My Ashford University Experience : managerial finance

Don’t Let Fear of Math Sabotage Your Education

Cajun — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 03:51:00 GMT

Fear of math. It’s something I see time and time again on discussion forums, blogs, when speaking with people in person or even when considering my own MBA. For some people fear of math isn’t the problem but instead it could be a fear of writing research papers, a fear of grammar or a fear of large and complex reading assignments, but the single most common fear I see is that of mathematics. Perhaps it is because of the exacting nature of mathematics, there is a right and a wrong answer, and frequently there is no room for discussion or argumentation. One either knows the answer or they do not, it’s generally that simple. Thus the fear bug hits. Many of us may carry over this fear due to our poor scholastic performance in mathematics at one of our public schools. Perhaps your past performance now results in anxiety about mathematics in college?

Fear however is of itself a problem for a student that is separate from whatever is causing the fear and must be dealt with accordingly. If you are somewhat afraid when you first enroll in school, receive your materials or sit for your first exam then guess what? Welcome to the group because we all go through that at some point or another. Many of us also dread mathematics, just as you do right now. Personally if I had known how much math was going to be involved in the Ashford MBA program there would have been no way I would have chosen Ashford, my fear of mathematics had that much power over my life. But guess what? I overcame my fear, made straight A’s in the very classes I so dreaded and ultimately am a better person for it. I now feel that if I wanted to get a PhD or DBA it’s merely a matter of desire, not will power, not intelligence. If I want it I know I can get it because I have been tested to the extreme and found myself succeeding through it all. This MBA has built up my confidence level and shown me what I am capable of more than I could ever have anticipated and I am a better human being for it. How foolish then would it have been then for me to allow fear to dictate my choices to me?

It’s very liberating overcoming your fear. It changes your perspective and sometimes the only way to do so is to face your fear and push through it. So here are some tips for overcoming your fear of mathematics (or whatever else, academically speaking).

First, don’t panic. If you work yourself up into a frenzy you will not be objective. If you are in panic mode right now, calm down, slow down and do whatever it is you do to get into a place of calm.

Approach the problem rationally and in an organized manner. This means that you need to have a plan. What do you want to do? A chapter a week? More? Less? Break down your deadlines into small manageable chunks. Don’t read a chapter a week, look at it more like 10 pages a day. Methodically work through things, don’t look up or look ahead, simply keep to your daily routine and keep at it one day at a time. Make a schedule and stick to it.

You fear math? Join the club. But you can do this, you’ve learned difficult things in the past. You learned to walk, talk, drive, perhaps you can even operate the advanced functions or your cell phone or even program a clock on the microwave. The point is that you have demonstrated that you can learn new things that are completely alien to you.

Work through example problems in the book as they are given. Check your work against the text and try to understand how they arrive at the data shown for each step in any equation. Break it down into small manageable chunks and paraphrase in your own words what you are doing in your notes. Review these notes the next day before going on. Even if you don’t understand the equation at least then you will have a specific question for a tutor or instructor which is important and will open helpful dialogue. Be sure to write down each question you have until you finish the chapter. You may find that you answer your own question.

Read the chapter summaries. These are great refreshers.

Keep your notes for quick references.

If you need additional help or equations check Wikipedia. I found multiple helpful formulas and explanations there.

Consult books other than your textbook. There are tons of workbooks for algebra, finance, calculus, statistics, etc. out there for you to consult. I personally like the Complete Idiots Guide and Dummies books but there are far more available than just those. Sometimes seeing the same problem with a differently worded explanation results in a “eureka” moment.

Don’t work tired, hungry, angry, frustrated, depressed, etc. You need to clear your mind, sometimes a change of atmosphere is necessary. You’ll be surprised at where you discover you learn best. For example I learned Quantitative Methods and Managerial Accounting and Finance in a Waffle House dining room during the wee hours of the morning, like between 1 and 4AM four nights a week. It was tough but it worked.

Don’t let yourself feel overwhelmed. If you start to feel overwhelmed you need to take a break, do something unrelated for a little while and then come back to it fresh and with focus. By the way the focus should be on the little picture and not the big picture at the time.

Don’t be afraid to ask for help but always be specific in your requests. There are several online tutoring services available, Google them and shop around. There may be one for you. Likewise you may know or be able to find a private tutor in your area. I came this close (-) to hiring a tutor before studying at all hours of the night at Waffle House.

Don’t fool yourself into thinking this will be anything other than hard work. It will be hard work so expect to work hard. Don’t let the feeling of hard work shock you into thinking you are in over your head.

Don’t give up if you fail at first. Remember it is a process and you will not be perfect the first go round.

That’s about it for now. I hope this helps.

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Hindsight 20/20: Individual Courses Rated on Difficulty and Content...by request part III

Cajun — Tue, 27 May 2008 19:40:00 GMT

BUS 644 Operations Management

Operations Management was a pretty straightforward case study and research based course. There were no real surprises here other than my final project grade was a tad lower than I felt it should have been, but then that’s life isn’t it? The material was pretty easy to understand and the course was formatted in such a way as to be able to easily reference the material. I personally believe that there is a lot of applicable stuff taught in this course and while a lot of it may seem like common sense at first it’s really a class on big picture thinking. For example, for years manufacturers believed that a certain margin of error in manufacturing was acceptable and that to address quality issues would be too expensive. The paradigm has shifted however and we are now to be told that handling quality issues up front is less expensive in the long run. That kind of stuff…

Ashford gets an A+ for the course being easy to follow and in my opinion highly practical in the real world.

Difficulty was about a 5 out of 10.

BUS 650 Managerial Finance

Managerial finance…hang on a second here, I’m trying to think of a tactful way of saying that I hated this course. Hmmm…..nothing. I guess I’ll have to just deal with the writer’s block. The reality is that this course was challenging from the word go. In fact “difficult” doesn’t seem to do justice to the 6 weeks of sleepless nights and anxious days I had to suffer through to get an “A” in this course. It was a sheer testament of will power that I was even able to do that. The material was necessary but difficult. The assignments were detailed, in depth and quite honestly frightening to look upon after the fact. I’ve gone back and read some of my homework assignments and been thinking ‘what the heck was I talking about’? Oh sure I still understand the principles of the course but if I had to do it all over again? Well, let’s not think about that shall we?

Ashford gets an A+ for the course as they really taught me about Managerial Finance. You wouldn’t believe the amount of crap you can learn in 6 weeks. Amazing.

Difficulty was about a 9 ½ out of 10 with 10 being akin to actually understanding one of Alan Greenspan’s quarterly addresses to Congress on the state of the economy. (hint, nobody understood that guy but then nobody wanted to look stupid by asking “I’m sorry, but what the heck are you talking about”). Classes like this make me wonder how the heck George Bush actually got his MBA? I’m just saying….

BUS 670 Legal Environment

Ah yes, the Legal Environment. This class was a bit of a shocker and was probably the first class that I encountered that let me know that this was a full blown, no holds barred graduate MBA program. The professor was a Judge Advocate General, military lawyer who was retired and really had lots and lots of time to scrutinize your work on what I considered to be a nuclear level (as in to the smallest finite end) and our grades reflected such. The program started off in criminal law, which is right up my lane but then started getting into ethics, case studies, business obligations and liabilities. You think you know ethics? Hah!!! Wait until you have to view ethics from the eyes of a lawyer…(I have so many jokes right now I can’t even tell you but I’ll refrain). We did do a ton of case studies and argued our positions based upon performing legal research. I learned a ton about business law and what’s more important I decided that I do not want to earn a law degree, which is saying a lot since at one point I sincerely considered getting a JD at a local brick and mortar school.

Ashford University gets an A+ here but beware, when they say you will learn about law then that’s kind of misleading. What you will learn is how much you don’t know about law. Great huh?

Difficulty was an 8 out of 10 for this course. It’s not nearly as easy as it sounds and honestly this was the first course where I saw students weeded out.

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Managerial Finance Final Grade Received...Not my best experience

Cajun — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 06:27:00 GMT

I finally received my grade on my final report for Managerial Finance. I made an 86% on it. You wouldn’t believe what I got “gigged” on. I used conversational English as I frequently do, even here I suppose and I kept using the phrase “Let’s take the example of…” or some such. Well for every time I said “Let’s” I had points deducted. Did I miss the concepts of the course? No. Did I screw up the numbers? Nope. Did I misapply the philosophies or learning objectives in Managerial Finance? No. Instead I apparently made the 7^th grade mistake of writing in a conversational tone instead of in a strictly dry academic tone. Oddly enough I have received high marks in the past specifically because my papers were “engaging” or an “easy read” or even “flowing”. But this time? Oh no. Apparently unless you could blow dust off the pages because it was so dry, you get gigged.

Okay I’m not complaining here, but the instructor also seemed at times to be a little reluctant on the feedback. However after pretty much insisting on it after failing in my discussion posts one week I would routinely get feedback. Also instead of the usual “welcome to my class, I hope you enjoy it” type of thing at the beginning we received a list more to the tone of “you will be deducted 10 points for every day late” or “you will be expected to…” type of thing. Yeah, yeah I know. Big cry baby whining about the mean teacher in grad school because he didn’t ask me how my day was or whatever. Still, a good class with highly relevant material. This professor was just certainly a lot less personable than I have previously experienced to date. Maybe less enthusiastic would be a better way of putting it. Lastly this dude graded papers tough. Perhaps it was because he had exacting standards, maybe he didn’t like the cut of my jib (whatever a “jib” is) I don’t know. I do know that I scored higher on the final than the class average which tells me that this guy was just a tough nut all around.

I’m glad for the experience, I’m even more glad it’s over. People I’m here to tell you that the last 24 weeks have been BRUTAL with the bulk of the brutality in these last 6 weeks.

That being said my GPA is still intact as I made a 91% for the course. I’m still sailing at a 4.0 GPA, which is great news however I’m so exhausted that I really struggled my first week in Operations Management. However everything else should be down hill and I’m hoping to pick up momentum.

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I’m about to start at another university

Cajun — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 00:27:00 GMT

No, I’m not about to drop out of Ashford University, not only do I love the school, I have only 4 classes left. But I am about to enroll in the Louisiana State University post graduate Certificate in Accounting. Even though I have basically spent the last 6 months doing graduate quantitative methods, finance and accounting I still consider this to be my weakest point in my business education and skills. Likewise, the MBA pays off the largest dividends on average in the areas of finance and accounting. Even if I do not end up working in this area I really need to hone my skills.

The certificate is really inexpensive and can be found here http://www.is.lsu.edu/ACCTCertificateProg.asp?nid=103&Level=CO&Online=1

And being from Louisiana I’ve kind of always been brainwashed into believing that LSU is the greatest school on earth anyways. Which they are!

The program requires 2 intermediate accounting courses at the undergraduate level to enroll as a prerequisite. I’m kind of hoping that Managerial Accounting and Managerial Finance from Ashford will sufficiently meet this requirement. If not, no biggie I suppose, it’ll just add a couple more courses to the program. I will say that after 6 months of doing this stuff that even though I’m not good at it, I am starting to understand the language and concepts a bit better. In other words, I know enough about this field to know where I need improvement, which is a good thing.
I will likely be doing these course concurrent with my MBA courses however these are more of a work at your own pace kind of thing. Also I will once again be taking proctored tests which is never any fun whatsoever but I suppose it is all part and parcel of being a tiger right? (That’s LSU’s mascot for those who don’t know).

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Week 6…the final frontier

Cajun — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 06:49:00 GMT

That title goes out to all of you Star-Trek fans out there (dorks). Seriously though, this is the last and most ominous week of the series for Managerial Finance. So far I have a 94% for the class and I just finished all of the discussion questions. That leaves the final. I’ve decided to take the next 5 days of work off for a mini-vacation in celebration of completion of my core should I finish all of my work tomorrow or to use as a buffer should I get behind. So far this class has been challenging to put it in the most politically correct of terms. But for those of you not so easily offended, it has been a real butt-kicking reality check.

Of course as Murphy would have it I have also been battling a severe sinus infection that appears to have turned into something dangerously close to bronchitis during the last week. I couldn’t get in to see the doctor until tomorrow at 10AM and she is an hour away. So I have been working, doing homework and fighting my 2nd illness of 2008 and it’s not even April yet. The year 2008 has not been kind to me thus far. I’m thinking about getting a refund from Father Time if things don’t improve much. You think that can be done?

I’m told that stress causes one to be more susceptible to getting sick. Maybe that is the problem, overwork, under relaxation. And I am scheduled for a 14 or more hour day my first day back from vacation at work. Thanks a pant-load boss!

So since life isn’t letting up I’m just going to have to get tough, quit crying and get on with it (a little tough love to one’s self never hurts). Seriously though I’m about due for a break soon or I just may crack up some. Of course selling a house, buying a new house, moving and doing this class while maintaining an “A” hasn’t exactly been conducive to what most people would call “being rational” but hey, it’s nothing a little Prozac can’t fix right?

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My Ashford University Experience : managerial finance

Don’t Let Fear of Math Sabotage Your Education

Hindsight 20/20: Individual Courses Rated on Difficulty and Content...by request part III

BUS 644 Operations Management

Ashford gets an A+ for the course being easy to follow and in my opinion highly practical in the real world. Difficulty was about a 5 out of 10.

BUS 650 Managerial Finance

Ashford gets an A+ for the course as they really taught me about Managerial Finance. You wouldn’t believe the amount of crap you can learn in 6 weeks. Amazing.

BUS 670 Legal Environment

Ashford University gets an A+ here but beware, when they say you will learn about law then that’s kind of misleading. What you will learn is how much you don’t know about law. Great huh?

Difficulty was an 8 out of 10 for this course. It’s not nearly as easy as it sounds and honestly this was the first course where I saw students weeded out.

Managerial Finance Final Grade Received...Not my best experience

I’m about to start at another university

Week 6…the final frontier

Ashford gets an A+ for the course being easy to follow and in my opinion highly practical in the real world.

Difficulty was about a 5 out of 10.