Posts tagged ‘business school’
The beginning of a semester is a magical time. The nerd in me loves flipping through course catalogs and browsing through syllabi. It’s all about opportunity and the prospect of learning new and useful skills that will help me help others down the road. Lately I’ve been buzzing around campus attending lectures and looking for my perfect four courses. It’s been no small task given our ability to pick from impressive rosters of offerings at Columbia’s many schools, but I finally made my selections. The way the scheduling worked out, this semester is weighted toward more management-focused credits whereas the Summer will see me completing the last of my quantitative and science-based credits. You’ll also notice some non-traditional choices below. I did quite a bit of thinking about how best to use the rest of my time at Columbia over the holiday break, and these selections reflect some of the revelations. Alas, another post on that coming soon. Enjoy!
Managing Conflict in Organizations, Columbia University’s Teachers College
Professor Michele Riley, J.D.
In this course, I’ll be reviewing the latest research findings about what causes conflict in organizations, how the issues are framed, how the conflicts are managed and how conflict impacts the parties involved and the organization as a whole. I’ll be grounded in theories that support my learnings about organizations and the human interaction within them and will apply these theories in various activities, such as analyzing case studies, participating in simulations and designing conflict management systems. I will also be engaging in skill building activities, such as role plays, to learn how to better prevent conflicts from occurring and to intervene once conflicts have developed.
Managerial Negotiations, Columbia Business School
Professor Kathleen Kennedy
While some people may only think of negotiation as the formal exchange of offers in a business setting, negotiation is truly a pervasive part of daily life. Effective negotiators are able to get the most out of a deal because they assess, balance, and then maximize the instrumental and relational value of a deal. It is the aim of this course to equip me with relevant theory and practical skills in two fundamental ways.
Through role-play exercises, lecture, reading, and discussion, the course begins with basic dynamics in negotiation and adds complexity in stages, including multiple issues, multiple parties, mediation, agents, and coalitions. Some exercises involve numerical analyses, others revolve around qualitative conflicts. By the end of the course, I should be able to comfortably and confidently approach most any conflict or negotiation: analyzing its nature, understanding my own objectives, and plotting an approach that will give me the best shot at achieving their goals.
Capstone Workshop
Professor Kizzy Charles-Guzman
The capstone course is a client-based workshop that integrates each element of the Master of Science in Sustainability Management curriculum into an applied project, giving me hands-on sustainability management experience. I will serve on a team and undertake a special analytic project and serve as a consultant for a real-world client; operating under the same real-world constraints as regular sustainability managers. The workshop will also sharpen my analytical and communication skills by allowing me to apply my previous experience and knowledge gained from the program to real-world problems.
My Project
Client: New York City Department of Transportation (NYC DOT)
It’s no secret that I’m a big fan of what the NYC DOT is up to these days. Ever since Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan presented to my Urban Public Policy class last semester about the DOT’s role in PlaNYC 2030, I’ve been head over heels about its sustainability merits and the material progress that’s being made across the City. So when the DOT appeared on our client list, I jumped at the opportunity to be part of this Golden Age of transportation planning in NYC.
The project itself pertains to PlaNYC’s goal of reducing combined sewer overflow (CSO) volume by capturing rainfall from impervious surfaces in certain areas of the City. Our job will be to help the DOT identify appropriate surface areas using GIS data for the application of pervious pavement treatments to mitigate the impacts of stormwater runoff. Timely, applied, relevant, FUN!
Green Accounting
Accounting for environmental costs is a broad area covering a number of accounting systems designed to measure the multi-faceted and complex interactions between economic activity and the natural environment.
This course introduces practitioners of environmental science and sustainability management to a number of approaches to accounting for environmental costs for corporations and countries. The course provides a basic introduction to financial accounting and analyzes the income statement, cash flow statement and the balance sheet from a US GAAP perspective using examples of cleantech and resource extraction companies. Conventional cost and management accounting concepts for business entities are introduced, with a focus on accounting for waste, depletion and byproducts. Requirements for accounting for environmental liability under US GAAP are introduced and critically evaluated. Green accounting methodologies with a systems focus such as life cycle analysis and sustainability metrics are presented.
How do you feel about the perfect four? Advice, questions and suggestions are welcome below in the comments section.
Read more about which courses I took in Fall 2011.
