Enjoy the Break

Previously, I was planning to write a bit more about the program during the break, but actually its way more worth to write about British Columbia as place to visit. 

Let's start with Whistler where I stayed with some class mates for a couple of days after finishing the core. In the first night, we had 15cm of new fresh snow.... powder times on the slopes. Whistler is indeed a great skiing and snowboard area. We had a great time there not only but also because of the snow.

Saturday, Andrea arrived from Germany and it's now our third day together on Vancouver Island. After two days in lovely Victoria, we stay in a nice lodge in Sooke at the ocean close to Victoria currently. It's a great place to relax and enjoy good food. All you need after four month of extensive classes.

Actually, we arrived in Victoria by float plane, a unique experience I can highly recommend. The plane goes directly from Coal Harbour in Downtown Vancouver to the Inner Harbour of Victoria. You cannot describe only experience.

Tomorrow, we will go back to Vancouver, this time by ferry, to celebrate Christmas in Vancouver. My first time outside of Germany. 

  

me & the float plane

The parliament in Victoria @night

The Core is Over!

It's finally done. The second big step of the MBA is taken. The core is over. The last week was the appropriate finish of an intense time. Monday, we had to submit our last group report, a business plan about the implementation of a bakery retail chain in Vancouver - if you have a deja-vu about the German chains such as Baeckerei Kamps, Mueller or Wimmer - guess where the idea came from. Anyways, submission was 8:30 AM, we submitted 6:30 AM - after 21 hours non-stop working. Sounds like bad time management, and probably it was, but we were not alone: when we went to the copy shop we bumped into four other project groups. This alone was very funny. Apparently, 80% of all teams submitted sometime after 5AM.  

Yesterday, we had then the presentation of our business plan to the faculty and the other students. The grade is still pending, but we did well. I liked to work with my team mates Aliyah, Steve, Marco and Greg, an excellent team to work with. And after working for 21 hours in room I really need to say "thank you" to these guys!  

Now, at the end of the core I looking back with mixed feelings. It was a intense time with ups and downs. Ups like the project work, all the nice class mates and my improved english, but also downs as the academic content often did not fit to my expectations. Summarizing, it was a exciting time which I will never forget.

It remains the question, what's coming next. At the moment, it feels like a big hole, no assignments, exams, projects and pressure for the next three weeks. They call it holidays. So, a lot of time to do other exciting things. To use the time best, I will go skiing to Whistler next week and then Andrea will arrive in Vancouver.
I'll keep you posted.

the final days

December: time to shave again. My moustache is history now. Before, we had a last big picture of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen:

Together we raised $4753, a considerable amount.

December is also: the core comes to an end. The final exam is already done. We did a company analysis about Ballard, a Vancouver based company who develop and manufactures fuel cells - semi-successfully at the moment. More successfully was my last case: I got 85% - by far my best case grade so far. Pretty nice to see, that's things work out finally.

Exam time - thanks god

the first three month are nearly over and most of the exams are done. Monday we have to submit our last case, Thursday is the final exam and the week after we have to submit our business plan project.

I am pretty happy if the core is over. It's pretty hard to find the motivation to study if you are convinced that most of the content is useless for managing a business.
My favourite example at the moment: Inventory calculation in Supply Chain Management - we have wasted about 10 hours to learn how calculate inventory.
Our guest speaker this week, Clive Beddoe, CEO of Westjet, summarized that in one sentence: "pay late, collect early"! It's so easy!

Anyway, the exams need to be done and even useless content needs to be learnt. Consequently, I spend most of my time in the library which is actually not so bad, as the view is pretty nice:

and... you see right... the white is snow. It has been snowing quite a bit this week. All mountains are covered with snow now. Whistler and Cypress already opened the slopes.

Another highlight was the hockey game I attended yesterday. True canadian culture...

 

tired of studying? take a break!

That's what we did.  We, that are 13 Canadians, a Spanish folk and a German dude who have all one thing in common: being tired of their MBA study's. So what to do? We had a nice road trip to Cannon Beach, Oregon, USA. It's only 6,5 hours driving from Vancouver - if it runs smooth - if the Spanish folk and the German dude need an extra treatment of the US boarder control then it takes longer. Anyway, it was in any case worth it. The beaches of Oregon are pretty amazing. And in addition, to spend three nights with so many nice people together in a big house including outside hot tub and pool table is a very unique experience. I guess, everybody came very energized back from the trip.

Please enjoy some nice pictures here:

What else: My Movember donation counter is at $100 now. Many thanks for your donations! 

Enjoy pictures of my moustache at my new page: http://munich2vancouver.blogspot.com/p/my-mo.html

Please move on with donating: It's really a great opportunity to do something good!

November = Movember = Moustache = Donation

In Canada, we have the initiative that men let growth there moustache throughout the month November to raise money for the Prostate Cancer Foundation. By now, there are about 50 guys in our class looking like teens with their first fluffy beard - pretty funny. But let's move on to the interesting part: your contribution. As I do this not for fun (ok - not only), I kindly request  your donation for the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Canada as comment for this initiative.

You can donate through my personal Movember page:
 http://ca.movember.com/mospace/866656/

From now on, I will post for each 50 new bugs a new picture of my growing moustache as a little incentive for you.

Tomorrow, I will have my first exam: Accounting. It is crazy how fast time is passing. But there are still four busy weeks to go, no reason to become lazy. But the motivation is good, following up my last post: 

1) I had a great weekend with Andrea in New York. Was a perfect break of all the studying!

2) The MacBook Air is a fantastic working tool.

3) There is even more snow in the mountains by now.

Three reasons to be happy today

1) Only 48 hours left and I meet Andrea in NY for the weekend!
2) My MacBook Air arrived today....!
3) The North Shore Mountains are powdered with the first snow!

Life is good!

Old and new world:

 

Ein Prosit….

Time to bring some German culture to Vancouver. We celebrated a little Oktoberfest at my new place. Various German beer, Bratwurst and Krautsalat. That all was accompanied by some authentic Oktoberfest-music from Sepp Vielhuber and Band: Ein Prosit der Gemütlichkeit….

Herrlich!

The highlight was my friend Henrique form Brazil and his girlfriend Nina who showed up in a Munich T-Shirt, with some Apfelstrudel and original Hacker-Pschorr beer (my favorite). Awesome!

Apple’s Christmas time

Studies are going on… today, I optimized my personal utility by skipping Managerial Economics classes and having breakfast instead. Probably one of my best decisions during the studies so far.

Until yesterday, my grades were following the principle as less effort I put in as better the grade is. Fortunately, I got a Marketing assignment back yesterday. This grade was worth the effort again: 50/100. Grader comment: “are you sure that you submitted the right document”. In my opinion: a bit harsh statement - but anyway, good to know that you still get 50% with a wrong document. Minimum level is defined.

Tomorrow is an Apple press conference. Rumors talk about the final release of the new MacBook Air for which I have been waiting since five months. At the moment, I feel like a child waiting for Christmas.

Anything else: Weather is still unexpected good. Meaning: sailing season is not over yet. Was sailing with the some second years who attended the MBA-regatta in Italy recently. We had a nice Beneteau 36.7 racing yacht and these guys has really known how to utilize its full potential. Was great learning for me.

Four weeks done… time for a first review

Time is still running. Yesterday, we finished our first big project (Capsim) with the final presentation. Our team simulated a Larry King Show interview where we talked about our success. Worked quite well actually.

A other group did a really outstanding video which I want to share with you. Don’t miss it to watch: 

After four weeks MBA it’s also time for a first review. Was it worth it so far?

The answer is certainly “Yes”. I managed to settle here. The classes gives me the opportunity to practice my English each day which has definitely helped to improve (even though there is still a long way to go). I met many interesting people, make some good friends and had a lot of fun. And finally, I had some good learnings in the lectures. Dan Skarlicki who teaches “organizational behaviour” for example. His lectures gives a fantastic overview about the soft-skills a business leader needs to succeed in today’s business world.  

Nevertheless, there are also drawbacks. In summary, I had expected to gain more insights out of the MBA program. So far, it feels for me more like a Bachelor than a Master program. I already applied most of the lecture contents in my previous jobs – often on more sophisticated level. Therefore, the value of the lectures is pretty low so far.

In addition, I had expected that an MBA program is more connected with today’s business and economic challenges. Lets take the exchange rate war between US, China and EU as an example: it is certain that the result of this conflict will have impacts on the worlds economy’s – have we discussed that in classes: not yet. Instead, we are working with cases which deal with 15 to 20 years old business challenges.

Fortunately, there is still The Economist for gaining some more background information. Definitely more useful to read these articles then some of the readings for classes.

Later today, I will have my first Thanksgiving dinner of my life. Looking forward to having some good turkey and wine.

LiveJournal Tags: blog,mba,sauder,vancouver,capsim

Campus Life…

Last time, I wrote about this case for CoastalContacts. Finally, I got 75 of 100 crappy points. I had definitely expected more. At least, everybody got a gift card for a free pair of prescription glasses. Not so bad anyway.

But life goes on. Thursday was the last round of a computer simulation of a company called Capsim (www.capsim.com). It’s a bit like Civilization, but without tanks. We were divided in groups of five and played this game over six rounds/years within the last three weeks. Our team had a hard time at the beginning as we screwed up the first four rounds. However, finally we rocked the game. Learning: be patient and wait for your chance.

My team at work:

The last round was celebrated with a karaoke-night in downtown sponsored by the school. We had a pretty good time there and even better in the club afterwards. To be with 40 completely drunken MBA student in a gay club is definitely a unique experience (not sponsored by the school).

Finally, some more small impressions from Vancouver. First, the creative side of Tom, our supply chain professor.

The others photos we took recently while we were sailing in English Bay. Actually, its perfect weather for going sailing at the moment. Still sunny and warm but much stronger wind compared to the summer. Some Videos will follow soon.

One last thing:
I moved into a new house. My new address is:

Matthias Hartmann
Cypress Street 2057
V6J 3M2 Vancouver, BC

Find me on Google Maps

12 hours case writing and a couple of beers later

It’s Saturday – everybody is relaxing from a hard week. Everybody – no… there is is still a small group of MBA students of a well known business shool who try to fix issues a company messed up. What’s happened? There is a Canadian company called CoastalContacts (www.CoastalContacts.com). They want to sell eyeglasses in the States – however, business hasn’t developed as expected yet. If you check their website and compare to the competition it is also quite obvious why it hasn’t worked properly. Now, 105 MBA student waste … sorry invest… their weekend to write nice reports how to fix obvious flaws. As we work in an academic context, we are also asked to do a lot of research to prove the obvious with relevant sources.

Actually they are quite smart - if you ever have a problem in business  - now you know how to get the cheapest consulting ever.

Anyway, after 12 hours of writing, I went to a party at my new place where I will move in in six days. Was an exiting party. Looking definitely forward to move in, I guess we will have a lot of fun there.

Did I mentioned that I am still not finished after 12 hours. Yeah – will be an exiting day tomorrow, too. And there is still a Strategy case and an Accounting Assignment due on Tuesday….. and I haven’t started yet.

That’s MBA life.

So long, take care!

PS: was sailing on Wednesday and Friday; might be a reason that I am a bit short in time now – but, you know, there are priorities….

The Minister and myself

Yesterday, the minister for small businesses in British Columbia visited our class to give a speech about – oh surprise – small business in BC. Just before the speech Steve, our accounting professor and head of the MBA faculty, came to me. He asked me to thank the minister and to hand him a present after his speech.
110 Students, the whole MBA faculty, a minister and in English – shit, IN ENGLISH - that was serious cold call. I have to admit: I was quite a bit nervous. But you grow with your challenges.
Finally, I managed somehow to say some words and I guess it worked quite well. in addition, I know now about the advantages of speaking notes. The notes saved my life because as soon as I had started to talk I remembered nothing of my preparation.

Would I do it again? Immediately! It was a great experience and I am even better prepared for the next one now. Actually, it has been one of my best experiences of the MBA so far.
Now, we have 0.08 am. I got up at 7.00 am and have studied since then without a real break. Bad news: still some preparation to do for tomorrow. Good that they did the class picture last week – nothing to laugh anymore.

Anything more? I got a lovely picture postcard from Denmark today. That was a nice surprise!

Study hard, sleep less and do considerable partying – my first week at school.

Wow, already two weeks passed since my last blog entry. The time is incredibly running. What has happened since then? A lot!

We had an awesome orientation week. Including two remarkable dinners in outstanding locations in Vancouver - The Cecil Green Park and Brock House - and an unforgettable day in the rain for a teambuilding event. It was a great week for building connections with my future class mates. At Wednesday last week the official core program started finally. Since then, life consist of lectures, group working, self studying and writing case memos. Hardly any time for something else. However, there is always the exception of the rule. Thursday night is party night – thanks god.

Saturday, I managed it somehow to join my sailing lessons. I took for the first time a Racing Laser. And even more important, I won my first regatta! YEAH!

So long for today!

My Last Days of Freedom

Today, the class was completely together for the first time because this week is the official orientation week of the programme. Teambuilding and introduction into different Sauder departments will be the main topic of the week. The week started with an very emotional keynote “A test of will” of a guy who lost both legs in a hiking accident some years ago. His legs where smashed by a huge stone and he had to wait two days until the rescue arrived. After his accident, he overcome the obstacles of his new situation and has again started to hike mountains – without legs. As I am also into the outdoors, his story impressed me a lot.

As this was the highlight of the new week, some other highlights took place at the weekend. Saturday, we went sailing with the MBA sailing club of the previous year. It was a nice trip with beautiful weather and considerable wind. After some weird dinghy sailing, I was very glad to be on a real yacht again.

 

Another highlight of last week was my hiking trip to Bowen Island on Wednesday – my last day off before the Core starts. It’s an island near of Vancouver with a nice 800m high mountain. Naturally, I need to get onto the summit. All in all, you need to hike 17km which takes you around seven hours. The efforts are honoured by a awesome view on Vancouver Island, Vancouver City and Mt Bacon.

On the summit are some broadcasting antennas which were maintained that day. The engineers choose the more convenient way to get onto the summit. They flew in by helicopter. It’s quite impressive to watch a helicopter landing on this small platform. We tried to convince the pilot for a ride back to Vancouver. Unfortunately, he was not as exited about the idea as we were….

Finally, I got also very aware about the disadvantages of being so far away from home. Eva and Jörg, good friends from Munich, married and I was not able to participate. Congratulations again from the far west to them.

God and Evil - Sailing and Comprehensive Accounting

After our relaxing weekend in Okanagan, we had four days of accounting this week. I had been a bit relaxed about this topic as I had accounting before in my undergraduates. However, I was deeply impressed of the speed in which the professor went through the content. I didn’t expect that it is possible to teach the whole stuff of four terms undergraduate accounting in only four days. I am even more impressed that many students with limited accounting backgrounds followed the lectures so smooth. I guess we have some very smart people in our class. In summary, it was probably a good introduction into the first month of the program (so called “Core”) which is supposed to be the toughest part of the studies.

But let’s switch to other important things in life: Sailing. I finally managed to go out on the Ocean. I joined the UBC Sailing Club together with Samuel, a new friend of the MBA program. And: It’s awesome to sail here - on the one side the skyline of Vancouver on the other side the sunset above the Strait of Gorgia. Because it’s so nice, I have been out each day since Saturday. However, it’s still challenging, as we are on small dingys which I haven’t sailed before. I used to sail on the bigger yachts and the small dingys react much faster in every maneuver – beware of capsizing.

After sailing we usually enjoy one of these nice and expensive Canadian beers on the patio of the Sailing Club. As a committed MBA Student, Samuel is checking in the meanwhile the latest news of the NYSE – just kidding – he is checking the prices for the new iPhone4.

Out of Vancouver

My first course ended last week. So far, the impression was quite good. I met many nice people from different countries. Parallel to our classes we worked in different groups on a team project which we presented at our last day. Our project was about “Vancouver Olympic Games – was it worth it?” – for a Munich guy a relevant question at the moment as the city applies for the Games 2018. We invested a lot of time, but the presentation was really perfect. I guess we built a very good and efficient team, a good starting point for further teamwork. However, the first week was more on the networking side, for the MBA itself I still expect a tougher level.
Our ISP – International Student Preparation Class:

 

Friday I left Vancouver with a group of people of my house to the countryside. Together with some further friends we were nine people heading for the Okanagan Valley which is famous for the wine (yes, Canada has wine!) and fruits. With currently more than 30 degrees, it is indeed one of the warmest and driest areas of Canada. When we arrived at 11pm, all camping sides were already closed. So we went for hidden spot for wild camping. During the good night beer we heard a strange noise. We agreed quite fast that it could be a bear. Everybody was a quite frightened – including me: first night in the wilderness and directly a bear. However the noise vanished and we got back to our drinks. Some minutes later we heard a similar noise again. This time fast approaching – the frightening level raised again until we recognized that the noise was related to a big V8 pick-up truck engine which were passing on the road nearby. Learning: big cars and big animals could sound very similar.

Next day, we were heading to a camping place nearby the lake. The Canadians have tends and camping trucks which outsize houses in other parts of the world.

But we were also not so bad: For the obligatory BBQ we had a Weber grill in our luggage. In the afternoon, we were floating on some air mattresses on a channel which connects two of the lakes. As beer, sun and laziness are part of the Canadian culture we very naturally not alone on this trip. In the evening, we closed the day with another BBQ and some further drinks.

 

Sunday, I was the first time of my life wake boarding – And surprisingly, I got out of the water and ride the waves. An absolutely awesome experience, I can’t wait to do it again. By the way, “awesome” is the probably most used word in Vancouver. You have to use it as often as possible and you could do hardly anything wrong.

Now, we are on the way back to Vancouver. Next week, the Accounting preparation course takes place. New people and probably more content as so far.

back to reality

Vancouver welcomed me with more than 10 days of exceptional good whether. But since yesterday, it have been raining nearly all day. According to the Vancouver people this's unfortunately the weather they have most of the year. So better do not visit the city without a good rain jacket :-).
However, even if it is raining the city is still exciting. During the weekend I did some walks along the seawalk - a 30km long trail at the shore of the city of vancouver -, went through the Olympic Village and ate my by far best fish and ships ever.

In addition, my first week in my new house is over. I live together with 10 other people in a house in the middle of Kitsilano, a very popular neighborhood of Vancouver. It's a funny community. Most of us are expads from all over the world who met in Vancouver now. It's perfect to make new friends and to have some fun.

For me it has the further advantage that I am very fast at the University, but also nearby downtown.

After two weeks in Vancouver, I am willing to say that I am landed now.

PS: saw this sign today. For all who still do not know how to pronounce:

Werde das Hy-fuh-vy-tzen die Tage dann mal probieren... 

Up into the mountains

I was asked to publish more pictures, so I will do!
Yesterday, I did my first hiking tour together with some friends. We went to the north shore mountains of Vancouver. We drove to one of the Olympic locations and walked from there to the peak. From there we could see all over Vancouver and the English Bay. Great, was a good introduction into the Canadian Mountains... and there will probably some more follow.

Afterwards, we drove to a small village  located at an arm of the ocean outside of Vancouver. A lovely, peaceful place very close to the big city. Many kayaks and boats out of the water and even more people enjoying their BBQ. In addition, totally multicultural - Asians, Canadians and Europeans - each celebrating in his own way.

Finally, we went to one of this huge supermarkets for which North America is popular for. But I have to admit: they need the space because the size of all products is mainly times two of the european size (eg. Shampoo 500ml, blueberries 1KG and so on). If we already talking about fruits: they are also almost twice the size of the fruits you get in Europe. However, they taste like nothing. Strange, but its seems that only the size counts.

I have a room!

You will find me here:

Link to Google Maps

Matthias Hartmann
2710 West 5th Avenue
Vancouver, BC
V6K 1T4 Canada

Back to School...

... in my case, after about 8 summer breaks. Anyway, Thursday started my MBA with the so called ISP International Student Preparation. Very nice classmates from different nations all over the world. The class is very small as not all students decided to join the ISP. This makes it easy to get acquainted with the classmates.  
Much more important: now is my first weekend in Vancouver - and directly a long one as Monday is a public holiday in BC (British Columbia). Today, I visited downtown for the first time. You can still see the impacts of the Olympic Games. Everything looks new or recently refurbished. I was in particular impressed by many little observations: The huge container vessels and cruising ships which enter the harbor,  the aeroboats which depart and arrive directly in front of the skyline, the panorama of the skyline when sitting at the beach, the musicians at the street. I would like to support my observations with some pictures but I forgot my camera. Anyway, I promise to publish some pictures of my city impressions next time.
Success of the day: I bought a used bike together with a helmet and a lock (which is both mandatory here). Without these accessories you will get first in trouble with the police and next you have to call the police.
Despite of these small successes I still looking for an shared room somewhere in the city and getting slightly nervous about that. But lets wait and see and watch the craigslist.

Welcome to Canada

I am in Canada. Before I left I had some good last days in Germany. I enjoyed the time with Andrea and also my farewell party at Saturday. It was a great pleasure for me to celebrate my move to Canada together with so many friends.
But finally I had to go. Andrea gave me a lift to the airport and then we had to say goodbye for some months. Very emotional moments.
Eight hours later I did my first steps on the ground of maple country: Welcome to Canada. After immigration in Canada (Good that they send the guy at the other counter home and not me :-)), I took an other six hours domestic flight to Vancouver. Especially the view at the Rocky Mountains was absolutely stunning. Large lakes and big mountains with huge glaciers and high summits. Hopefully I will get the chance to ascent some of them during my studies.

Vancouver itself welcomed me with three days of perfect weather and the forecast is still good. As a natural result, my first highlight was a nice visit at the beach including my first bath in the Pacific together with some seals which swam only a few meters away (the animal not the soldier). Even if I haven't seen so much in the few days since I am here the city looks impressive (as everybody told me). In particular, the Pacific in direct neighborhood to the mountains is really unique. Today, there were also many boats sailing in the English Bay which made me a bit jealous. I hope to get also on the water soon.
However, my focus for the moment is to find a permanent place to live. Thats not easy, but I guess its never easy to find something appropriate. However, I still have my room in the hostel for two more weeks. Lets wait and see. Unfortunately, I also lost my debit card but don't worry I still have my credit card :-).   


Tomorrow will start the ISP (International Student Preparation) where I will meet the other student for the first time. The story will goes on.

My Way to Vancouver II - which B-school fits to me and how to get into the program

Even if completing an MBA was always of interested for me, I didn't had so much in-depths knowledge about schools, programs and admission. Consequently, I started to do some research about schools and programs: in addition to Google (my best friend in the meantime together with Kaplan's GMAT prep books), I have discussed with many friends and colleagues about the best schools for a MBA. But if you ask 10 people about the best schools you will certainly get 10 different answers. Interestingly each recommendation made sense out of the individual personal perspective. On this basis, I compared the schools based on three main cornerstones which reflected my personal needs:

1) Must be in the top hundred FT-list

2) Program not longer then 15 months

3) Whether in a native english or spanish spoken country

Based on that I decided to apply at ESADE in Barcelona and Sauder in Vancouver.

When I first read the admission requirements, I was very, very impressed. The top ten schools seemed to be unreachable and the others were still pretty tough. The admission officers will tell you that it is all depending on the right preparation - and they are right. Finally, I scored 107 Points in the Toefl and 690 Points in the GMAT - both values which I never expected when I started with studying for the tests. So, don't fear the top names - with some work you can do it.

If you have the tests, only the essays are missing. Haha. I do not know if anybody read my essay, but I spend at least a considerable time for preparing.  Afterwards, submit the application, relax and hope for an interview. 

I was interviewed by both schools and also got accepted into both programs. As I invested a considerable amount of time into the application for each program, the decision was not easy. However, Vancouver won finally. It was really a instinctive decision, so better do not ask me for any reasons.

My Way to Vancouver I - Leaving the company

Now, it is July 2010 and my Vancouver experience is starting in about a week. Time to look back over the last months and how the adventure begun. About a year ago in July 2009, first rumors arise that my company has to lay off employees due to the tough economic situation. At this time, I was as the Global Operations Manager of the companys training business - a great experience for me and I liked this job very much. However, I did not see a perspective for me within the company in the long term perspective. Consequently, there was only one way: leaving the company and looking for something new. After seven years within Siemens I decided to complete MBA because that would give me the time for self reflection, to network in an intercultural environment and to improve my business knowledge. With this I have hoped to get a perfect basis to succeed in my future commitments.

My MBA project in mind, I started negotiating the termination conditions with my boss. Finally, we agreed on a date 9 month later in May 2010 combined with a severance package. Perfect for me as I were able to work some more month while in parallel could apply for the MBA.