Part Two: the subjects I'm doing ... (aka '2 weeks in, and loving it'!)

... continuing on the previous entry. These three other subjects are all second-year subjects (because three of the subjects I exempted are being done by everyone else now!).

Strategic Leadership of Non-Profits with Professor Phills

This is a FANTASTIC subject. In fact, it was for subjects like this that I came to business school; and, along with the Marketing subject below, is my favourite subject* at the moment!

(*note: just because I have a 'favourite subject' does NOT make me a nerd, ok!)

Stanford has a great reputation for teaching about non-profit management: that is, how you manage an organisation like World Vision or Mission Australia (or Wesley Mission!) that exists to serve people, not make a profit - and the incredible challenges that lie beneath. As many of you will know, this is my life's passion - and in just 2 weeks I have already learned amazing lessons about this subject matter that will really change the way I lead.

Basically, we meet for 2 hours, twice a week. We read about 10-20 pages (a "case") on a not-for-profit organisation (so far we have covered a center running workshops for victims of sexual abuse, a "civil service" organisation that runs year-long internships for people wanting to serve their country but not in the military, and a not-for-profit career development centre) as well as learn a new strategic framework, then come to class to discuss the case. The case usually describes the history of the organisation and the current organisational challenge at a point in time where the leader of the not-for-profit needs to make a decision about expansion or problems solving or something like that. This class has a twist - because our professor is really well connected, he often physically brings in the leader of the organisation to listen to our discussion and recommendations, share what actually happened, then field questions ... it's awesome.


Global and International Marketing with Professor Ahzar

For those of you who've been to UNSW, you would have had many Asian professors. Unfortunately in my experience, with very few exceptions, most of these professors (i) don't speak good English, (ii) weren't the greatest professors on earth. The fact that they all knew how to program in Java (and I didn't!) simply added to the pain ...

Professor Ahzar does not fall into that category. He is an extremely articulate man, really structured in his teaching approach (something which resonates with me!) but also really funny, bringing in anecdotes from his illustrious chess career to explain brilliant and poor marketing moves over the course of this century. And he loves cricket.

Twice a week we meet together to talk about a case study on a global brand and some of the tactics, competitive moves and the like that these brands play out in the competitive marketplace. So far we've looked at Swatch, Dell, some Projector Company (Barco) and DHL. Again, these cases are set about 5-10 years ago, describing some kind of dilemma; the class ending with the Professor revealing what really happened. It rocks!


Growth and Stablization of the Market Economy with Professor Romer

This is the second of two hard-core economics subjects I am taking (40% of the class time, and 90% of the stress!). I was very lucky to get into this class (and was really only able to do so using my many exempted subjects as a base for persuasion!): Professor Paul Romer is one of the pre-eminent economists of our time - he was listed as one of Time Magazine's 25 most influential people of 1997 (!), and even has his own encyclopaedia entry (http://www.wikipedia.org/); this article describes him as "an expert on economic growth and a candidate for the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics".



Of course, as a borderline genius in economics, Professor Romer is, as you would expect, quirky. He reminds me of a cross between Tom Cruise in "Jerry Maguire" and Dustin Hoffman in "Rain Man", sometimes getting really excited for no clear reason in class; brilliant, yet unpredictable! Like in my other economics class with Bulow, this one is filled with numerous awkward silences ...!

In our classes, we can be "cold called" - this means a Professor is allowed to ask questions without notice to see if we have done our preparation. I am generally not afraid of getting cold-called: I can talk my way out of most questions! But even having done the homework, I am TERRIFIED of getting cold-called by Professor Romer. He asks incredibly sharp questions to see if you really "get it" his way; and, if you don't, he'll start pretending that you made an OK effort, and then say "nah, sorry, that's completely wrong" and move onto something else.

That being said, I am really looking forward to being in this class: I will love to understand how a true growth economist like Prof Romer thinks*, how he sees the world ...!

(*note: just because I want to learn how to think like an economist does NOT make me a nerd, ok!)