Posts filed under 'Students at competitions'
Finally we’re starting to have some nice weather, and just as the amount of time being spent on assignments and study is being increased! Typical! The few days since we’ve been back from midterm have been very busy with continuous assessment exams along with various other work and events.
This morning, we had a Student/Staff Consultative Forum, where a representative from each class meets with the Subject Heads to discuss issues that have arisen and things that are working well and not so well so that there is continuous improvement in how the courses are run each year. The lecturers are very nice and approachable so that issues generally are resolved outside of these meetings but it is nice to have them to also get feedback on the progress of the class in general.
Last week Séan Gallagher of Dragon’s Den fame was in NovaUCD giving a talk as part of the Entrepreneurs Live series that is run each semester where entrepreneurs are invited in to give a talk about how they set up their business along with insights and tips for any one thinking of setting up their own business. They are very interesting to listen to and a lot of good quality advice can be picked up to add to the Entrepreneurship courses that are run in Quinn. Podcasts of recent talks can be found here.
We also had two case study competitions being run by Professor Peter Clarke who has put a lot of time and effort into the organisation of both the competition and the cases themselves. The case studies were given to us the week before the break. One case was only open to students of the Advanced Management Accounting course as it is an accounting case study, kindly sponsored by the Leinster Society of Chartered Accountants with cash prizes for the winning teams. It also served as a portion of study for the final exam which is an added benefit! The finalists will probably have to present on their findings once it is announced.
The second case study was open to any one although the teams needed some Accounting specialisation students as there were significant accounting issues in it. The prize for this case study was to represent UCD at the Irish finals of the CIMA Global Business Challenge, where the winning team will go on to represent Ireland in Singapore in the Global Final.
The case study we had for that was an interesting challenge which required preparing a report on various issues that the specific company was facing which was due before the break. Teams were then shortlisted after that and presentations to select the winning team were held last week. Our team learned a lot at the Marshall Case Study Competition particularly in the area of giving presentations and fortunately our hard work in improving this since returning from MICC has paid off as we were selected for the CIMA competition. This competition is slightly different as it is held in one day in the Quinn School of Business (on the 13th of June) and we are also given the case study beforehand which is based on the TOPCIMA exam, however, as in the exam there will be slight adjustments made to the case on the day.The case study can be found here if you fancy seeing what they are like.
The case studies are a great opportunity for students to apply what they have learned through the years and see if they could solve real life business problems. Most classes use case studies as part of the learning experience but I would highly recommend that students participate in the competitions in Quinn even in first year. While you may not win, as was the case with our team in our first year in the competition to represent UCD at Marshall. it will definitely stand you in good stead in the future, both in exams and in other competitions. As Séan Gallagher said at his talk last week, “you should not be afraid to fail, as it is how you learn“. This was definitely what happened in our case as the learning experience are huge both in analysing business situations, to generating realistic solutions and even in presenting resulting in us winning the second time round. Also, it is a great topic for interviews, employers love talking about case competitions as they are times when you have worked under pressure in a business situation. Also, if anyone has any questions, please leave a comment and we would be more than happy to answer!
Fionn
April 1st, 2009
Thursday 19th February 2009
Today we took a tour of the USC campus and its beautiful red brick work buildings. The campus has its own 24 hour library and a 3 storey gift shop!
Lunch was at the famous In ‘n’ Out burger on campus and afterwards we had a chance to sit on the grass and enjoy the sunshine.
After the campus visit it was straight back on the bus and we were off to the J. Paul Getty Museum high up in the hills of L.A. with its white marble buildings, stunning views over L.A and beautiful gardens.
At 4pm it was back on the bus and straight to our 3rd location of the day - Universal City Walk. After dinner each team competed in a “bucking bronko” mechanical bull riding competition to decide the order that teams will pick for the draw tomorrow. Lin (”The Domin8R”) represented team Ireland in style staying on for an amazing 29 seconds!!!!
After such an eventful day today we are now preparing our final strategy for the long day of work ahead of us tomorrow………
Fionn, Roisin, Lin, Elaine
February 20th, 2009
Wednesday 18th February 2009
After breakfast this morning we split into separate teams of 10 for a Scavenger Hunt around Santa Monica. We had to take pictures in front of famous landmarks, eat in the well known “Pinkberry” frozen yoghurt cafe and make sand angels on the beach. After a stroll along the pier many of the teams walked to Venice Beach for lunch. We all particularly enjoyed the glorious sunshine and the interesting street performers.
After spending an hour in traffic. (The L.A interstate 10 freeway is a bit like the M50!!!) we had a quick turnaround at the hotel before setting off for the L.A Clippers Basketball Game in the Staples Centre. The atmosphere in the stadium was great, we felt like real Clippers fans and blended in well with our giant foam hands! Unfortunately the home team lost to the Phoenix Suns 123 - 157 with their star player Shaqueal O’Neal.
All very tired now after the long walk to Venice Beach so it’s straight to bed!
Fionn, Roisin, Lin, Elaine
February 19th, 2009
Hey,
We all arrived safe and sound late last night, 5AM Irish time which is 9PM LA time, after 24 hours or so travelling, we were all pretty exhausted but arrived safely in LA without any problems at all. Thankfully! (”,) We were all so excited for the week to finally arrive as we’d been counting down the weeks since we were told we would be the team going to represent the Quinn School in November. In order to qualify, we had to apply for an internal competition within Quinn where we replicated the MICC (Marshall International Case Competition), however instead of a couple of weeks to analyse, evaluate and prepare for the competition , we only have 24 hours to make recommendations and prepare a document and PowerPoint presentation for the competition this Friday, however, our attention will be fully focused on the case without worrying about completing assignments at the same time! For the mean time we are keen to enjoy a few days of relaxation and activities organised by USC before the case is distributed!!
So, we got up early this morning and made our way to LA Grove and the Beverly Centre to do a few hours shopping before orientation (which the girls loved!). We soon realised public transport is not the way to get around LA, so it’ll be taxis for the next few days we reckon!! We arrived back to the lovely Omni Hotel just in time for orientation where we received cool goodie bags with USB keys and University of Southern California (USC) t-shirts, there were speeches by Dean of the Marshall Business School, Dean Ellis as well as the organisers of the MICC. Each of the thirty teams were introduced and then the Trojan Spirit marching band entertained us with their football game songs who have featured in several films such as Forest Gump and The Naked Gun, television shows, and both Academy and Grammy Award shows. (See some of their songs here: http://www.youtube.com/user/usctmb) We then walked, all 150 of the guest teams and advisors as well as the 65 hosts from USC, five minutes down the road to the Westin Hotel for dinner. Here we got to meet our two lovely hosts, Christie and Samantha who we got to know over a selection of food from the buffet as well as some of their friends. After dinner, we got a sight seeing tour from Christie who drove us around the huge USC campus as well as “The Row” of Fraternity and Sorority houses in which about 60 people live in each, straight from the movie sets! She also brought us to her apartment where we got to meet her room mates and see her taser gun! We’re looking forward to what the rest of the trip has in store!
Talk to you soon!
Fionn, Róisín, Lin and Elaine (”,)
February 18th, 2009
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