Looking forward to electives
December 11th, 2012 by Peter Haldis under Classes, Journalism, MBA, Robert H. Smith School of Business. 1 Comment.
This week is my last week of classes for the second term of my MBA. All seven of my classes so far have been core classes. As of now, I’m signed up for six classes for the third and fourth terms this spring and four of those classes are electives.
The electives I signed up for are:
- Creativity for Business Leaders: This is a large blind spot for me. My mind tends to be very analytical and I tend to work through processes using the path of least resistance rather than trying to think up new and creative solutions. I don’t necessarily think this is a bad thing; there is no need to make things needlessly complicated just to embrace your creativity. But, if I hit a wall through the analytical process, I don’t have the creative resources to draw from to find a different solution.
- Consumer Behavior: As I’ve discussed previously, one of the primary reasons I elected to pursue a Smith MBA is that I want to work on problems facing the journalism industry. One such problem is monetizing media in an online world. With so many options for online advertising, newspapers and magazines aren’t able to replace their print advertising with online advertising, and websites like Craigslist have eroded revenues from classified advertisements. Except for websites for specialized media like The Wall Street Journal, media has struggled to convince users to pay for online content. So, the question becomes: What are consumers willing to pay for? I’m hopeful that a class in Consumer Behavior will enable me to develop some ideas toward answering this question.
- Understanding Organizational Change: Again back to journalism. There’s no doubt that the entire structure of media organizations has changed and needs to change. It’s also a very stubborn industry, where people believe there is a right way to do things and those who suggest otherwise don’t understand the business. I have often been one of those people. But the industry has reached the point where organizations must change or cease to be relevant (or in existence). So it is important for people within the industry to figure out ways to adapt without abandoning or compromising the tenants of the industry.
Peter's MBA Blog » Easing back into classwork after a one-month break on January 31st, 2013
[...] up for three core courses and three electives for the spring semester. As I’ve discussed previously, the electives I picked are Creativity for Business Leaders, Consumer Behavior and Understanding [...]