Farewell Reception GlobITpro

Yesterday we met in PKI 279. The reason was that our exchange program part in the US is nearly over

One of our program coordinators Deepak Khazanchi gathered the GlobIT, SPSU (India), and Norway students. Everyone talked a little bit about their experiences in Omaha.There are a few things which were mentioned a few times:

positive

- meeting and working with new people

- the university in general (with all their teams, gym, …)

negative

- means of transportation

- campus security (!)

after that, everybody got a certificate of completion. Thanks to Markus i didnt need to make a picture of mine. Just imagine another name

finals #2

finals are over! yay

everyone is still hyper about christmas. so i kinda have to follow this trend

short update about final exams:

- managerial: done good

- iqdq: long test about statistics and theory *thumbsdown*

finals

next week is finals week!

in a nutshell, everybody freaks out because the holidays are near,  they have to learn for the last exam in the semester, and there are tons of weird blinking christmas lights everywhere

we only got two ‘real’ finals: managerial communication, and information and data quality. in the other two classes we have projects due in finals week!

Classes

Following an update on my classes:

Managerial Communication
In this class we learn how to do proper business writings in a company and external. The topics consist of:

• Negative Messages
• Persuasive and Sales Messages
• Positive Letters and Messages
• Business Presentations
• Proposals and Formal Reports
• Business Reports
• Revision and Proofreading

This all is done in the American and in an intercultural way. Hence we also learn differences in writing business letters around the world. Every week we have online quizzes and assignments in this class. This week we have to write a persuasive letter to all potential customers who want(ed) to take a trip with the Carnival Splendor (lately in the news because of no power, working toilettes and so forth on the ship). The book in this class is from Mary A. Guffey

E-Commerce
In this class we follow the book “E-Commerce 2010″ from Kenneth C. Laudon. We had to write a paper about Nike – the “Nike Case” which was about Nike joining E-Commerce in the year 2001. Now we have to write a business plan for a real micro-enterprise. In my group is Markus and two Indian kids, Umesh, and Littus. Our micro-enterprise is an antique dealer who wants an eBusiness plan. For our business plan we are thinking about a website, a connection to an online auction house, and facebook / a blog for Mark (the owner) to spread his message.

Decision Support Systems
This class is nearly as much work as Managerial Communication, but definately the work is harder. We have two exams which need a lot of research, a group term project where i work together with Liv (a gril from Norway). For our group project we have to develop a small software which helps making decisions more effectively. Furthermore there are many assignments which are pretty demanding too.

Information and Data Quality Management
This course emphasizes on statistics. We all thought it would be more like a Quality Management class.

Depending on your personal preferences, i can especially recommend the first three classes. If you are not as proficient in English you should rather look for non Indian professors (except E-Commerce), because even the American students have some difficulties understanding our Information and Data Quality Management professor

Business Plan – Forming Phase

Since October 14, the teams for our business plan are fixed. Every team consists of three students from UNO, TUBS, and the MCI. I work together with:

• Austin Fiala
• Winfried Hellmann

Currently we get to know each other and collect ideas / brainstorm about our business plan. When the best idea is found, we will prepare the business plan. Later on we will prepare a presentation to present online in front of a commission. For further information download the globitbp PDF.

 

proxibid guestspeaker

last week we had a guest speaker in our ecommerce class, the ceo from proxibid, bruce hoberman. proxibid is the world’s largest provider of live auction webcasting services. theywork with more than 2,000 auctioneers to bring hundreds of auctions to global, online bidders every month. proxibid provides real-time webcast and timed online auction bidding services to real brick and mortar auction companies.

btw, an acc is for free, you only have to pay if you make the winning bid! if you are interested go to proxibid.com

midterm exams, projects, fall break

in three of four classes we had midterm exams. they weren’t really that hard, but they grading was really strict; but we all passed them well. most of our classes are merged classes, that means that undergraduate and graduate students are together in the same class; the only difference is that they might have an extra question on the exam and 1 paper more to write.

since we don’t have papers or assignments to do, we have to do two projects besides that. my first one is in the decision support systems class with a girl from norway. the second one is with two Indian guys and markus in the e-commerce class. we are working together with a real business, helping them to sell/buy their products worldwide.

due to our good planning, our fall break is not only two days long, but nearly ten with a small break on wednesday! btw, until two days ago we were still able to go out in shorts

roadtriiiip

last weekend we went to kansas city with our friend beau. first of all we visited harley davidson factory, which was not that exciting because they didnt work on that day (thank you sebastian). because hd got so innovative and classified production lines, we were not allowed to take pictures inside the manufactory. they gave us a tour through the production lines – quite interesting – even if nobody was working.

after that we drove to oceans of fun, a big water park in kc. after spending several hours on slides and at overpriced snack bars, we drove to the center of the city, where our hotel (holiday inn) was located. i never experienced such a comfortable bed in the us before ( haha ). after checking in we explored the power and light district, ate steak and drank a few beers.

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first impressions

in the first two days we attended orientation at uno. we took a tour around the campus and learned about campus security, the gym and stuff like that. everybody had to make a tuberculosis test, which i passed. if you didnt pass or you havent had two immunization shots, they would give you one and charge you 50$…

during the first few days the weather was really hot with high humidity – i really liked it
on our first weekend we went to the old market in the night. there we got into the underground club – two real mexicans djs (mixture between techno and hiphop). the day after that we went to a fraternity recruitment event where my roommate kiel took us to. there ive tried wakeboarding for the first time in my life =)

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flight’n'stuff

on august 17th our journey started. i got up at 5am and we drove to munich. because of online check-in we didnt have to wait to submit our luggage. the first flight from munich to london was operated by lufthansa – the small snack (sandwich with cheese and pepper) was really good. from london on we flew with united airlines and watched iron man 2 about four times after arriving in chicago i had to retag our luggage, because the employee at munich was too stupid (or lazy) to send it to omaha. because of that and the security checks we nearly missed our plane, although we all thought 2 hours would be more than enough to do that. a security officer bypassed the security waiting line with us and said that we would have priority. when we got to the plane they said that it wasnt too late, but the plane was already full… so THANK YOU UNITED AIRLINES. the normal flight would have been at about 5.20 pm, but now we had to wait until 8.40 pm. as if this wasn’t enough the flight was delayed – 2 times. so we had to wait, wait and wait.

so at about 11 pm we flew to omaha. after arriving we got picked up by two guys who have been waiting very hard for us at about 2 am we got to scott village and our dorms. andy and i live together with two american students shane and kiel. as everybody else here, they are very friendly guys.