My Final Chapter at UCF

I'm only taking one class this semester, Strategic Management, also known as, Capstone. The lecture part of the course is live streaming, which means I could attend class live or I could watch it online because it's recorded. I watch the hour and fifteen minute lecture every week online. The midterm and final exams are based on material covered in lecture, mostly from the book and other sources of material. The exams will be taken in the testing lab. The lab part of the course is a face to face class. The lab is where I'll be quizzed every week about what was covered in the lecture. The lab instructor will go over strategic case studies and my five member team will take turns with other teams solving different strategic dilemmas. The lab meets once a week for an hour and twenty minutes.

The class is setup like a corporation. The guy giving the lecture calls himself the CEO of Applied Strategy Incorporated. Class is called training meetings. My lab instructor is my SBU (Strategic Business Unit) manager. My fellow classmates and myself are the employees. We get paid in the form of grades, "grade income". Quizzes are called Interviews, etc...

Throughout the semester there will be 3 big projects on top of the exams and quizzes: 10-K Integration Project, Industry Analysis, and a Strategic Analysis. The theme this semester is the retail grocery industry. The 10-K Integration project is an individual project. Each member of my team had to select a different one of eight retail grocery companies that were approved by our CEO. I'll be doing my 10-K report on Sprouts Farmers Market, Inc. A 10-K is an annual report publicly traded companies file with the Security Exchange and Commission (SEC). I will be digging into the business analysis section of the 10-K, and then apply what I discover there to the industry analysis and strategic analysis frameworks developed in the training meetings(class). My 10-K project will be a 15 page analysis.   It's due February 3rd.

The Industry Analysis project is a team project, where each team represents a consulting firm. My team will use our 5 different 10-K projects on different companies in the retail grocery industry to write a 15-20 page industry analysis and give a 12 minute presentation about the industry. The goal is to conduct a competitive analysis of the retail grocery industry.

The Strategic Analysis project is also a team project. My consulting team will prepare a strategic analysis on Winn Dixie. This will also be both a 15-20 page paper and a 12 minute presentation. All teams will examine the same firm, and will address the same general strategic issue. The goal is to provide a strategic recommendation for the firm.

There are about 25 different lab sections for the course and each lab instructor gets to select one team from their lab to enter The Great Capstone Case Competition, which is the culminating event for this class and for my experience at the UCF College of Business. After hearing each team in the SBU labs present their strategic analysis, each SBU manager will choose one team from his/her SBU lab to advance to the semi-finals of The Great Capstone Case Competition. The SBU managers will be looking for teams that can think strategically and also work well together as a consulting team, and deliver a rigorous, competent presentation of those ideas. The selected teams from across Capstone SBU labs will be seeded  into several semi-final groups, and each team in each group will deliver their presentation to a panel of judges, comprised of experts, including members of the UCF Executive MBA program, UCF Business faculty, and/or executives from Winn Dixie. The judges will pick a winner from each semifinalist group to advance to the finals. Teams that advance to the finals will receive awards for their efforts. The finals will be judged by a panel comprised of faculty experts, industry experts representing the Dean's Advisory Council, members of the UCF College of Business Hall of Fame, The Wall Street Journal, and/or Winn Dixie.

My team is in it to win The Great Capstone Case Competition. I'm excited to work hard with my team throughout the semester in hopes of making it to the semi-finals and moving on to win in the final round. This class isn't like anything I've ever taken before. It's intense and complicated and I love it! Hoping for a successful semester!

PS: I was nominated by my team to be our team leader!  These days when I look in the mirror, I see someone that has grown so much confidence since the first semester at Valencia back in 2009.

Finished Fall 2014 Semester Strong

I earned an A in all three of my classes! The A in Real Estate came easy. However, portfolio analysis and supply chain didn't come as easily. I needed to score a 94% on my portfolio analysis final exam in order to pass the class with an A. I scored an 82% and an 81% on the first and second exams, respectively. Given those low scores I figured a 94% on the final would be asking a lot of myself since I hadn't performed that well on an exam all semester. I did get 100s on all of the in class exercises and on the group project, so I must have understood the material to a certain extent.  I somehow managed to pull out a 94% on the portfolio analysis final exam to barely pass the class with an A.

My supply chain final was difficult. I didn't know what to expect going into it because I got a 76% on the first exam and a 97% on the second exam. I taught myself everything from the textbook. I needed a 153 out of 180 to bring my overall grade up to a 93%,which is what it takes to pass the class with an A. I scored a 145 out of 180 on the final. The professor gave a 7 point curve to bring my 145 up to a 152, which put my overall grade at 92.95%. Technically that's an A minus. Thankfully, my professor rounded my 92.95% up to a 93% and gave me a full A for the course!

With hard work and a little bit of luck, I passed all three classes this semester with an A! My current UCF GPA is 3.905 and my overall GPA is 3.955. I know I still have one more class to take before I graduate with my B.S.B.A. in Finance, but currently I've passed all except two of my classes with an A. I passed one with a B and another with a B +. Someone needs to pinch me because I never in my wildest dreams thought I would do this well in college.

C's Get Degrees, Too

           Do you remember me telling you about those waves of exams? Yeah, well I just found out that I survived the second wave, which took place right in the middle of my trip to New York! I surprised myself in ECO 3411 by getting an 88% on the second exam. I'm surprised because I know for a fact I am not learning anything from this class. Oh, and the professor who taught the class before spring break had some kind of surgery so now a different guy is doing a worse job at teaching it. The new professor has changed the schedule of what we'll be going over the rest of the semester. He's changed all of the power points, which I already had printed out. I'm over it!

           The next exam I took during the second wave came the day after I got back from New York. I didn't study on my trip. Sure I read a little of my Financial Models book on my flight out until I fell asleep. I got home Sunday, March 23rd a little before 11:45pm and went to bed only to wake up to study at 6am. My Financial Model Exam was at noon on Monday. I studied my butt off to learn all of the formulas I thought I needed to know. The exam was 5 pages of free responses where I was asked to fill in certain excel formulas to complete models using cell references. This would be cake on a computer, but it seems trickier since I have to hand write the formulas. Two of the five pages were complete curve balls to me with material over the "real option model." I'd never heard of it before, so I bull shitted the best I could by making up formulas on these two pages that were worth 24 of the 60 points. I walked out of the exam expecting to fail. I was okay with the idea of failing because I knew my NY trip took away from studying, but it was worth it. I was also okay with it because I feel like I am learning the most in this class, so I know I can make it up on the next exam. I just wanted to get higher than a 52% so that I would still be passing the class. I ended up getting a 47/60, which is a 78%! That's a passing grade!!! I laugh because I know I didn't know that much information on the exam. There's no way I could have guessed right on that many free responses to get 47 points out of 60. No matter, I've never been happier to get a 78% in my life!

          The third exam in this wave of exams was for business law. I got an 89%, which means I have to get a 91% on the final if I want to pass the class with an A. Honestly, I'm okay with getting three B's this semester. I knew I wouldn't maintain my spot in the top twenty of all the finance students. I've already got into Phi Kappa Phi honors society that requires you to be in the top 10% of all undergraduates with any declared major at UCF. So, I'm just going to enjoy the rest of my UCF student experience without stressing about getting A's. Lately the professors don't do their job well enough to learn 90% or more of the information anyways. I'd rather take a nap instead. I need more energy because I'm to the point of feeling like it doesn't matter... C's get degrees!