Infinite Entropy

Career Goal

I think I may have finally found my career goal.  I’ve though about what a career goal IS and I’ve settle on a definition. For me, it is doing what I want in an industry I want making what I want.  Basically what I want to do is a mix between audio engineering, sales, and administration/management. The only part of that mix that may be unusual is the audio engineering. No it’s not the hairy guy that sits behind the sound board, and no it’s not the annoying guy with the fanny pack and boom mic.  The kind of audio engineering I’m talking about is the kind you see installed at stadiums, theaters, concerts, and newer churches.  Example below.

Yes this is nerdy, but if you’ve known me for more than 10 minutes it shouldn’t be a surprise. Now just to figure out how to get there…

What I’m Reading (4.4.11)

My new book. (Not the actual one pictured here, I have it on my kindle)

Shadow Divers is a book about two friends who find a WWII German U-boat off the coast of New Jersey.  Both of the men are hardcore deep wreck divers and struggle to learn about this previously unknown about submarine in 200+ ft of water.  They explore inside the submarine and inside German records to discover the story of what it was doing there, and what happened.  Should be an interesting read, and a crazy true story account.

http://www.robertkurson.com/book.html

http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0375508589/ref=sib_dp_pt#reader-link

Class Observations - Spr Term1

So I just wanted to highlight a few observations from class, sorted by subject.  I’ll try not to rant, too much.

Business Skills:

This class is not bad, my only complaint is that it moves slow. The things we’ve learned this term include crisis management, MS Access, and currently MS Map Point.  Access is really cool. It makes me want to learn more advanced database software like SQL.  Crisis Management…well the idea was a good one.  The way that they taught this was described by some people as a cluster….you get my point.  As for Map Point, I’m not really sure what we’re going to use it for.  So far it seems like a inferior version of google maps.

Finance 2:

This class is so boring I’d probably get bored writing about it, so I’m not going to.

Operations Management:

This class is actually kind of interesting.  Besides the fact that it’s taught by an industrial engineer in his 70’s, the class has a good bit of new information.  His insights are, for the most part, insightful and filled with wisdom. This is only true however if you can stay awake and make a conscious effort to listen closely for his super soft voice.

Supply Chain Management 1:

At the beginning of this class the teacher told us it was going to be a 30,000ft view of supply chain management.  Since then we’ve figured out that its actually a 100,000ft view of it. This class is so theoretical and academic that sometimes I forget what the class is called.  I think someone could come sit in this class for 30 min and not be able to tell it is was Supply Chain 1 or Early Russian Lit 2.

Descriptive Modeling:

Being an engineering should make this class easy.  Unfortunately it isn’t. So far all we have covered is linear programming, and while linear programming in itself isn’t hard, doing it inside excel is difficult.  Excel freaks out a the thought of dividing by 0, so everything has to be done with that in mind.  Overall I think this class will be more interesting after the linear programming part.

New Semester!

Wanted to outline what I’ll be doing this semester and what I’ll be doing.  For those of you who don’t know much about the MBA program at UT, each semester is split into 2 terms.  So 2 mini-semesters each semester.  Last semester we covered topics that most 1st and 2nd year business students cover, but at a more philosophical level than undergraduate.  For the first term of this semester I’ll be taking these classes:

• Supply Chain Management 1
• Operations Management
• Financial Management 2
• Descriptive Modeling
• Business Skills Developement

I’m pretty excited about these classes.  I feel like we’ll be learning about new things I didn’t know existed.  Last semester’s topics (accounting, econ, finance, excel, speech, etc.) I felt like I knew the basics of them.  This semester however, I feel like will be totally new material to me that I haven’t seen before. 

Also high on the  priority list for this semester is to find an internship for the summer.  If anyone knows any contacts at a technical company either in Jackson or Starkville I’d love to meet them!