Saturday, February 25, 2006

Gaining New Insights

As my last post stated, I have a lot of work ahead of me over the next month. Although most of my writing is for specific class projects, I have been spending most of the last week reading literature on strategic alliances. During the break, I gathered a good stack of articles from various journals such as the Harvard Business Review, and the Strategic Management Journal. I have spent this entire past week reading the stack, and I feel that I am gaining some insight into what is relatively a new topic for me (English people help me out here...is it 'a relatively new topic' or 'relatively a new topic.' I struggled with this one). I have been surprised by my critical analysis of the material (as I am usually turned off by highly academic literature), as well as my interest. I knew that I would have some interest in the topic, why else would I have choosen to study it, but I didn't expect myself to actually enjoy spending hours reading the literature. It is kinda exciting to find out what the next researcher is going say about strategic alliances and the organizational success the companies reap.

I think I have just reached a new level of geekiness - academic geekiness. I have always enjoyed learning, but my interest has always been more at the practical/real-life experience level. I think it is good that I am able to enjoy the more academic side of learning, it really is a completely different world.

Some of the professors at the begining of the school year said that previous MBA students have described the program as 'a transformational experience.' I am only half way done, but I can already feel myself transforming in a number of ways. I am learning a lot more about myself, especially my abilities, capabilities, and just how far I can push myself. I hope that I can still say that at the end of this program.

OR

I could simply say that my brain isn't as mushy since I gave up the computer gaming.

1 comment:

Amy said...

I'm not an English person, I'm a Canadian person. But I think it's a "relatively new topic" because you're modifying the "new". It's a new topic. It's a relatively new topic. It's a completely new topic. It's an interestingly new topic.

I'm not sure now if the other way is *wrong* but for example "It's completely a new topic" and "It's a completely new topic mean slightly different things to me. The first emphasizes that all the topic is new, the second emphasizes how new the topic is.

Just my opinion.