The First Year: 1st vs. 2nd semester

Now that we are in our fifth week back at school, I think it's fair to start looking at the similarities and differences between the semesters.  The semesters are very different indeed and deserve a bit of discussion.

 

Pace:

First semester started out fast and never slowed down.  A friend of mine jokingly called orientation "code for school."  And it was.  Statistics class, case studies, professor introductions; there was a lot going on before school officially started. Actually, our first case study for accounting was due the first day of class!  Luckily one of my teammates saw it posted online and we held an emergency Sunday night meeting to do the Kansas City Zephyrs case. This pace continues and you don't get much free time.

 

Second semester starts out much more tolerably. No assignments due the first day of class, and our first assignment for my electives was a one-page biography on who you are, what you do, and why you're interested in the class. Right now content has picked up and it's again very very busy, but not the break-neck pace of first semester. This semester has much more self-directed intensity and it's more on your terms.

 

Extracurricular Activities:

First semester I didn't have time or motivation to do much outside of school.  Mountain biking a few times was great and Thursday Night Out (TNO) was pretty awesome, but there was no way I could work a job and I had to miss events that I would normally attend like the Boulder/Denver New Tech Meetup (BDNT) and the GreenTech Meetup.

 

Second Semester there is more time to do activities outside of the classroom. I'm working on a market assessment project for a nanotechnology used in mechanical liquid filtration. I'm also competing in the CU New Venture Challenge (NVC), which is a business plan contest with weekly education and workshop session. Our team is bringing a Kava Bar to Boulder.  We're also trying to raise money for a big InterLink event in April; so we have been presenting to funding councils. There is no way I could have done these things first semester.

 

Class Discussions:

First semester certainly had some good class discussions, especially Marketing. But most classes were full of lectures and had fewer questions / discussions. This might be because there was just so much content that everyone was just trying to breathe and didn't have wind left to state and defend his or her personal position.

 

Second semester is a lot more dynamic. We have more discussions in class about the assigned readings that do not require mediation from the professor. People jump in because they are truly interested in what's being discussed. Also, the cohort knows each other and can interact more effectively in class without oversight from the professor.

 

Teams:

First Semester is all about the team. You spend a LOT of time working together, so it's pretty important that you get along, or at lease set a framework to function.  My team spent 15-20 hours together in an average week, and it definitely climbed up really high right before big projects were due. "Live together, die alone" was our motto. We did everything together, and I think because of that we got a lot out of the program. A big part of the learning process was figuring out how to work in your assigned team, manage schedules, etc. Also, you're tested individually, so you'd better understand everything your team is working on.

 

Some teams split up tasks to "divide and conquer." That totally worked too, and the teams that did this had more free time to maintain life. This works if your team is diverse and everyone wants to focus on specific topics, but it can be tough on the team dynamic if you end up with a bad grade based on something your teammate did without your involvement.

 

Even if your team doesn't entirely get along, you have to figure out a way to make it work. There was a team in my class who didn't get along and never found a functional framework. The result was that half of the team did not continue with the program after winter break. This is exceptionally rare, but the threat does exist.

 

Second Semester there is generally less teamwork, but that depends a lot on your electives. The teams you work in for electives are self selected, and you actually get to choose groups for a few core class projects too.  All in all, I'm spending 5 to 7 hours a week in a team, but I expect that will pick up as deliverables come due in a few weeks.

 

Bottom Line:

I'm happy to have made it though first semester with only flesh wounds. Now it's getting to the fun part and I'm really enjoying school again.