Sunday studying

After really fun few days it was time to get back to business today. At least on some level. So, today I was studying some Russian, writing report for Corporate social responsibility class and also finished my part on the first part of Knowledge management group work (midterm report). Not that big things but I am still quite pleased that I have been able to do some studying today. Tomorrow is going to be quite an intense day, school from 9 am to 6 pm. After that, the usual homework stuff and working on group projects.

I feel I have to study a lot for Russian class since I have not studied that much during the last few weeks. Other courses have gotten priority over Russian classes, but I will definitely put more effort on learning the language on next few weeks.

Actually, yesterday I tried to get my very first black taxi by myself. I managed to stop something like 10 cars and asked how much does it cost to go from Nevskiy to Marinskiy theater were I was supposed to meet some friends. Well, the attempts failed miserably in a way - I was prepared to pay 100 rubles for the trip because I knew it wasn't that far away. The cheapest price I heard was 200 rubles... Of course they noticed that I am not Russian so probably the drivers were just trying to get some easy money. Hah. As if I would pay them. Since I knew where I was heading, I just walked to meet my friends. The trip took only something like 15 minutes by foot. Quite a boring story actually :D But yeah, now I can say that I've tried getting a "taxi" also. Lets hope that soon I am actually able to ride in one to correct place :)

Management of intellectual capital

Again a new course started: Management of intellectual capital. The first lessons were really interesting and the teacher seems to know his business. Also, he seems to be able to get the attention of students and involve them heavily in the classroom. His style is a bit similar to the one that our Technology management teacher has, but the difference is that this guy seems to make sense. Also, he is definitely nearly as confusing has the TM teacher. But lets see how the next few lessons are like before giving a final verdict. One thing is for sure though - he expects us to read a lot of articles for the classes, something like 3-4 for each class. Combined to the work (and readload) of other classes it seems that we really need to study hard and the days will be long.

Lots of reading

Since I skipped the last part of the qualitative research course today I went to the library to read some articles for Knowledge management course. We actually have pretty much to read for the classes every week. On todays agenda was 3 articles and one case for tomorrow. I really like this class and the readings! They are really interesting for the most part and the text is understandable. Also, I think that I can use this information after graduation. Which is nice.

Business research

Again a new course started, this time the course is called Qualitative methods of business research. The class is as interesting as it sounds... The teacher wasn't able to catch my attention during the classes today and the whole class seemed to be more or less non-sense. Well, maybe not nonsense, but the time was used on things that didn't require that much attention. So, when we had the break in the middle of the 3 hour session, I did the same as a lot of other students - left the classroom without any intention to return there after the break.

My problem with this kind of courses is that I don't understand what is the added value for me. I am pretty sure, that I wont learn how to execute proper qualitative research in this class, at least not in business environment. Also, the course doesn't seem to be targeted for doing scientific research - the kind that you might need when doing your thesis. Se where does it fit in the big picture? I don't know.

CSR, thesis stuff and World bank

Well, I haven't updated my blog for a while it seems. School life has been quite normal. On Thursday we had this research seminar for our thesis's where every MITIM-student had to present their topic for their thesis. Which was basically total waste of time, because basically no one knows at the moment what is their topic, do they write it as an assignment to some company etc. But well... I guess this has something to do with the Russian educational system and the fact that all master students are expected to start their thesis process in the beginning on master program. Luckily, it doesn't have that much weight on anything - just something that needs to be done. My topic was "Internalization challenges and strategies for SME IT-company". The idea would be to first identify the challenges for expansion to foreign markets and then create a strategy with the company on how to execute the expansion. Quite an interesting topic I think, but it requires whether or not I would be able to find a partner company or companies. Let's see.

I spend a couple of days with my parents here in St.Pete. They came here on Thursday and left on Sunday. It was nice to see them, it had been almost two months since the last meeting.

Today we had our second lecture on Corporate social responsibility (CSR). It's quite an interesting topic, but for whatever reason I've had really big problems on concentrating on those classes. We learned about ethical decision making. Also, all the students made a quick 10 minute test to determine our levels of ethics. It seems that I am "ethically challenged" :D Oh well.

After CSR lecture was a quest lecture from World Bank. It was quite interesting overall. Basically, they presented the idea of 3 D's (Distance, Division and Density) that explain to extent the economic growth. The idea is that these big clusters (usually in big cities) help the developing countries to grow and gain some international stature in the business world. Mobility of the workforce and removing artificial barriers are in key role in here. The speaker demonstrated many examples so it was easy to understand what she meant. It just made it more clear that world is really coming more and more urban and that people living in rural areas likely have to relocate if they want to be part of the growth and get the benefits from it. Which kind of makes the Finnish areal development seem futile.. And to be honest, it pretty much is fighting against the windmills - I don't like the way it is going, but sometimes you just have to accept the facts and adapt.

Knowledge management

Today we had the second class of Knowledge management as a theory and practice -course. Last week we had an introduction to knowledge management - what it is etc. Today, we learned about knowledge creation, knowledge sharing and the barriers for those activities. Being a knowledge management major from previous studies, there was not that much new information for me. Nevertheless, it was ok to revise the things. The only thing was that we had 6 hours of classes today. It was definitely too much! Anyway, I like the subject and enjoy the classes for most part.

I don't understand how I have been able to study in intensive (6-9 hours straight) classes before. Maybe I haven't :)

Wow, almost done

Today we had the second to last class of Technology management that SZ "teaches". It is quite a relief for us, because those classes have been quite exhausting. Usually, we have a test every class. 4-6 exercises, 15-20 minutes to complete it. Usually we have had to draw few pictures like fishbone diagram (Ishikawa), mind map (out of some poem....) etc. Also the classes are more or less like the TV show wheel of fortune where we have to gues what word/term the teacher is thinking. Seriously, we spend something like 15 minutes every class trying to guess the word. Hence the nickname "The Riddler" to our teacher...

Hopefully the lectures tought by the Finnish professor from LUT are better. From what I know about his research and interests they will be so much more interesting. Fingers crossed. At least I am quite sure he wont be showing us UML, XML, SQL and that kind of stuff in his classes....