Workload, Time Constraints, Pressure Test
This year I’ve been doing my core units of the Master of Business Administration (MBA) program at the University of Tasmania. This semester alone, with four subjects, we had 21 assessment items and an uncountable number of practical exercises and readings. We’re biological software, its called pressure testing. They’re looking for chinks in our armour – are we good enough? Can they bring out the gold from the bedrock?
It’s halfway through week 12. I call this train wreck week because if any lecturer asks me a direct question my mind is mush. Train wreck week is followed by review week 13 (where most lecturers still continue to push out content), then comes SWATVAC pre-exam study week, and then I roll over four exams in six days – and it’s over for the semester.
So, in train wreck week, with a large statistics assignment submitted yesterday, I still have a week to do a finance test, a statistics test, an organisational behaviour test and an organisational behaviour 1200 word folio on organisational culture. Plus keep up with course work, readings, tutorial exercises – eat and sleep.
The pressure test for management training is a critical but unpleasant part of the process – as well as the objective. In the real world most of these people are going to work for multinationals with demanding workloads and schedules. There will be little relenting through the next decade. The pressure test of the MBA has streamlined a lot of my processes, too – I’m leaner, more efficient, time managed, and more effective as a leader.
