Tuesday, November 08, 2005

Cue "Jaws" Music...

I have made a bet with Francis. 100 Euro says I'll fail both of my midterms this week. "C" means failing, by the way. And 10% of our class of 70 will automatically get a C because everything is graded on a curve. So chances are good that I'll fail not only accounting but decision analysis.

So if I fail both, I get 100 euro. If I get 2 B's or better, Francis gets 100 euro. If I get one of each, no one gets anything. If I get A's I think I get a heart attack. Fortunately that is unlikely. If I were to make a decision tree, I'd have to give the A's a .00000000000000989% chance of happening. Or less. So I wouldn't go with that option.

Aside from studying for exams I'm inevitably going to fail, today was a rather good day. I woke up from a nightmare at 6am and decided that I might as well get up. I got in the shower, which turned freezing cold after no more than 2 minutes, as I was covered in soap. The hot water never came back on. I took the bus to school and smiled as we crossed Via Augusta, because that is the best part of the trip to school. The sun is always just coming up and the bus gets filled with a rosy glow. Our morning meeting was fine as usual.

In marketing we had a pop quiz. I guess it wasn't so "pop" because we'd all been speculating about it. The case was about Marvel Entertainment and whether they should venture into the film biz or other media. I didn't have enough time to write what I wanted on the quiz, but fortunately I managed to talk a lot in class. After that we had decision analysis, which was unusually boring today because it was just a lecture and not very interactive. For a class I really thought I'd despise, decision analysis is actually quite fun. Okay maybe not "fun" but... not so bad. At one point, the teacher was talking about how people get really bummed out in anticipation of a bad event, and then during the event they feel worse then okay, then bad, then ok, and then afterward they look back on the event and lose sight of how awful it actually was. I'm looking forward to getting to that point in my own event! Lunch brought the first meeting of the Marketing Club, and after that we had managerial communications. We watched a clip from "Other Peoples' Money." That was two classes in one day with movie stuff. Cha ching.

I have spent the rest of my time today studying. How futile!

Tomorrow is our last day of normal classes this week. Thursday morning is the decision analysis exam for 3 hours, and then accounting is Friday morning. And then I'm off to Milan to play soccer against Bocconi. Man I'm so ready for this week to be OVER!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Noelle,

I am a 2nd year IESE MBA spouse and a regular reader of your blog. It's one of the first things I do in the morning!

You are having the typical exam anxiety signs. As long as you work hard, I wouldn't worry. Last year, we have close friends who got at least 2 Cs at each trimester but as they showed perserverance and dedication through the year... they were fine at the end of the day and proud of what they had achieved.

Good luck with everything. IESE is a unique experience and I can see that you are already making the best of it.

I am on "exchange" with my husband and look forward to meeting you when we are back in Barcelona next January.

Sandrine

NoellieBellie said...

Hey thanks, Sandrine! Yes, this is definitely exam anxiety at its finest. I´m now just looking forward to them being behind me, regardless of the final grade.

Looking forward to meeting you in January, too!

Noelle

Unknown said...

Wow, I am reading this in 2019 and Marvel is about to drop Avengers 4... anyway, great blog!! I want to apply for IESE this year and reading your experience makes me wanna be in Barcelona right now :)