Marketing madness for the worldly student.

It's a hectic summer in the MAB program, with two courses keeping most of us pretty busy. The K-State elective course, focused on international agribusiness, is taking us around the globe for a whirlwind view of the world's food chain and production agriculture. In addition, most of us are also concurrently enrolled in Dr. Gwinner's marketing course. It's open to other graduate students, but the majority of the class is either current MAB participants or those who are "shopping" the program in hopes of enrolling in the next year or two.

Both classes are fast-paced, and great examples of the convenient learning options offered in the MAB program. The marketing course has set deadlines for readings and homework; typically a writing assignment is due each Monday evening by midnight. The set schedule gives you a full week to read the chapters, watch the online lectures and participate in the virtual discussion section -- a convenient way to learn graduate-level marketing concepts for the developing Agribusiness professional.

The international course, which is an elective, works similarly. The twist is that this class has a new instructor every two weeks -- an academic leader from a different part of the world steps in to teach a little bit about their part of the world. It's a great way to get first-person knowledge about agribusiness and food production around the globe. This course also has weekly reading assignments and bi-weekly writing assignments. It's a very flexible schedule and a course that is extremely versatile for the working professional.

These two courses wind down the program for my co-hort group. After a brief respite in August, we pick back up with the final courses of the program, each designed to assist the student in research and writing of their very own graduate thesis. By the end of the year we'll be well on our way to finished -- and hopefully have something to show for it; more specifically, a superb thesis and come May, a Kansas State University graduate degree.

A little change along the way.

The MAB Class of 2010 came into the program in January 2008 with one common goal: earn a master's in agribusiness from Kansas State University. Some people wanted the accomplishment for personal growth; others were hoping to improve their career options or to sharpen job skills. But no doubt, all were wondering what it would take to accomplish that major task.

The short answer is -- a lot. For the remaining twenty of us, it's been a blast, albeit challenging. It's been tough, but manageable. We've suffered some setbacks and probably had to compromise more than we anticipated, but we've learned a lot. Hopefully, by this time next year, I can tell you that we all accomplished our goal.

So what does a year and a half in the program seem like? Well, busy for starters. But I don't want anyone to think it's not worth the investment. It requires some life changes, but isn't an impossible venture and does end up teaching you a lot.

In my class, there are some great examples of life changes and side notes that prove MAB's program is well-designed for the working professional.

Two of my classmates married their sweethearts during the last year. One got engaged and is now planning a ceremony. Several of us have had children. Even more have changed jobs, and a few even changed their career paths entirely (myself included). Some have earned promotions, moved cross-country and still others have traveled various parts of the world.

Proof enough for me that enrolling in a graduate program like this is an investment and it pays off, with some change along the way.

The time is flying by.

Before we know it, my cohort group will be sweating the edits, tearing into data and pouring over research as we work through the thesis requirement of the MAB program. Time is passing by, and we're now less than a year from the expected graduation date.

Courses in the second year have gone smooth. We've covered policy, econometrics, organizational behavior and are swiftly moving through the elective (most of us are doing the MAB-offered Comparative Food & Ag Systems course).

Still to come is the marketing course, taught by the head of K-State's marketing department, over in the College of Business Administration. We've also got the more thesis-specific coursework down the road, like ag. economic analysis.

I think we've rounded the corner. We can't quite see the finish line yet; but we know it's just over the horizon.

Back at it.

We wrapped up the week on campus without much trouble. It's three months of classes for now -- econometrics and policy for the second year students. We'll be back together for weekly chats via the web-based software; there will be lectures to watch online, too.

Homework includes a combination of writing assignments, a term paper, equation computations and data modeling as well as a few other things that will come our way between now and March.

I'll keep you updated on our progress as we plow through these courses to kick off 2009!

Camaraderie and class.

If you're considering a graduate program, make sure it is structured so that you'll develop friendships with your classmates. That's my advice for today.

I started back to school a year ago, through the MAB program at Kansas State University, without a real clear understanding of how that aspect of learning would unfold. I knew the subject matter I wanted to study. I understood the expectations placed on a student enrolled in an executive track program. But I had not considered the impact of developing new relationships with other successful agribusiness leaders from around the world.

Twelve months into this program, I probably value that aspect as much as the knowledge I'm taking away from the courses. We are a cohort some 20 people large -- not very big compared to most classes for higher learning. And moreover, we're scattered to the wind, spread across the United States with a few coming from places in South America and Africa.

But just the same, we've become great friends. Every week for 11 months out of the past year, we've met up on Saturday mornings or Thursday evenings for lectures and discussions in a virtual classroom. We've shared phone calls, lengthy e-mail exchanges and virtual chat sessions working on projects, papers and homework assignments. We've delved into research together and produced group projects, using technology to bridge the hundred and thousands of miles that separated us.

And now we're friends. We have inside jokes -- laugh about stories and each others' commentaries. We discuss the day's issues and talk about our businesses and careers.

Learn where it's best for you. Seek out the program that provides what you need. But if you're investing a few years of your personal time and money, make sure the learning gives your more than just a diploma, too. It never hurts to make a few new friends along the way.

Econometrics?

I wondered what this course would be all about. With so little business background in my undergraduate studies, it was a term I hadn't seen before. Or at the least hadn't paid attention to.

Turns out this class makes a lot of sense. It's started out with a refresher of statistics. Everyone has been down that road to get into MAB (or has to cover a stats prerequisite during the early stages of the program).

We're covering a lot of material pertaining to regressions -- learning to judge the validity of data sets and population samples. It is very different from our other course, international policy, but fits really well with the types of things we learned in last year's courses.

It's different this time around.

This trip to Manhattan is definitely different than last year's sessions. The year two students can't claim it's easier -- but it is different. Less stress. Lacking the tensions. The courses seem more "do able".

I'm not sure that the program is a lot different in the second year. I believe it is most likely that the students are different in year two. We have adjusted to the pace of the MAB program. We know it is possible to cover major economic concepts in four days of learning; we have experienced the process of dicing through many long chapters of a text book in just one week.

Moral of the story: year one is training camp and it pays off big. Year two keeps you in the game, but you're a seasoned player by the start of the season!

What's your international policy?

It's Monday morning. Start of the first session of 2009. MAB students from across the world have gathered in Manhattan. Year one students are about to embark on their journey into agribusiness education. Year two students are topping the hill, headed towards the downhill side of the program.

Today's first item of business is International Policy with Dr. Woolverton. It's a new topic. Different from the more mathematical courses we've had thus far.

We're a smaller group now, compared with our first trip to campus last year. But we're a mighty crew. A year wiser and mostly up for the challenge of year two.

I'll let you know how our first glimpse at international policy turns out.

Back in Manhattan.

It's the beginning of year two. Today we start session #1 of the MAB program. One of the highlights of today's activities is meeting the incoming class and catching up with classmates.

We're only in for a few hours of meetings and orientation today. It's the calm before the storm; a week full of classes and lectures, projects and testing. Yes. Testing. A sneak-peek at the syllabus shows we're in for an exam by the end of the week in at least one of our classes.

Tonight we have a social activity with faculty and classmates in Aggieville. If you're unfamiliar with K-State's campus and the Manhattan community, the Aggieville region is the epicenter of "extracurricular" activities. A billboard in town advertises over 100 shops, restaurants and bars in the neighborhood.

Don't let the hectic pace of things scare you. The on-campus sessions include plenty of fun times and laughs, too!

Campus bound.

I'm headed back to campus tomorrow. It's a week in Manhattan, Kansas, as we kickoff the second year of the MAB program.

I feel good about the trip, excited to catch up with friends from the program. I am also anxious to start the next round of courses. We're tackling agriculture policy this session, which is one of my keen interests. I am hopeful that this course can shed some light on a thesis topic for me. We're also jumping into econometrics; I don't yet know what that means. But I'm optimistic that it will be a great learning opportunity. Tune in on Monday and I'll fill you in.

We're not the new kids on the block this go 'round. I'm packing light and planning on a lot of class time. I'll catch up on sleep when I return home in a week.

I'll try hard to keep things updated on the blog during this trip.

Welcoming the new class.

One of the highlights of the upcoming January campus session will be meeting the new group of students joining the MAB program. Last year I was one of the "new kids" as part of the Class of 2010. This year we'll welcome -- I think slightly more than 30 students -- the class of 2011.

Each year the MAB faculty and staff pair up current students with the new ones during the campus session; it's a mentoring system where the incoming can asking questions of the previous class and also have someone to meet and greet them when they first arrive on campus.

It's a big benefit to know someone ahead of the campus session. My mentor last year was great at helping me prepare for the first week of classes. She also shared some helpful tips on navigating the first courses in the program and provides some insight on surviving year one.

I just dropped an e-mail to the two students I'll be mentoring this January, in hopes of connecting with them ahead of the campus session. They sound like really interesting individuals and I'm anxious to meet up with them in Manhattan.

Close to the industry.

One of the most interesting parts of my MAB cohort make up is the number of farmers, farmer-spouses and children of farmers in the group. It's a great benefit when we're studying agriculture issues and learning about the economics of agribusiness and production farming.

The perspective they provide and the experiences they share help to enrich the discussions and make the concepts all the more applicable. Not everyone has the direct ties to a working farm, but those who do are glad to share their experiences and it seems those who don't have the ties are glad to listen and learn something new.

I've been thinking about those classmate farmers more this fall; we're close to completing the Risk Management course. Most row crop farmers in the U.S. have battled weather this year in one way or another. Many of them have faced increased input costs and volatile commodity markets.

I know several of my classmates are dealing with a later harvest on their family's farm. It's an especially busy time for all of them -- but it's nice to have them in the program, too, reminding all of us how close we live and work to our industry of Agribusiness.

Invest in yourself.

The decision to "go back to school" was a pretty easy one for me. I wanted the additional training and skills, and knew that my career ambitions depended upon further business knowledge. But deciding what program I wanted to study in wasn't so simple.

The debate over traditional grad school and professional part-time programs wasn't much of a debate at all: I wasn't willing to give up the paycheck and benefits for a backpack and a studio apartment.

I'd weighed out the pros and cons of a traditional MBA. Over the period of about a year I looked at a few different options from public and private universities here in my home state. A few friends had taken that leap and provided great perspective on the ups-and-downs of a formalized post-grad business school experience.

And then there were the programs like Kansas State's Master of AgriBusiness. I'd seen advertisements for Purdue's Agribusiness Management Program and the Colorado State program, too. I'd even looked into other graduate programs with an emphasis in agriculture sciences and business. But the MAB option just kept coming to the top of my pile.

My career and interests are well-seeded in the industry, and the idea of continuing my learning specialized in agriculture seemed very appealing. But there were numerous schools offering advanced agriculture degrees, and I wasn't quite sure which one would meet my needs and really benefit me in the long run.

It was a phone call from Lynnette Brummett, the K-State program's coordinator, that tipped the scale. I had filled out the online information request form, and she followed-up. We talked for a while about my background, interests and goals for a graduate degree. She took the time to find out what I wanted from a graduate experience and answered my specific questions about the courses and timeline for completing the degree.

After the conversation she identified some alumni with similar backgrounds as me and setup a phone call and some e-mails to have them provide a perspective of MAB. It was a very personal approach, and showed just how hard the K-State staff worked to make their (perspective) students feel like valued individuals.

I took that as a sign of good things to come, and sent a completed application back to campus to start the process. Now here I sit, working towards the MAB degree with hopes of finishing in May of 2010. And it's truly what I hoped it would be.

The work is challenging, but rewarding. There's little doubt that I'm learning something valuable in each course. I'm able to use the skills in my current job, and it's all shaping my future career plans, too.

My investment looks to be a good one. I'm seeing the returns already. It's two and a half years of nearly constant courses and learning, along with a tuition bill that would buy you a new American-made sedan without too many bells and whistles. But in the end I'll have the advanced degree and the knowledge. To me, it's been worth the time and effort so far, and I suspect it'll pay off pretty well to finish things out and take home the diploma.

I guess that's my point in today's post: make sure your investment is one that will pay off. If you're considering a program like this, choose based on what you need from the degree. Make sure what you want in the learning and where you'd like to be when you're done fit the enrollment you're considering.

The advanced degree and advancement.

It's not uncommon to hear of people seeking out higher learning, like the MAB program, as a means of career advancement or career change. Based on conversations I've had with my classmates, I'd say our group is a pretty good mix of both.

If you are considering the MAB program for either option, I've run across an article worth reading. This HR World piece lays out the case for and against a graduate degree. It highlights the employer's debate over higher learning and work experience.

Best of all, though, is the fact that MAB students work full-time while enrolled in the program. So you'll obtain higher learning while continuing to accumulate career experience!

Look a little deeper.

When I started the blog, my goal was to provide a little deeper look into what the student experience is like -- what kinds of things I was learning and how those things were changing my thinking or enhancing my knowledge of agribusiness.

So today I've got one for you. An interesting article and web item I ran across that's straight from the subject of our most recent MAB course.

The Class of 2010 just wrapped up Dr. Bergtold's Optimization course (Ag Ec 761). It was a fast-paced look at optimization models and how agribusinesses can utilize data to make better decisions. The course essentially taught me to take data and trends and turn them into functional, decision-making models in Microsoft Excel.

This was new territory. I didn't do this in my job prior to the class. And I never toyed with building models in Excel in order to streamline business decisions. But, as I learned from Dr. Bergtold, it's big business in a lot of big businesses.

And my recent find in BusinessWeek magazine has me wondering about the kinds of opportunities this work will present in the agriculture and food sector.

There's a neat article and accompanying video clip about Stephen Baker's new book, "The Numerati". He's a writer for the magazine who has taken a deep look into the business of optimization and operations research -- essentially, the practice of numerating business data in order to build models like the ones we studied in our MAB course.

I've not picked up the book yet, but hope to add it to my fall reading list. I'm not sure if this will end up being part of my MAB thesis yet, but I did find the whole practice pretty interesting. Over the two month period of Ag Ec 761 we learned a lot about decision variables and modeling data to determine optimal outcomes in business. And Dr. Bergtold assures me there's much, much more to discover about operations research for the student who is so inclined.

Give the subject a quick Google search and you'll see there is a lot out there. And it's just a part of the knowledge we're surfacing throughout our first year in K-State's MAB program.

Nearing a benchmark.

My MAB cohort just started our next class; it's the Risk Management course that will take us through the end of the 2008 school year.

As I thumbed through the program booklet last night, it dawned on me that we're nearing a bit of a benchmark for the MAB program. At the completion of this course, we'll have one full year of learning and 15 credit hours behind us! Some of my classmates will be even further along, having picked up a course or two ahead of the official start of our program in January.

We all must meet the 42 credit hour requirement in order to receive a degree. But if you knock out the three hours of capstone course, take away six hours granted in our thesis work, and three hours of elective we'll choose next year and you end up at 33. So we're almost halfway through the general coursework.

Whew. Time is flying right on by.

Another one down.

The MAB Class of 2010 wrapped up the applied economics course almost a month ago, and we've been on a bit of break since then. It's been a nice respite from courses and a chance to enjoy the summer without worrying about homework assignments or chat sessions.

I've noticed a few of us keeping in touch, despite the break, via e-mails and online chatting. It's neat to see how the program has fostered these friendships over the last seven months. We're catching up on non-academic items and keeping tabs on each other before the next course begins.

Speaking of that course -- we're set to start the Optimization course this week with Dr. Bergtold. It's another online-based course, and looks to be pretty fast paced. I'll keep you posted on this one, as time permits.

Cournot Duopoly is only a phone call away.

Too long since the last post. Sorry about that!

We're 3/4 of the way through the "spring" class. It's Managerial Economics, and it's entirely online -- no campus sessions for this one. Between the text book, the weekend chat sessions and the online lectures, it's a very comprehensive course.

I had some economics in my undergrad, but I'm learning a whole host of new information and skills in this practical approach to economics in business.

Today was a good example of how functional the distance learning structure can be. I'd been reviewing slide from the chat session and thumbing through my book, but just couldn't solve a problem in this week's homework assignment.

After 40 minutes of being stumped, with the onset of growing frustration, I decided to reach out for some assistance with my Cournot Duopoloy problems. I could have sent out an e-mail to classmates, posted a message on the course's e-board, or go 'old school' with a phone call to the professor.

I opted for the most direct route, and one phone call and a few minutes later the instructor had talked me through my error and gotten me back on track to finishing the assignment. Seems my algebra is a bit rusty this week, but all is good and well after a little guidance from the professor.

It's another example of the flexibility and functionality of this MAB program and why it is worth looking into.

Economics anyone?

We're enjoying a lighter pace now. It's slow-going compared to last session and no one is complaining.

This session we're committed to one class: Applied Agribusiness Economics. We've got three months to study the coursework and complete the assignments and there's no other classes to worry about.

It seems like a piece of a cake, having just finished three classes at once. They tell us that's by design. Push through the first three and be rewarded by getting back some free time.

This class won't require a trip to Manhattan for a campus session. It's all at a distance, with weekly lectures online, assignments turned in via K-State's distance learning portal and plenty of time to e-mail and chat with your classmates when you've got questions or need some help getting through the new material.

I'll keep you posted.

Looking back.

We finished our first session of courses last week. Ah, a relaxing deep breath for everyone. They're behind us -- and we're moving forward to the next class.

All of us had been told that the first session would be the hardest. It makes sense if you think about it. Returning to school, adjusting to life with additional responsibilities. Courses that are foreign to you, new subject matter often different or more challenging than previous classwork we'd experienced.

And we're better for it, I think. Several of us were talking on Friday morning, near the conclusion of the week's classes on-campus, about how much we'd progressed in three months. All of us learned the ins-and-outs of graduate-level finance. We'll be better fiscal managers with the information and some people might even be well served to use the new knowledge in their thesis. We've also mastered Microsoft Excel and the many applications that allow a manager to be more efficient using technology. And there's logistics, too. We gained an understanding of economic order quantity, supply chain management and what it takes for a company to achieve strategic fit.

That's seven hours of credit, if you're keeping score. That means there's only 32 more credits to go!