I was hoping I’d be able to write at least one entry per day. Perhaps that was a bit ambitious. Yesterday was orientation. It seems like forever ago, but I remember the pace was fairly slow. They served us snacks for breakfast and a decent sandwich lunch. They talked about all the services available, and told us how difficult and time-consuming the program will be. Then we did tours of the campus and library. We got to leave early, too.
Today was much different. 8:35am and we were down to business. The classes for first term will run every weekday in two sessions, 8:30-11:30 and 1:00-4:00. Even today, still technically orientation, they packed a lot of learning and activities into that time.
In the morning, we did verbal communication. The very first thing we had to do was get in self-organized groups of 4. Then, we each had to talk about a topic (chosen from a list of 5) for 2 minutes straight. After that, they mixed up the groups randomly and we went through the exercise again with 1-minute “speeches.” The rest of the time was mostly anaylsis, theory and advice about effective verbal communication skills.
Next came lunch. I was supposed to meet up with classmates Albert and Jon at Pita Pit, but had to make a side trip to the library to try and get my wireless Internet set up. Another fellow, Alfred, went with me to the bookstore. They set up the software and supposedly it will be active tomorrow. We’ll see. The network infrastructure at Laurier seems a bit shakey. After that, Alfred and I walked over to Pita Pit, but Albert and Jon weren’t there. We did run into another colleague who had decided to enjoy the fine dining experience of the Pit. Her name escapes me at the moment (met too people people in too short of time) but I do recall she worked for Union Gas and it sounded like a really interesting job.
After lunch, we delved into some case analysis stuff. We first worked in small (assigned) groups to come up with solutions to a short problem. Then we did some theory, which led into some speed reading techniques — namely skimming and scanning. From the class reaction, it seems like a lot of people have trouble reading and analyzing things quickly. This has always come quite naturally to me, but I did find the skimming technique presented was very effective — moreso than what I normally do. They suggested to read 1. the first paragraph, 2. the last paragraph and 3. the first and last sentences of all remaining paragraphs. For a well-written case, that’s almost all you have to do to get a pretty good understanding of the situation. Then, you can very effectively apply a scanning technique to extract any numbers or exact details you need.
All in all, a long, but interesting and productive day. My feelings towards the program and the people I’ve met so far are very positive.
