A poem about this semester

The weather is changing and so is the season,
and it seems that I'm writing this blog for no reason.
I'm blogging about my class today
and here is everything that I have to say.

My management professor was Mr. Kurpis,
the assaignments he gave us, seemed without purpose.
Bet yet in the end when we recollected,
we've learned much more than we have suspected.

From straws to eggs and cheeseburgers to lego's,
these tasks were unusual, already from the get-go.
But while playing we were learning, and the learning was such,
that we learned about manangement, yes we learned so much.

The odd yet memorable assignments he gave us,
made us remember the lessons that raised us.
Although we were playing we were learning too
even though these lessons seemed out of the blue

The learning was subconscious, we didn't realize it was there,
students learn best, when the teaching is no where.
We learned from each other, by working together,
about planing, designing, well remember forever.

I thank professor Kurpis for his unconvential teaching,
so listen to the message that I am now preaching.
I am now a master of bulding with blocks
because the professors teaching made me think outside of the box.

The best teacher for you is yourself

Like I have stated in my 5 pickles plus big mac sauce extra credit assaignment, you can always count on professor Kurpis to go above and beyond the traditional teaching methods to help us learn something new. Never before have I kept and written a blog before or anything similar to it, like a journal, for that matter. I was a bit shocked when professor Kurpis told us that we were going to have an extra blog requirement where we needed to write about class experiences and to be honest, I wasn't looking forward to "staying on top" of this blog. Looking back at what this blog has done for me, I now realize how much I really did undervalue the assaignment. Reading my previous posts I now see what the true purpose of this blog. The purpose was not to "manage" this blog, keep it updated, get as many followers as you could or make it look "pretty". The true purpose of this blog was to repeat to yourself what you have learned on a given day. There were many assaignments and topics covered this semester, and like in this class, or any other classes, a student usually forgets what the heck he learned about that day as we are quick to forget the lesson plan. The blog was a way to repeat to yourself what we learned, everything from the major ideas to the subtleties like how the group interactions pissed us off. Through this method, professor Kurpis found a way to help these lessons really stick in our minds. This blog helped the professor let us, teach ourselves; if that makes any sense to whoever is reading this. I feel like the best way to truly understand something is when you explain it to yourself. Yes, you can learn from the professor, from the book or from fellow classmates, but through my past learning experiences I really noticed that I am my best teacher. I learn things the best, and for the longest amount of time when I explain it to myself. And by writting this blog I am sort of forced to re-teach myself what I have learned that day I wrote my post. This blog helped me learn the material twice, if not more times as well as I could have from the classroom experience, I think. And I am sad that I really didnt take more advantage of this blog opportunity and wrote blog posts for every single class lecture. I thank professor Kurpis for such an unconvential, yet very slick way of teaching us through this blog. And I recommend him, and all other professors to require a blog for all lessons.

28 nonsense questions and the result is...HUH?!

Last wednesday, prof Kurpis made us go through, what seemed at the time to be a really non-sense assaignement, go through some sort of personality assesment test. We had to pick out of a set of 4 words, which one described us the most and the least, 28 times! The words seemed repetitive and a lot of them were similar, so by question 10 we were all already dreading the next set of words. Finally after we painstakingly went through all the words, and the results were tallied up, something very interesting was revealed to me. Out of 4 categories, Dominance, Infuence, Steadiness, Consiousness; I was by far most infulencial, and rock bottom Consientious.This, altough was not a news flash to me, was actually shocking because it was able to really break me down. I definatley feel like I am a very influencial person. I am indeed very influencial, when something needs to be done, I can always convince somebody to go and do it. And on the contrary, I am not a very consious person. Basicly Im not very detail oriented. Which is also true. I really liked this test assesment because it showed to me what I need to work on in order to be a more well rounded individual. I need to pay more attention to details and possess more steadiness. This was a great assessment because I really learned something about myself. Great assignment.

Extra Pickles Please!!

                From egg drops to worst case scenario survival challenges, Professor Kurpis never fails to deliver an unusual yet always intellectually challenging assignment. And when I read the extra credit assignment, I was not surprised when it was something out of the ordinary. This was probably one of the most unusual assignments I have ever received, but definitely one of my favorites.  I was told to go to a McDonalds and order and unusual meal of a cheese burger with exactly 5 pickles, and small well-done fries with Big Mac sauce. This assignment was definitely created by someone who thought outside the box which challenged me to do the same. It was a great experience doing this assignment, and I am pleased to say, that with some struggle, I managed to place and receive my order completely. Here’s how it went down.

                Upon entering the McDonalds I definitely did feel a bit nervous, because I didn’t want to look like a complete idiot ordering such an unusual order. I waited in line and stepped up to the counter when I was called next. I came up to a female worker who asked, “May I take your order?” I replied as politely as possible. “Yes, please, Good evening, how are you?” Almost as if I was stalling and trying to butter her up. I asked for a cheeseburger from the dollar menu with exactly 5 pickles on it. The lady looked at me almost as if I was crazy and said: “you want what?” I repeated again “I want a cheese burger with exactly 5 pickles on it”, stressing the exactly. She still paused and looked at me funny, so I insisted that I need there to be 5 pickles because I have OCD when it comes to my pickles and I need there to be exactly 5. She shook her head and said “is that all?” And of course it wasn’t, so here we go again.  I asked, “Can I also have some small fries with the special Big Mac Sauce on the side?” Being that I had to explain myself pretty thoroughly for my last request, she asked no question and told me my total of $2 and some change. She clicked in the order into the system and the information flew back to the man who made the food in the back onto the little black computer screen. I was rather surprised because I received my order probably within 45 seconds of placing it, which is pretty good time, especially for an unusual order. Surprised that it went so easily, I expecting many more challenges. Thus, I was thrilled that I was already on my way to be home free. Successfully completing my assignment I sat down at the nearest table and inspected my order. First I grabbed the fries. The fries were all there, well done, with the exact sauce in a small kid’s cup. An unusual way to give me the sauce, but then again, it was an unusual order. Ok, great, I’m half way there, now the most important thing; the pickles. I pulled out of the bag a warm cheeseburger with a sticker on it which said “cheeseburger + extra pickles.” It seemed at that moment that I was home free. So I opened up the burger, began to count, and to my utter disbelief I saw only 4 pickles. I triple checked, flipped the Pattie over, checked under the buns, behind the cheese and nothing. I only had 4 pickles. I couldn’t believe that because of one pickle I was about to become “that guy” which complains about his slightly imperfect order. I took a deep breath and stepped in line again. After a much longer wait this time, (or maybe it was shorter, it just seemed longer due to the anticipation,) I stepped up and the same woman who looked at me in confusion. She asked “you need something else?” I actually began to apologize to her and I requested that my order be fixed because it was one pickle slice short of perfection. To my disbelief she actually smiled, chuckled and did it! I was expecting her to deny me, charge me more, or a combination of both. Not actually deliver the requested food. She personally walked the burger to the back and came back in a flash with 5 pickles on it. Success! My assignment was finally complete and here is what I have assessed.

Starting out with the order itself, I think I was much smoother than expected. I took a total of 2 people, to get me my food; one person to take the order and bring it to me and a second in the back to make it. The first time I ordered the meal the request for the food was sent electronically to the back. I can see that on the black computer screen in the back in green letters my order was barely visible. That is how my order was requested. The woman punched it in, on the machine and it popped up for the “chef” in the back who prepared it. The second time, which I think is the reason why the order was messed up in the first place, since she walked up to the guy and personally, told him to add one more pickle. Maybe that was the reason why my order got screwed up in the first place, some sort of technological error or misread. The order, like I previously mentioned, from the time it was placed until the time it was received was a mere 45 seconds; which was a blazing fast time and definitely surpassed expectations. The only management challenge which I saw was the woman stepping in, and manually correcting an error previously made. And she did it very kindly and energetically. For that I give her a round of applause.

                So how did this employee performance go down according to the textbook definition of good management? Well, here’s how they did in each individual case. In Organization I give them 8 out of 10. The order was made in a very timely fashion and although it was unusual it was still placed. I deduct 2 points because the mistake was a very easy one to avoid. It was the difference between counting 4 pickles, and counting 5 pickles. Communication was most effective when it was done the old fashion way, face to face. As opposed to getting with the times and using a computer screen, I feel like this can be the downfall to man. We rely too heavily on gadgets and technology when we can in some cases do something more effectively face to face. But communication with the customer was definitely great, because the employees did not seem angry when they were bugged to fix an error. Instead they smiled and did it happily. For this I give them 5 out of 10. As far as training goes I think the employees were excellently trained. They handled the unusual order in a fast time, very well with some slight confusion but were able to fix the error with a smile on their face just as quick as they gave the order the first time. For this I applaud them and give them 9 out of 10. Finally, as far as leadership goes, the woman at the counter was definitely the clear cut leader. She is dubbed the leader because when she was told there was a mistake she didn’t punch any numbers into the machine. She instead went with my burger to the back and personally told the man to fix his mistake. For this I give this woman 10 out of 10. She is a great leader.

                Overall I give McDonalds 33 out of 40 in managing this unusual order. It wasn’t easy but they did their best, with a little confusion, but in the end, my stomach was filled and my assignment was complete. I definitely enjoyed this assignment. It showed me a real life implementation of managerial organization, communication, training and leadership. I hope I have many more assignments like this in the future!

My Musical Vision

We are all dreamers. We dream about the future. Unfortunatley for many of us, we just dream to comfort ourselves for present time. Dreams are just there so that we can get through the days. But some us, who dream and invision above the stars, with enough motivation, do achieve what we want. For me my major passion is music. I always been in love with dance music. House, electronic, progressive, you name it I like it. I always wanted to produce my own music and play it world wide. The feelings I get from music is undescribable, and I just want to pass that feeling along to others. My vision for my future includes three things. I want to produce my own music under a record label. I want to DJ my music infront of a large audience for a living. And I want to have the time of my life doing this.
Now as we know, vision without action just passes the time. so how do I plan on achieving my goal of my vision. Well I have already taken significant steps in doing so. I've been producing music for about 3 years now. I am self taught, and pretty good at it already I might say. I DJ for parties about every 2 weeks building my rep, meeting connects and getting my name out. And hopefully with enough work, these two things will overlap well enough and get me to where I want to be.
That is my vision, and I hope to exceed my own expectations.

Decisions Decisions!

Last week professor Kurpis gave us the most insane proposition for a curve I have ever heard in my life. The option for us to determine our own curve and grading of the test. The only catch was that the class had to be in 100% uniform agreement of this. Forty plus people with only 30 mins to decide, all hell was about to break loose. Personally I sat back and just Accomodated to what the group was going to decide on. I saw how crazy it was getting right off the bat and I just decided that the group would decide for me. I  did not want to put up with the chaos and I just kind of went with the flow. As for the rest of my class mates I definatley saw all 5 of the characterstics of decision makers in the group. (Avoidance, Competitive, Accomodation, Collaboration, Compromise.) It definatley was hectic but we all managed to pull it together and make a great decision. For future reference I decide that we change nothing, what we did may not have looked pretty, but it yeilded a great result and in the end thats all that matters.

An Egg-celent way to FAIL!

Recently, professor Kurpis gave us an assaignment which made all of us feel like little kids again. We had to design build and construct a way to protect an egg from an 8 foot drop. The only problem was, we were VERY limited to the amount of recources we had, and even worse, we were very limited to the amount of time we had. So our knowledge of Management kicked into gear. We started off as a group assesing the situation. We knew what we had to do so we had to figure out how to go about it. We decided who need to do what and how long should we spend on building the actual "contraption." We spent a good 30 minutes drawing up a few prototypes for our egg holder until we all voted on the one we thought would work best. We went with creating a cube like shape and suspending the egg in the middle. This in my opinion was a very good design we thought of, in the short amount of time we had. And comparativley to my classmates designs, we had the best one. Organizing and Planing this assaignment was definatley the easiest part for us, we had no problem working as a team, and choosing a design that would best work. We drew diagrams of how it would work and we prepared who should do what. The only problem for us came during the execution phase, when the egg-shell was to be built. Everybody did their part but we failed to forsee our tape usage, and we ended up using 3/4th's of our tape before we were even half way done taping our contraption. Not to mention the limited time that made me, and i bet most of my classmated nervous. As we finally taped the last peice together when mister Kurpis counted down the last 10 seconds of time we manage to pull it off and finish our conrtaption. The only problem for us, when we dropped the egg our design may have looked the most promising, but I'n pretty sure that it made the biggest splat out of everyones.
My final assesment of this experience was that It was a great experience to work on such a project with a time limit in a group. For future reference we need to plan more on being able to manage our resources correctly.
This was a great assignment from Mr. Kurpis!