Block 5 - Electives - Which ones to choose?
In April, you will be faced with a question which electives to choose for your block 5 schedule. This year the choice was not too hard, as there were 5 electives, from which we had to choose 3: Mergers & Acquisitions, B2B Marketing, Managerial Control, Entrepreneurship, and Independent Study Project. I'll try to give a brief for all of them.
M&A: If you haven't had enough WACCs and betas back in December, do sign up for this class. With heavy focus on corporate finance, this module will evaluate how different decisions regarding to M&As affect share prices prior and after the announcement, how to calculate synergies between the bidder and the target, what drives decisions to acquire another company etc. A must for a future corporate CFO. Professor Renneboog is very distinguished in his field, but also very demanding - by the end of the module you will have read 10+ cases or papers, and will be rewarded with a red textbook large enough to stop Gregor Clegane's two handed sword.
B2B Marketing: A BFF of Henry Robben, Rudy Moenaert wasn't a favorite teacher of our Asian students, due to his outspoken character. I didn't take this class, but asked a few colleagues about it, and after hearing anegdotes about his rules of conduct, the answer on the question "did you learn anything" was mostly "well... kinda". I came in one day to see if I could catch a few helpful notes, but ended up losing focus more than once. I must admit, however, that it might have been because I wasn't in from the start, or maybe my attention span was on its monthly low. The exam rests on a prepared case, so after all, I am sure you will have picked up some things after the lessons are over.
Managerial Control: Tought by Michael Corbey, and that should speak for itself. Based on what I heard from others, it won't differ much in style from his first class, Managerial Accounting. Also, the workload is quite low, which is probably good, being that you will be tying things up with your management project and won't have much time. Frankly, I liked Corbey's first class - although it was easy, several very important things about cost accounting have sticked with me, which is more than I can say for some of the other classes. Not everyone liked it, so base your decision on how much value the first class brought to your MBA goals.
Entrepreneurship: To get to Rob Dew's content, you will first have to get past his all-knowing, always-right, they-are-all-stupid attitude, republican views on environmental problems, and little respect to established way of doing things. Which is kinda exactly the strength of his class - he will make it a point to drag you out of conventional way of thinking. His unique way of doing things will probably make you ask yourself "What would Rob Dew do in this situation" when you need to make a certain decision. However, when it comes to content, I found little essence in it. I guess his lectures were much more conceptual than practical. But that's just me - other people liked his class quite a bit. The final paper will make you think of an idea and write a business plan, spec'ing everything out, in a similar way as if you were starting a company.
Individual Study Project: Ironically, this is where I learnt the most. I studied about Early Stage Capital, using Stanford's online videos and Dermot Berkery's excellent Raising Venture Capital for the Serious Entrepreneur textbook. Roger Bougie will administer it, and will ask you to present and write a paper in the end.
Finally, I think I can say I learnt the least in this block, compared to all the other ones. If I was to choose again, I would take Managerial Control, and two Independent study projects :)