapest plywood that would have a realistic chance of supporting our books, I drew up my design on the back of a business card and was ready for the “free cutting service” that Home Depot so generously provides to people like me.

It’s amazing what you can achieve when your goal is “Not to spend money”. In about ten minutes, I had designed my bookshelf to not only be an artistic masterpiece but also to fit into one 8 feet X 4 feet sheet of plywood – yeah you operations management people out there – this is efficiency! Now I like to think that I am a brave man and bravery (or stupidity) it was that enabled me to walk up to the ‘SAW’ handler and give him my business card blueprint – with the biggest piece measuring 32” X 15” and the smallest one 3” X 1” – a total of 12 pieces. The incredulity on his face when he saw my scratchy diagram was really a ‘Kodak moment’. I am really thankful for the professional code of conduct at Home Depot which probably prevented him from punching me in the face and instead toning down his comments to – “Well, I can do the bigger cuts but I don’t think the smaller pieces are possible”. Oh well, I was going to have to hand-saw some of the cuts; no big deal – just a lot of sweat!

Amidst the whirring of the saw, we started talking about why I wanted the wood cut, my recent move to State College and somehow Smeal popped up into our conversation. THAT was the MAGIC word. The moment I said Smeal, the Home Depot guy launched into his story and how he was planning to attend Smeal next FALL. He was really interested in the EMBA program @ Smeal and had met our EMBA director Jake, during one of the visitation days. Well – I had met Jake too during our ice cream social with the EMBAs and was ready for the dialogue. We talked about life @ Smeal, the Supply Chain excellence, the value of a Smeal MBA and pretty much everything about Smeal limited only by the confines of our knowledge. Guess what – by the time I was down to “Best of luck for your application next year”, my wood was cut – yeah all 12 pieces, even the 3” X 1” ones. He even helped me select the appropriate screws and glue for the “10 USD/sheet” wood that I had bought.

I had never imagined that the “Smeal” brand and Networking would help me build a book shelf! Guess I had yet to realize the true value of this intangible asset (As Dr. Givoly will surely classify it). As for the book shelf – well I will write about it sometime later – currently let’s just say that it is “WIP – Work in Process”

-Akshay Madane
MBA Class of 2011

There are several factors that I believe set the education at Penn State a notch above other similarly ranked programs, namely the work of career services, the respect of the students for each other, the atmosphere of integrity and respect instilled by the Honor Code, and the genuine concern and willingness to help of the professors.  Although I believe that the Smeal program is better in each of these areas than the competition, I acknowledge that other schools probably have good professors, strong career counselors, and values of integrity as well.

But no other program, at least none that I applied to or researched, has anything remotely comparable to Global Immersion.  This is an advantage to coming to Smeal that I do not believe you will find anywhere else.

This week had a great impact on me.  I hope everyone else got as much out of the week as I did.  I have hardly been out of the country at all up until this point.  (I went to the beach in Mexico, but that is clearly nothing compared to what we did this week.  Sunbathing taught me nothing about the culture, history, or people of the country.)

For prospective students, Global Immersion is a one week trip at the end of Module III, right before Spring Break, to another country to learn about its history and business environment.  The choices vary slightly from year to year.  Our class chose between Prague in the Czech Republic, Santiago in Chile, or Shanghai in China.  In my opinion,  Prague sounded like the most beautiful and richest in history out of the three cities, and I have always thought it would be interesting to go to Europe.  I am sure that all of the trips were outstanding, but going to Prague was a great decision for me.  This trip taught me a great deal.

First, this trip taught me about the history of the Czech Republic.  The period of communist control from the end of WWII until the Velvet Revolution has had a profound impact on the people throughout the city.  The speakers referenced the hardships that the Czech citizens endured during this era.  Many of us had an opportunity to visit the Communism museum, where we learned about this suffering and the eventual liberation in greater detail.  The exhibits were moving, stirring emotions of sympathy and compassion toward these people who suffered so much.

The main purpose of the trip from the business perspective was to learn about practices in another country, understand the challenges and learn about the differences of working there compared to working in the United States.  The Czech Republic faces challenges in overcoming the culture of Communism.  The world today is moving toward a culture of teams, innovation, reduced vertical layers of management, and employees working together with supervisors to develop creative solutions to problems.  The Czech people are stuck in a culture of employees performing tasks strictly according to management orders, with no additonal innovation and an inability to think outside the box.  This will be an opportunity area for the Czechs to improve in the future, and they could learn from the United States and other western cultures.   The Czechs are doing some things very well, and I believe we could learn some lessons from them to improve our businesses.  The Czechs are very adept at quantative thinking.  They are skilled at math, science, and technology.  Although I have never been to Asia, and I would have to consult with my friends who traveled to Shanghai, I believe that some eastern cultures also have a reputation for their skills in these areas.  The United States has fallen behind other areas of the world in these quantitative skills, and we will need to get back up to speed in math and science in order to remain competitive.  In my opinion, understanding complex math problems or writing computer code is much harder than writing a paper.  My undergraduate major was political science, and I am pretty certain that my friends in the engineering, accounting, biology, and finance programs at Villanova took very difficult classes compared to most of mine.  Just from taking finance and accounting at Smeal, I can tell that quantitative classes can be quite hard.  We should take a lesson from the Czechs and other cultures, and master these challenging skills in order to remain competitive in the world economy.

In addition to the history and the business lessons, the beauty of the Czech Republic impressed me.  A tour of the Prague Castle on the first day in the city gave us a feel for the beautiful architecture of the city.  An elevator up to a high floor of an observation tower provided a magnificent view of the neighborhoods below.  The cobbled streets and stone buildings give the city a historic feel, unlike any city I have been to in the US.  There was tremendous beauty here, and there is incredible beauty back in the US.  The difference that I noticed was that much of the beauty in Prague involves man-made buildings and architecture, while the great scenery in the US involves natural wonders such as forests, lakes, and mountains.

The final impact of the trip to the Czech Republic was a greater appreciation of my own country.  We saw so many great things in Prague.  We drank some of the best beer in the world, tasted some delicious food, saw some beautiful architecture, and enjoyed some dazzling entertainment.  Still, even though we were only gone for a short time, I occasionally got homesick during the week.  The trip made me appreciate little things about the United States, and made me stop and think how great my country is, how wonderful American music is, how courageous and unselfish American troops are, and how beautiful American women are.  I would imagine many of my friends who came here from other countries hold similar feelings in their hearts about the greatness of their home.  I have to give the international students in our program a great deal of credit.  Leaving your home country for the MBA program must have been a tremendous sacrafice.  This was a brave, courageous decision on your part.  Many kudos to all of you, for not only have you left your home, but you have come to a new country with no prejudice or expectations.  All of the international students I have met have maintained a very positive attitude toward Americans.  I have not noticed any students complaining about our culture or our customs.  I am sure there are many cultural things about China, or India, or Russia, or whatever country you are from, that you miss.  Yet instead of wondering why we cannot be more like the people in your home country, you have made efforts to appreciate the positive things about our culture.  I am not sure that Americans have such a positive attitude when we go to other places.  We sometimes expect other people to speak English, or to have the same things available in their country that we have in ours.  For some, the MBA program in the US was an opportunity to escape from an oppressive culture, and perhaps some have no desire to return to their homeland.  But for many, home holds a special place in the heart.  For this reason, it is important that we continue to have events at Smeal to represent all of our cultures.

One can learn finance, accounting, and marketing at other MBA programs.  One can learn about debits and credits at Maryland.  One can learn about Weighted Average Cost of Capital and Net Present Value at Indiana.  One can gain an understanding of target markets, segmentation, forecasting, and the impact of interest rates on the economy at Iowa or Michigan.

The ability to see positively the diversity of other cultures while developing a greater appreciation for one´s own?  To the extent that this is present at Smeal, I do not believe one can find that anywhere else.

Michael M Meehan
Penn State Smeal MBA
Class of 2010