ONE-YEAR AT GOIZUETA: CHRIS LUDERS – A Few Odds and Ends
We’re in the midst of the second block of the summer now and taking classes like Leadership, Marketing, Finance, and Accounting. Rather than blather on about the summer classroom experience, though, I wanted to talk about a few other interesting aspects of life at Goizueta!
Fall Registration
If you’re looking at coming to Goizueta, particularly in the one-year program, you might be wondering how the registration process occurs. As a one-year student, you only have two shots (one Fall and one Spring) to take all the classes you want to pack into your MBA experience. Considering that, I was a bit apprehensive about the registration process – we didn’t get a chance to register for Fall classes until the first week of July, and first-year students in the two-year program registered for classes back in April. I was worried that all the electives I wanted to take would be full by the time I had a change to register!
Luckily, the MBA program office is mindful of our situation and sets aside over a dozen seats in every elective class for the one-year students. Class registration works in successive rounds – each student gets to choose one class in her first round, three more classes in her second round, and up to three more classes in the third and final round. In that way, each student gets to prioritize her class choices and register accordingly in order to make sure she gets into her most important class. Even with this prioritization, our entire class met together the day before registration and discussed the electives we wanted to take as a group (a definite benefit to the small cohort size at Goizueta!).
As we went around the room, we realized that very few classes were truly competitive for seats. Typically speaking, there were more than enough spots in each elective to go around the room and make sure everybody in our class got the electives they wanted. At the end of the day, it meant that the hours I spent on my prioritized, color-coded list of 15 primary and back-up electives went to waste – but at least my classmates and I will all get to take the classes we want in the Fall semester!
Snapshot of aforementioned, wasted spreadsheet action:
Goizueta Business Library
Team Fish modeling (literally and financially) in the lovely Goizueta Business Library:
The Goizueta Business Library has been a huge asset over the course of our summer. Situated on the first floor of Emory’s Woodruff Library, the GBL provides a lot of working space for individuals and teams to meet together and work on homework, projects, and anything else our hearts desire. There are also a number of books available for students to check out – several folks have taken advantage of these resources as they try to figure out what career path they want to take post-MBA.
There are a number of librarians on staff as well, and they’ve been extremely helpful this summer – they’ve helped us become familiar with research databases, introduced us to business intelligence techniques, and have even taught us how to get more out of our Google and LinkedIn searches. As icing on the cake, they also like to spoil us from time to time with a couple of free breakfasts and a happy hour!
Woodruff P.E. Center
Woodruff PEC walkway (because taking pictures of people working out is creepy):
One final perk to being a student at Emory – I now have free access (well, “free” aside from the whole tuition thing) to a world-class gym and workout facility. Whenever I have a few moments to sneak away from coursework and team meetings, I’ve tried to make my way over to the gym and work out. There are basketball courts, tennis courts, running tracks, swimming pools, racquetball courts, weights, machines, and pretty much anything else you could possibly desire for fitness and exercise. It’s another great perk of life at Goizueta!