New UBC MM-ECM Student Blog

Hello. Thank you for your interest in the UBC ECM Blog. We have recently moved the blog to https://blogs.ubc.ca/saudermmecm/. Please check out the new blog to find out more about the UBC MM-ECM student experience!

ECM Life

Hey everyone!

Despite the short and rainy days, it looks to be an exciting module for our ECM cohort. School is back after a well-deserved one-month break from December 4- January 4. I went to Whistler with a group of fellow ECM-ers and learned that not only do I go to school with some of the world's brightest and most motivated students, but also with a group of well-practiced and adventure-seeking skiers! It was a blast. Six of us are heading back up there again for a day trip next week. We had our first ECM volleyball game this afternoon. It was a great game, especially considering the team has moved into a more competitive tier!

Module 2A is underway with 3 courses (operations, accounting and market research) alongside a community business project. My project is with a great team of 5 ECM students at the Canada West Foundation. We are doing a background report and market reserch survey on the energy economy in BC. The report will eventually be proposed to the government and influence the energy policy in BC (if all goes well!). Other students in our cohort are working on projects for companies such as the David Suzuki Foundation, United We Can and a variety of other great companies. Its been a great way to put our growing business skills to use!

I have a few interviews coming up and have had great support from the Business Career Centre, known affectionately as "the BCC." You will get to know them well.

It looks to be another great term at UBC!

End of Term 1B, End of the Year.

Sorry for my absence but over the last couple months the workload has kept right up there. For me, this was the most challenging term out of the two, and I expect it will be the most challenging term for when things are said and done. We had 3 quantitative courses and one qualitative. I have a Political Science and History background and so I'm much more comfortable in courses with long sentences and explanations than formulas and sigmas. (Next year I think they may weight it differently so you don't have 3:1 but 2:2) Regardless, it was good and definitely gave me an in depth view into Investments, Corporate Finance and Statistics. Strategic Management was my saving grace, something I could sink my teeth into and really understand. We're done that now.

Recap: We have now completed 8 courses, in yes, about 3 months. They were: Marketing, Financial Reporting, Organizational Behaviour, Foundations of Managerial Economics, Investments, Corporate Finance, Statistics and Strategic Management.

Next term we have only 3 courses, but not because they want to give us a relaxing term but because we will also be starting a Community Business Project. The next three classes up are:

Foundations in Managerial Accounting, Marketing Research and Operations and Logistics.

Now as much as those topics excite me, really I'm more focused on the Community Business Project. I really like what this can bring to my education but also to get some really hands on experience working in the city I truly love. We were all put into groups of varying size and makeup, determine in part by the BCC and in part by our own ranking of projects.

I'm in a group with Suranga and Tim. We're a small group but I don't expect we'll have any trouble getting our goals finished. We are working with United We Can, a downtown east side organization focussed on creating jobs for less fortunate people in that area. Currently we are working on getting everything rolling, once its moving I'll post some more on how the CBPs are going.

The New Year is approaching fast and it's going to mean a lot of work back on our plates, but I think each term we are just a little more ready for it. One thing that should help a lot and will be a big help for all future cohorts is the Sauder building will be mostly finished renovations. We have a brand spanking new classroom right on the first floor (near the Tim Horton's - key) that should be a lot nicer, as well we should have a new ECM Lounge where we can start storing things from year to year, and generally creating a real space for us. The Olympics are also coming up and although it has nothing to do with ECM it will give us a nice break and something awesome in the city.

Five more months of classes and then back into the real world. On a last note, get on looking for a job early. I've been fairly pro-active since September and have only managed to get 6 or 7 applications out. I've had some interviews but nothing concrete yet. This is really the hidden course throughout the year. I've had to miss a class or two for an interview and have definitely had nights where deciding on studying for an exam came face to face with an application deadline. It's fun, it's why you're in this program (in most cases) so get on that part as well and it will make June seem much brighter, if you have a job waiting for you.

That's all for now, hopefully I won't get too bogged down and forget about this next term.

Module 1B

We are 1 week into the second Module of the ECM. It is busy already, but the courses are interesting! Investments, Finance, Statistics and Strategy are what we are doing this module. So far so good! It is Halloween this weekend and some students are attending a Graduate Students Society event tomorrow, others just enjoying the weekend with friends outside the ECM. The bookstore finally has all of our textbooks in so many of us will be catching up on readings and homework now that we have our books. Have a happy and safe Halloween weekend!

Hello!

Hello everybody!

My name is Shannon and I am also in the 2009/10 ECM cohort.

A bit about me... I'm from Vancouver and finished my BSc in Biology at UBC in April 2008 and worked last year (and learned a lot) as a traveling leadership consultant for my sorority. That finished last March, I traveled for the summer through Europe (Spain, Portugal, Italy, France) and then to Asia (Thailand, Laos, Hong Kong and Japan) before starting ECM in August. I have been playing soccer, volleyball and volunteering about 10 hours week along with my school work, so it has been a busy 6 weeks (the length of each ECM module)!

Thoughts on entering ECM: I'll be honest, entering a program that is so new felt risky. I read this blog just as you are, and had to wonder if this was really for me. Then I thought, "what are the downsides to a background in business? Would it be so horrible to get a masters degree?" and, "Wow, its only 9 months!" I am happy about everything that has happened so far.

Its hard to explain what the program is like, so I thought I would give you what a day in the ECM program is like. Tuesday in Module A - I woke about at 7:15am, made tea, put on my rainboots and bussed out to campus for our 3.5 hour accounting lecture from 9am-1230. At 11am, Tran gave us a 20 min. break. About 10 ECM-ers walked downstairs and over to the Tim Hortons where we spent our break in line waiting for coffee and catching up about things that are new. Aidin checked the stock market via the stocks application for iphone. I am definitely learning lots about business from my classmates! We had a 1.5 hour lunch break after accounting, so I went to meet some of my friends from undergrad for lunch in the aquatic center (a great place to eat lunch on a cold day!). I hurried back to Henry Angus Rm 425 for Econ. Two groups gave presentations on economics concepts and current events in econ - they were really well done. After Econ, I met with my group for our HR projects - 1 presentation and 1 essay. Meeting with groups before and after class is common place in this program. We split up the work, and I went to the library to catch up on reading and to get my part of the projects underway.

I find that the huge quantity of group projects make this term especially busy compared to my undergrad experience in science, but it is a supportive environment. We have a great line up of lecturers and great teammates in the ECM class who are always there to help. When times get really stressful, I just remind myself that I will have finished the requirements for my masters in just 7 months! Its a good deal and I am happy about the things we are learning. More updates on the ECM 09/10 team to come!

Shannon

The End of Term 1A!

Term 1A has come to an end! After 6 weeks of projects, presentations, papers (the 3 Ps that give students nightmares), it's finally time for our first term break. I concur with John- everything that was pre-ECM seems like ancient history now.

School work has taken up a large part of my time these past few weeks, but then again, being 1 of the 7 ECM-ers who reside in the MBA House on campus, it feels like I'm in school 24/7. However res life at the MBA House is a lot more luxurious than undergrad dorms- we get nicer rooms (with our own mini-fridge, microwave & bathroom), a coffee shop that's actually INSIDE our building (this is truly a blessing for us sleep-deprived students who survive on caffeine) and nice big kitchens/common rooms. Not to mention that my fellow classmates are living right next door and right across from me, which is very helpful especially the night before exams! It's not just about getting exam tips or asking each other last-minute questions, but the morale and the feeling that everyone's in this together.

This is one thing that I love about the ECM program: we see each other every single class, unlike in undergrad where you never see people ever again after taking 1 single course with them. Plus considering that there's only 55 of us, the whole cohort is pretty tight-knitted and supportive: we encourage each other by sharing good news about job-searching, we share with everyone the 'exam tips' that a certain professor gives us outside of class time so that everyone will do well, and so on. Not to mention our wonderful ECM student council President John Holt who typed up a 10-page study guide for a certain course and shared it with everyone. Three Cheers for the President!

Another thing I really love the program so far is the diversity. Having done most of my schooling in Hong Kong, it's really an experience for me to work with people from all across the world. It was only till a few days ago being in the common room with the ECM Europeans was when I realized that les Suisses, les Francais and les Belges are all Francophones. (Apparently I need to brush up my knowledge or common sense about the European continent, but that's beside the point here).

And much as I adore ECM so far, I am glad to take a few days off school, hop onto a ferry and head back to Victoria where I can finally get 8 (or more) consecutive hours of sleep at home. This is one luxury which I haven't enjoyed for in ages.

Typing up a super long blog entry when I've just submitted a 10-page Organizational Behaviour paper and a 5-page Marketing paper seems a little bit too much, so I'll stop here for now.

I promise my next entry will be more visually stimulating with pictures of the past Term 1A.

Round 2 - The Second ECM Class

Hi my name's John Holt and really I'm using this as an excuse to do something while avoiding studying and projects for a few precious minutes. I'll likely post on here from time to time in the coming year and see if I can keep updated what's going on inside our ECM program.

The short of the long is that I was born in the UK, raised across Canada, call Vancouver home and spent the past two years living in Madrid, Spain. I decided to come back to Canada but only if I was going to be moving my career path forwards, through either a good job or a good educational boost. As the economy wasn't looking so squeaky clean I dove back into education and applied, was accepted and began attending the Master of Management, Early Career Masters program.

That seems ancient history. Our class had our first day of pre-core classes August 24th, I arrived back from Spain, August 21st. After that crash course in maths and econ, we had a week of business immersion and at the end of that week a career development day. That was 5 weeks ago, or as it's known in our world, a full term. 4 courses complete and a fifth of our academic duties done. Final exams and project are all due this coming week and its been hectic, fun and painful. If it wasn't for the people (both in the program and supporting us) I'd likely be nuts, if I weren't already.