It's hard for me to say what the best un-written blog entry has been for me... there have been a lot. I tend to sit down and write entries as a cathartic exercise when I'm stressed out or upset about something; typically that occurs about 3 times a day. It's not that I'm a nutjob or drama queen, I'm just a passionate person. I see something wrong, something unfair, something inconsistent, and i want to change it. I wont be the guy who just says "that's how it is". If it's something i care about, I'll do my damnedest to make it better; if i cant do that, at least I'll let others know how i feel. I don't like to sit back quietly.
Here are two topics i recently started to write, only to decide against actually publishing them to the site.
1. The recent jump in rankings Owen experienced makes me nervous. Whenever there is a huge movement in any kind of poll like that it makes me think one of two things: one, the ranking system is flawed, or two, there have been radical changes at Owen that garnered a better score from the powers that be. If it's the latter, that's where i get most scared; what could it be that we've done so much better? What is it that we are doing right today we weren't doing right last year? Do we know what it is that we've done? If we don't know what brought on the jump in the polls, how do we keep pushing those programs... or, do we even want to promote certain aspects of the school just to bump the rankings a few slots? The last thing i would want is for the school to suddenly start working the polls rather than focusing on producing more educated and capable MBA's. When i was choosing a school, it was obvious some schools spent 95% of their energies positioning for the annual school rankings; Owen seemed to spend 95% of its energy on the STUDENTS. That was a big selling point for me; i hope that doesn't change.
2. Grades or no grades? There seems to be a debate on campus around the idea of moving from the current 4.0 grade scale to the common B-school grading system of pass/no pass. I've been giving this a lot of thought and here's what i've come up with. We should keep the 4.0 grade scale; how else do you know how well you learned the material? If i get a "Pass" does that mean i know the material better than most? If i'm an operations concentrator and i get a "Pass" in core ops, does that mean i'm pretty good at ops, or that i'm average, or below average? If i work my butt off and get a "Pass" and someone else just skims through and gets a "Pass", what does that do for anyone? What's the sense of accomplishment from a "Pass".
Business is about quantifying things; at times, it's about quantifying the seemingly unquantifiable. As MBA's, we're taught all kinds of ways to value money you don't have yet, how to generate cash from cash from cash, how to value a company that hasn't even started making its widgets yet... It seems sacrilegious to then turn around and tell students we're not going to quantify your performance.
To be honest, the strongest supporters i've heard of for the "pass/no-pass" system are professors; i'm sure grading would be a lot easier... but hey, that's got nothing to do with it, right?
and look around once in a while, you could miss it...". 
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