Block Two Classes

For my second block, I am taking Crisis Management and Global Transportation Management. 

Crisis Management

This class really reminds me of the organizational behaviour class I took last year, but from a more strategic point of view.  There is no textbook – all readings come from articles.  The articles are pretty interesting, but sometimes can get really confusing.  For each class, there are group assignments related to the readings.  Its been pretty annoying trying to complete the assignments together as a group.  The majority of students in this class are exchange students so there are definitely some difficulties in working with English.  My tutor is originally from Columbia and its a bit frustrating working with her.  I feel like she doesn’t really understand what is happening most of the time.  She keeps asking for more in depth discussions of the topic at hand, but often there really isn’t too much detail we can discuss.  So many of the topics are really superficial and doesn’t really have too much substance to it. 

Each student is required to make a presentation on one of the class readings.  We need to come up with a creative way to discuss the literature and present it to the class.  I was pretty worried about this presentation, but after watching a couple people do their presentation, it doesn’t seem too bad.  The final exam is an open book exam and follows the group assignments that we had during the block.

 

Global Transportation Management

While crisis management was primarily made up of exchange students, Global Transportation Management was not.  I think I was the only exchange student in the whole class – definitely the only one in my tutorial group.  At first, I felt a bit awkward about this, but in the end I think it worked towards my advantage.  I was able to see how their classes truly operate and I learned SO much about transportation in Europe.  The tutorial group was split into three smaller groups and each group had to present three topics – two that have assigned readings and a third where we a freedom to conduct our own research.  We were asked to present the materials in the reading and go above and beyond to bring interesting related facts about the topic.  My group discussed ocean shipping, ports and canals and intermodal transportation.  This class didn’t have a final exam, instead having a final paper where we were asked to create a transportation plan for moving printers from Shanghai to Germany using the course materials.