How to select electives? for future SBS MBA students and probably others too.

Well, I have been meaning to write this blog for a while on the MBA electives. Mates from the new class indicated that the SBS elective presentation pitch happened earlier this week. I hope this blog will benefit some or all of these folks.

A few disclaimer to start with: I am an Indian, had a IT background, did Business development and management for around 5 years, before going into MBA. So, my mind tends to think about technology and company strategy all along while choosing these electives. Moreover, my friends call me geek, although I don’t agree (well, no geek or psycho agrees he is one), so scoring marks was one of the main criteria that made me choose what I choose. I realized this was a wrong strategy well into the end of the MBA. Last but not the least, see, everything is perception. All of these are my hones thoughts. Some of the courses that I didn’t like might just be my perception. It might have been a great course, great teacher, but not for me..

A few pointers towards selecting electives?

• Don’t select something that you already know. Say, if you are marketer, don’t grind the wheel with marketing subjects over and over again.
• On the other hand, choose subjects based on what you want to become. A friend of mine is from legal background and wanted to pursue a career in marketing – she choose many marketing courses.
• Don’t choose for the sake of scoring marks. Marks are alright, important; distinctions are worthy, but learning a new subject altogether is very very important. You will not get another chance to learn a PE or an M&A subject again, that too to this extent. So choose those subjects that you don’t know, not those that are easy to score. Take this scoring marks criteria out the equation. Unless you are really crazy and lousy, you wont fail. Oxford SBS and many other B Schools has a normal distribution methodology, where they place 5% students above 70, and 5% below 50; of the rest, 60% of people will be placed in the 58-65 bucket. So most often, you will get a mark in this bucket and you should be okay. If you are exceptionally well knowledged or well read, or had some cool funda in your final exam/assignment, this will take you to the distinction.
• Consider how well the Profs teach, not their reputation, while choosing the course. I wonder if James Tylor is as famous as Doug Holt, but I place James Tylors teaching way above Doug Holt. So is Tomo Suzuki – great and simple teacher. See profs section for detailed review on the profs.
• Finance subjects are not scary. I used to run away from Finance subjects from most part of the course and take tech related courses. If you don’t know ABCs of finance, this is a good time to take. Many of these are not entirely number crunching, but involves heavy strategy component – example, Finance II in Hilary, Private Equity, restructuring and implementation (M&A) are should-never-miss kinda courses.
• Don’t take repeating themes. For example, technology and innocation strategy in Hilary and Enterprenuelria and Technology ventures in Trinity are 60% reptetitive. So are derivatives and risk management (I think, I didn’t take both tehse, but my friends say so); so are Strategic decision making and negotiation skills. If you take two of these, you just wasted tons of precious money and time.

Hey, I gotta go… I willcontinue this topic with details on the individual profs and courses as another post.. probably after hours Mon. Cheers and good luck choosing electives.