Before the first class…

Lucas Perin, TMMBA student

Make no mistake: the TMMBA starts at the welcome reception. Before the reception we had to fill some questionnaires that would help sort us into groups. At the reception, we had our picture taken for the yearbook, and then the program director and a former student tried to tell us how hard the program was. And we got a bag quite full of books and pre-read materials.

In summary, the TMMBA depends very much on the pre-reads. It is a good program that covers a lot of material. It is well-recognized. And it is short. The catch is that you will have to read a lot of material before the classes, between quarters and even before the program starts.

We got assigned to read the whole material of the “Team Building” class (some HBR articles), an entire book and a couple chapters from another book for “Financial Reporting & Analysis” (fancy name for accounting), some material for Microeconomics, the “Blue Ocean Strategy” book and some chapters for Statistics. To do that, we had about six weeks.

We then got to meet our groups. We are assigned to a group of about five students for the whole length of the program. Apparently the questionnaire works – my group is a very good fit for me.

After the reception, time to get started. Most people will tell you that doing the pre-reads (in particular, the Accounting pre-read) helps tremendously on being successful in the program. I did. Time will tell.