"See, there's Mount St Helens over there, and that one's Mt Hood."
"Its cloudy as over there, I can't see it."
"Yes, but its there. Look above the clouds."
"Ho-ly!"
Tena ano hoki koutou ma e noho ana kei runga i to waka, to whenua, to aronga hoki. Tena koutou katoa! Greetings to all of you in the midst of your canoe, lands, and pursuits. Greetings to one and all.
This my third blog will share a bit about what I've been learning at Graduate School, and some of the other things I've been doing these past ten weeks.
My first month in Portland
Looking back on my first month in Portland, I have to consider myself incredibly lucky. I am living in a place that is similar enough to home that it feels pretty familiar, and yet different enough that I am able to experience new things. I have come to a place where the people are adventurous, alternative, progressive and where sustainability is not a gimmick, its just what is expected. I have met the Dean of my School, the Mayor of Portland, and a former US Ambassador to New Zealand. I have been welcomed into peoples' lives and peoples' homes. For these things and for so many other reasons, I am extremely grateful for this opportunity that I have been given.
What I've been learning
I am doing the MBA at Portland State's business school as a full-time student, which takes almost 2 years, from September 2011 to June 2013.
Students are put through the MBA program as a cohort - my classmates and I will go through the two year program together. For now, we are covering the foundation courses, then in our second year we get to branch out into specific fields of interest, and top it all off with a live project with a local business.
I'm going to give you a bit of detail on two of my classes that I have found most interesting so far - leadership assessment and marketing.
The leadership class is a very unique university experience, in that the key content of the course is.... us. Rather than focusing on the key concepts and theories of leadership (we do go over some of these), the focus is on making us more effective leaders.
We have completed numerous assessments to gather data about our character, attitudes and dominant leadership styles. Myers-Briggs and 360-degree surveys were some of the assessments we did. We also buddied-up with one of our classmates to engage in peer coaching sessions - helping each other to develop and practice other styles of leadership that we may not be very confident with, but could come in handy. We are utilizing two books for the leadership class that I have found very helpful and easy to read: Primal Leadership by Daniel Goleman, and Quiet Leadership by David Rock.
In the marketing course we have been taken through all the key components of the marketing landscape, from understanding the need of the market all the way to identifying the best business model to use to successfully launch the business. A fantastic book we are using is Business Model Generation, edited by Alexander Osterwalder.
We worked in groups to practice what we are learning, identifying a need in Week 3 and then pitching our product concept in a sort of Dragon's Den format Week 10. The outputs required in such a short time while figuring out how to work effectively as a team was a huge challenge, but it was great to apply what we were learning straight away, and also enabled us to utilize what we were learning in our leadership class to better work alongside my classmates.
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| To start our marketing project, my group asked "why is child obesity on the rise?" using a "Fishbone diagram" |
Exploring Portland
I have never been in a place where Autumn is so colorful and vivid. As I ride the morning bus over the river, the the central city from the riverbank to the foothills is awash in color. Its like all the trees held a conference and decided it was best to disencumber themselves for a while. They are all doing it at their own pace, but a date has been set and they will surely all get there by the agreed deadline. The leaf blowers are incessant though and deserve a repeat mention.
One of the highlights has been the natural environment here: thick forests, big hills, rugged coastlines. Reminds me of home.
One October Sunday it was a warm and sunny afternoon, and I went running up a trail through Forest Park, a hill close to the city that is forested on its northern face. We ran amongst the trees for 5km, all uphill, and arrived topside in front of this old estate called Pittock House. Walking around the other side you can look out over Portland, and I was shown the mountains of Mounts Hood and St Helens in the distance. Little did I know that Hood and St Helens can have snow all year round at their peaks. They are very impressive. Mt Hood is a only a couple hundred feet shorter than Aoraki/Mt Cook. Mt St Helens apparently was taller but it blew its top a few years ago. Dante's Peak made it famous. Kind of.
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| Downtown Portland with snow-capped peaks in the distance |
PLEASE NOTE:
This is not an official U.S. Department of State website. The views expressed in this blog are mine alone and do not represent the Fulbright Program, the U.S. Department of State, or the New Zealand government.
