MBA Year 1 in Review
Spring break is already upon us, and as I prepare for a sunny escape to Costa Rica, I find myself reflecting on the first year of my MBA. At Ross, the academic portion of my first year is over- we follow a quarterly schedule instead of semesters, and my last quarter will be spent working on a real-world client project with a small group of fellow MBAs, putting to use everything we’ve learned so far. It’s a bit like a mini internship before our real internships over the summer, and I'm excited to be tackling a business strategy challenge for an entertainment agency for that project. But for now, I wanted to take a look back at what I’ve learned this year and where I’m hoping to go next.
One of the reasons I was drawn to Ross is because the first year course track is mostly pre-determined. As someone without a business background, I appreciated that Ross provides a broad learning base in Year 1, covering all aspects of business through a managerial lens. The quarterly schedule keeps things moving fast- 6 weeks is just enough to start feeling comfortable with a subject, and then it’s on to the next. Luckily, the classes are designed to build on each other, so it never felt like starting completely from scratch in each new quarter. Here is a quick overview of all the classes I’ve taken so far, in order:
Financial Accounting: a case-based class that taught us foundational accounting processes and put the fear of god into us about not letting people manipulate or intimidate us with big numbers.
Business Strategy: a case-based class that introduced an array of strategy frameworks, with lots of real-world examples of how those strategies have succeeded and failed.
Microeconomics: economic ideas that impact individual players in a market, including consumers, competitors, and regulators. Never forget sunk costs and opportunity costs!
Business Statistics: an Excel and R based statistics course with a focus on extracting useful data (reflecting reality) and understanding how data can be misused to support desired outcomes.
Marketing Management: centered the idea of ‘going to market’, from understanding the customer to developing a product to managing that product’s lifecycle. All of business is marketing, actually!
Macroeconomics: the global factors that impact individual businesses, from exchange rates to supply chains to trade deficits to, of course, tariffs.
Leading People and Orgs: a hands-on class about leadership and organizational structure- dealing with the challenges of growth, managing culture, and setting an effective vision.
Financial Management: money today is worth more than money in the future, which is the basis of how to determine if a company, project or investment will be financially worthwhile.
Marketing Law: an elective class about legal issues that concern marketing folks, from false advertising to publicity rights, with a focus on the complexities of modern media and social media.
Operations Management: all things process management. Hiring a new person or buying a new machine will not fix your operational inefficiencies!
Management Accounting: internal financial measures can either help or harm; it’s crucial to choose measures and cost allocations that support the goals of the firm, or you may find yourself in a demand-driven death spiral.
Big Data Management: a project-based class covering SQL, Python, Tableau, and APIs, all about extracting and presenting meaningful big data analysis.
Phew! It has been a packed year, academically. I really enjoyed most of these classes, and the professors at Ross have been exceptional. Some of my favorite classes were the ones I expected to like, especially strategy and economics- I was eager to learn about market forces and big-picture decision making. But there were also some classes that surprised me, like accounting and statistics- I previously thought of these as cut-and-dry, run-the-numbers subjects, but I learned that there is a lot of nuance and interpretation involved with financials and data analysis. No part of business is as simple as running the numbers, which makes it even more interesting and exciting to me.
After all that, I feel more confident in the goals that led me to pursue an MBA in the first place: working at the intersection of creative production and business in the entertainment industry. I am especially excited about video games and film/TV, having worked in those industries previously. This is a bit of a niche specialty for an MBA, but there are opportunities that I’m especially excited about, like IP management and franchise strategy (including transmedia development). As a new grad, I’m aiming to start in corporate strategy, product management, or creative development, where I’ll get more exposure to the business side of these roles. I’ll talk more about this in a future post, but for now, I’m excited to see where I land for my summer internship- I can’t wait to dive into this kind of work and build on my education with real-world problem solving.
That’s all for now- the beach is waiting! Thanks for reading, and see you next time.