Fully Through Note Taking in Marketing

A couple of days ago, I completed my first run-through of 800-odd pages of Marketing for the EBS MBA, including taking 200-odd pages of handwritten notes! Phew. It does feel great and I am now going to read through my notes and start revising. Only about 3 months to the exam.

Back in SA, Looking for Work

I have returned to South Africa and am currently looking for work, preferably in Cape Town. This is practically a full-time activity and as such I have decided to still do the Marketing exam in December, but rather to postpone Accounting to March/April next year.

Update

It’s been some time since I’ve posted.  I’ve been studying hard, trying to stick to my 2 hours a day that I think I’ll need.  It’s not been easy.  Things happen.  A holiday, and going through difficult times personally which have made it incredibly difficult to concentrate on studying.

However, I’m back to it now and have scheduled time to play catch-up for lost time.  I’m near the end of Module 7 in accounting and half-way through my first run of Marketing.  I want to get half-way through accounting and then start alternating between the two.

I have made use of the EBS “Faculty Board” on the course website to ask for clarification on certain review questions at the end of the Accounting chapters, and must say that I’ve always had a response by the following day.  So I’m pretty impressed by it.

I have Received my Accounting Course

It took a while because of the Easter break, but last week I received my MBA Accounting course text from EBS!  So now I have all that I need for my first year (Marketing and Accounting).  I have done the first module in just over an hour — not sure if that’s standard for Accounting — I’ll find out soon.

Anyway, in comparison to other accounting that I’ve done at school and university (I did first year Accounts at University of Port Elizabeth for my B.Com), it seems to be far more geared around using accounting information and understanding it rather than producing it.  I’m glad about that and I’m looking forward to getting into it.

This is what Marketing Looks Like!

I thought I’d take a photo of what the Marketing course text looks like.

Here’s a side view of 800 pages worth of text!.

EBS Marketing Course - Side View

And the font cover:

EBS Marketing Course - Top View

Timing Sheet

So I’m well into the Marketing module now.  I’m about half way through Module 3 of 20.  I’m recording all my time on a timing sheet as you can see in the photo below…

Timing sheet

What this allows me to do is see how much time I am spending on each module, e.g. 5hrs 10mins for Module 1, and use this data to predict how long I need for the rest of the module.  I would recommend this to all EBS MBA’ers as it provides some level of data on your progress.

I’ve ordered Accounting

After much deliberation I have decided on my study plan for the year — I’m going to do Marketing and Accounting in the December major diets.  So I’ve placed my order for the Accounting course and have calculated that I’ll need just over 10 hours of study a week to achieve the approximate 200 hours study required per course.  I’m going to try to do a fair amount (1 – 1.5 hours) at work during the week, using up my lunch break and possibly going into work half-an-hour earlier than usual to accommodate this, and do the rest over weekends.

It’s quite a daunting commitment and is going to be a great challenge.  I have printed the first 2 modules of Marketing (I heard today that the actual coursework has been delivered to my parents in Port Elizabeth, so I’m planning on getting that sent back with my cousin when she goes to visit.

Accounting and Marketing

I’ve spent the evening trying to plan my first year on the EBS MBA in terms of which subjects I should do.  I’ve already got the Marketing module (the course text by the way is 800 pages, so quite volumous!) but I needed to choose another.  I’m not keen on having two content-heavy exams close to each other, and would prefer to have a calculation-heavy course mixed with a content-heavy one.

Although Finance is one such option and is conveniently examined in the August minor diet, I’m leaning more towards Accounting at the moment.  Finance is in the 3rd stage of what Heriot-Watt recommends.  I’m busy looking through comments on the Watercooler to see if this is the right decision.

Diets!

I received an e-mail from EBS saying that the deadline for registering for the June exams has been extended to 15 March 2009 which is just around the corner.  The Marketing exam is on 1 June, which is 2,5 months away and I’m not sure if I will make this with the workload I have at the moment.

I’ve just done some reading at the “Watercooler” and have seen that others have moved the exam to December, because it’s apparently a “monster”.  I haven’t read through all the course content (far from it), so I think December would be a wise idea.

Diets?  Why diets as the title?  Well, the Edinburgh Business School divides its exams into two major so-called “diets” — one in June and one in December.  A diet is effectively an examination period.  There are a couple of “minor diets” too — in March and August.

I see there’s a Finance exam in August, which is something I’m considering doing.  The other option would be to just do two exams in December.  It’s quite clear to me that I’m going to need to plan this out better, so I’ll keep you posted on my decisions.

Received my SID and Login Details

I received an e-mail containing my SID (student ID) and login details from EBS.  This gives me access to the online course materials (I currently have only purchased the Marketing module).  As I await the hard-copy which has to come from Scotland, I will make use of the online course text.  It may also be useful for studying during lunch at work.

I’ve only had a brief look through the Marketing text.  I see it starts off with a case study and then uses this further along in the text.  I’ll keep you posted as I get a more detailed view of the course material.  But I’m excited, because I can start studying!  It’s going to take some getting used to, as it’s now six years since I was at university.