Everybody almost done, short update

 

All groups have handed in their dissertations (as you can see in the picture) and most of the groups have done all their presentations too. So, this week is dedicated to finishing things in Mannheim. My group still has to prepare the results for the company (we'll meet one last time next week in Hanau), but most people are going after their own things: job search, apartment search, vacating the apartments in Mannheim, buying dresses and shirts for the graduation ceremony, receiving relatives who have already arrived for the party on Friday, etc.
We are also slowly saying our goodbyes. Yesterday we had a nice get-together at Markus' place, on Sunday I even went rowing one last time, tomorrow some people are meeting in Frankfurt, Thursday is Hafenstrand and Schneckenhof double party night and Friday is Friday.
Personally, I am moving to Darmstadt first and have 3 or 4 interviews scheduled in the next 10 days. There is so much I want to do, but I seem to have too little time. Nonetheless, I am still able to "waste" time reading a book or surfing the internet, when I should be concentrating on work. So let's try to do the latter.

Thesis is ready, call me Master

It is done. It's just not printed yet and B is going over it one more time, but the version I have on my USB stick is already very, very good (IMHO).
This was the last step of the MBA and it is done. Now tons of paper will be expelled to recycling and I and our team room 3.3 will be cleaned. For the first time this week, my computer will be taken home.
BTW, great infrastructure here at the new learning center at N2: good internet connection, air condition (sometimes too cold), great chairs, tables, white boards, flip charts, printer & copier, water coolers and even a kitchen. I lived here for the last 3 or 4 days, just going out to buy food (scattered all over the room at the moment), eat at the mensa (cafeteria)or go home to sleep.
B and T are creating the final PDF of the thesis now, the printer will start working in a few minutes.
And I will unplug now. I am not a bit sleepy, but tired as hell. It was a great week, and it hasn't ended yet.

Now I can say that it is almost over

We had the final presentation of our thesis today at the Heraeus site in Hanau, and all went really, really well. Heraeus is an interesting German, family owned high-tech company and it is not everyday that you have the opportunity to present and discuss your findings to the two most senior managers of a company with 12 thousand employees in over 70 countries and a turnover of more than 11 billion Euro. Yeah, billion.

Our academic supervisor, our project sponsor (head of corporate development) and a great team!

The presentation went smoothly and was actually fun. I was very happy with the results of the team and so were the professor and the company, I had the impression. It was an intensive 2 months of work, getting ourselves into a very new subject for us, but the conclusion we got were solid and useful for the company. And we learned a lot, especially from the 10 or so interviews we conducted with senior managers from important corporations.
But not all is over, we still have 50% of our thesis to be written this week and, after that, we all will be MBAs, deservedly.

But tonitght we have decided to commemorate a bit. And I should go back to where the music is playing.

Project office

 

Thats us working on the master thesis at the new Mannheim Business School facilities at the Dalberg Platz, N2.

Heraeus

Yesterday we started the last leg of the MBA course: the company project and dissertation thesis. I am working with two colleagues or, better said, friedns. I am happy with the choice of project and, more importantly, the choice of teams.
It will be strange to take charge of the next two months after having had our schedules taken care of by our great program manager, Susann. But it is time. Classes were great (some not that great, unfortunately), but I was looking forward to the end of the MBA. I feel that I have already gotten all of what I expected to get in the course and want to move on. The project will be a nice extra bonus, for sure.
I will talk about Heraeus and a bit about the project later on, but I am excited to be able to get to know this company from the inside. The products they produce are all very technical, but I felt like a child in their exhibition yesterday in Hanau, so thrilled I was looking at precious metals, quarz glass, miniature and giant sensors, special lamps, dental implants and titanium pacemaker casings.
It is good to be starting once more.