If Blogs Are For Nerds, Then Call Me Urkel

I originally entered this blogging experience with the notion that those who posted blogs were people who couldn't get others in the real world to pay attention to their rants. However, I have found this to be a positive experience. Although I find myself barely cutting the deadlines of blog posts, due to limited time, I really enjoyed speaking with people I may not have had the opportunity to within class time. It also gave me some insight to various people that I had certain perceptions of, sometimes changing my perception, and other times reinforcing what I originally felt. I definitely enjoyed the suggestions for solutions to my management problems, and positive reinforcement from my peers in other matters.

I think the assignments related to class activities really did drive in the points of what we were learning and allowed us to match experience to the textbook definition, in areas we may not have realized that there was a phrase or word for what we were doing. I like the fact that we were forced to analyze the activities past their initial meaning, and think this provided a helpful introduction for what we were learning.

I like the idea that the Professor's blog was a way to get deeper into the subject of management, and considered it almost a more-interesting-appendix to the class material. In fact, I wish some of these types of articles and postings would be added to the required textbooks to spice them up a bit. I would like to see more posts, but would like for the reply comment to be voluntary. I found myself really searching for words to reply back to the Professor in some of these blogs, and would most likely enjoyed posting more if I only had to do it when I found it necessary. I feel the same way about the replies to some of the student's blogs. From reading some of my comments, I am sure some students feel the same. I often received these sort of programmed responses that you can tell were only generated because of necessity. I understand the need for required replies, because they do stimulate some really interesting conversation, so I guess I look at them like the really off-the-wall ideas we would throw out in the brainstorming process, but that helped work our way to a great innovation.

Overall, the blog was a creative way to engage astudents in the material. Although I dislike some aspects, I believe they are necessary to achieve all there is to gain from the experience. So keep it up!

We Are A Kurpis CLass

We Are A Kurpis Class

By Stefan Barone

Management is life when it throws multiple multiples or even take-homes,

I know a lot of you do not like essays so I wrote you a poem.

I might cal a rectangle a triangle, but a spade is a spade,

We all have just learned valuable tools for today’s trades.

You now know management issues with globalization, discrimination, what an education!

We are a whole lot more that some leaf to a shamrock organization.

But if you hit the glass ceiling or feel the ground slippin’,

When all else fails- Don’t forget the Power of Vision.

We are trying to graduate and show how high we can climb to,

So please Professor- No Fiedler Contingency Model on the final!

We learned social responsibility and intellectual capital,

We also learned from Joey that communication can be magical.

We learned the importance of communication in a time of unrest,

Although I don’t understand you well Joey, I still wish you the best.

In fact, it was cool to meet you all, like Shimpy and Tal,

Even Vitamin Water Mike, see, I know your name now.

We are a Kurpis class- we can make it right to the top,

No matter what challenge, or if Steven likes us or not.

And if you didn’t get this and laugh at every sentence,

Than you should have came to class, that’s the importance of attendance!

So thank you Professor for the skills, what I do with them is now my choice,

This is the end of my rhyme, I’ll gladly accept my five points!

I Sound Like A Juicepack

C High D

I usually hate being labeled as anything, but I was surprised and have to admit that the Personal Profile System pretty much nailed it. After reading the description of all the characteristics of "Conscientiousness", I was amazed at how picking vague words to describe myself 28 times could lead to an on point analysis of the type of person I am. However, I am trying not to be tied down to the exact description and approach different tasks and decisions with different approaches when they call for it. As I do this, I begin to realize that this is only a conscience effort to change my ways, calling for my to be very analytical of my every move, therefore sending me further into my title. If I can overcome this self-fulfilling prophecy, I would like to be more of the "Influence" type, if I do not already follow some of these tendencies. I think you can motivate yourself to move to another heading in this Profile System. For example, shy people may overcome shyness and turn into dominant types. So yes, I do believe it is possible.

I think this system is a useful technique, but not reliable or foolproof. There were many words that were so close, that I may have chose differently depending on when I took it, which could have given me another outcome. Plus, I do not want to commit a hasty generalization by saying that just because the test had on point results for me, that results of other students were so truthfully descriptive. This is why I would be hesitant to implement this test as a basis for making any assumptions on classmates or coworkers. However, it would be interesting to see what the results would be for some of my co-workers and family members. If I agreed with the results, I do not think it would be useful, since it would basically be telling me what I already know. Overall, i just think this is an interesting test, but should not be utilized for anything more than interest.

Until The Barones Reach Kennedy Status Revised

I have just recently changed my vision to end with the ultimate goal of a career in pediatric medicine, specializing in treatment of terminally ill children. So feel free to read my previous blog with the few changes to the types of clubs I will be joining and running for, the internships I will be seeking, and finishing the college experience offset to about eight years (for med school). Although it will push back my goals by that long, I can honestly say this is the first time I am looking to the future happily since I enrolled as an Accountancy major.

Until the Barones Reach Kennedy Status

When reviewing my future, I often start with the final product. A house, wife, two kids, maybe a dog, or a pet robot dog, whatever is more fashionable. I want a house moderately larger than where I live now, with much more land. I also want to be able to grant my children the benefit of being able to explore whatever possiblities they want, and experience everything they need to make the correct choice of a career. I am a strong believer in each generation moving one step further than the last in my family. My father came from a mountain village in Italy and obtained a Master's Degree in the US. My mother obtained only a GED. They both came from living in apartments their whole lives, and were both able to purchase a moderately sized house. I appreciate that I was able to experience a number of liesures in moderation. However, with no disrespect to them, I want to do better. I aspire for an even larger home, and more luxury than what I lived with. Now I must break down how to obtain this.

Of course, this is all obtainable through a job that pays more than my fathers'. To obtain such a job I must be an attractive candidate for employers. What degree must I get? What experience do I have? What activities have I done besides school? Through analysis of this I can develop a list in the order to reach the final goal.

1) I must be a member of the Accounting Society. To do this I must attend six meetings. I want to be a member before May so that by May I can

2) Run for Secretary of the Accounting Society. After obtaining this position (hopefully for the Fall semester), and using my experience to my advantage, I can then

3) Run for President of the Accounting Society. I can then use this for experience and a large highlight on my resume.

4) While attempting to obtain these positions, I must also obtain an accounting-related internship. I have already went on several interviews for the summer.

5) After doing steps 1-4 I can than confidently apply for an internship in a Big 4 Accounting Firm. Hopefully through the internship, I will be hired, thus providing funds in the future for my first house purchase. From there, the variables can be mixed, such as selling and purchasing a larger home, and when to throw marriage in.

Although, this lacks the "what do you really want to be when you grow up" outlook (which was a firefighter, but due to the complete underpay of NYC firefighters, it will be extremely difficult to move my family up a notch in this generation), the main goal that would make me happiest is to provide the most financial happiness to my future family.

The ultimate, extremely long term goal is to provide my children with the funds to go to a better college than me, or have their try at their own business. I would like to see my family reach a point one day, that our wealth reaches that of what a Kennedy posesses today, and I believe it is possible if I continue the process in which the family that came before me began.

It's All Joey's Fault

I titled this blog not based on my actual feeling (I got your back Joey), but on what a uniformed aggressive response the class initially displayed in the decision making "exercise". We got to witness an assortment of personalities when it comes to how people handle conflict. Some people embodied the definition of these personality traits such as the "compete to win type" (and I won't mention names). Besides the affirmative personalities, from a position in front of the class, I got to witness all of the personalities described by the professor. However, I went to the front of the room with a firm personality I wanted to portray. It was to be a culmination of compromise, accommodation, and collaboration. This effort was turned into a display of compromise as I tried to include everyone's points in the effort, which was not received positively by everyone. I mainly became a defender of people's right to be heard, even though I did not necessarily agree with the ideas. I guess that it a form of accommodation. I felt I handled the situation decently, but what I would have like to have done is been the "compete to win", solely due to the fact that I really felt I knew what was best for everyone and I really was starting to not care if other people did not understand that. Thankfully, other voices spoke the same strong emotions that I was on the verge of conveying, and I was spared from acting immaturely. What I would have liked to do differently based on the understanding of our class dynamic does not demonstrate the best management skills for most job positions, so I am most satisfied with the role I actually played in this process.

Eggs-cellent Management

An Eggs-cellent Way To Plan

The Management Eggs group project was a great way to open the door to the concept of planning. Although, this was not a true measure of how a group may perform in reality (since we did not win), this still can give us a broad idea of what planning for a group objective under a time constraint may be like.

In Step 1 of the planning process, my group did a great job at defining what had to be done. We carefully analyzed the assignment, and were sure to ask the professor to clear up any questions. Once we understood everything, we set the main objective of minimizing the amount of egg shell that would actually absorb the initial impact. From here, we determined the best way to get the greatest deference of force was to create triangle like straws that would create points that would be the first to receive the force (or so we thought).

We spent a lot of time in Step 2, determining how many straws would be used for points, how many points this would create, and if we could possibly spare any straws to create more space between straw and eggshell to act as a cushion. One strength was identified, being that one team member had actually followed the same approach for the same experiment in 8^th grade. However, the main weakness of the group was that we spent a massive amount of time trying to explain exactly what we meant with our models. Miscommunication was the overall waste of time for the group, which lead to misinterpretations for how many resources would need to be used for each possible model.

My group did not spend any time developing alternative strategies, mainly due to the fact that this was a one time deal. We felt we had one shot at making this work, and there was nothing we can do to alter that, so it was pointless to have an alternative. However, in reality, alternative and contingency plans are almost necessary. Although, it was in this “phase” that we did come up with the strategy to have the shortest person drop the egg.

Once we developed strategies, we allocated who was going to do what. We stationed 3 people at the scissor post to ensure that we would be the first to have all tools necessary, and would not be pressed for time. This worked well, as we were able to start all cutting processes right away, allowing us to utilize the rest of the time to fixing unforeseen problems in building the model.

We went through with our point and cushion strategy, along with the short person course of action. The only problems in our planning were due to the wrong strategy chosen, since our egg cracked. However, I would much likely follow similar steps in the real-world to a much larger sense.