Finance for Dummies, er, I Mean ‘Non-Financial Professionals’

WEEK 18 (October 10-16)

My week starts out on Tuesday after the long weekend and is jammed packed! You see, I’ll be out of the office on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday for a “Finance for Non-Financial Professionals” course being taught on site at GE.  With, essentially, one day of work this week you can imagine all that I have to do.

I start out my morning with a dry-run of a conference call. I’ve never worked the GE phone system as an ‘administrator’ so a helpful co-worker offers his time to assist me. The call will take place next Thursday with a group of recruiting representatives from other GE businesses and I’ll act as a Northeastern representative so I want to make sure everything goes smoothly.

After the practice session goes by without a glitch I send out my official meeting invitation with the call in code, a reserved room and all! I feel so professional, especially when a slew of confirmations are sent my way within the hour! Who knows, I might even set up a WebEx presentation if I’m feeling daring.

But I don’t have much time for revelry because it’s off to the makeup session for last Friday’s cancelled parts procurement meeting. I’m a bit nervous to present my deliverable (the center of the whole meeting). We get in several key people and are able to cover all of the procurement lists through the next several months. I come out of it much clearer on what I need to do to proceed after encountering a few roadblocks leading up to this point.  I promise to update the Excel file categorizing all of the necessary parts and save it to the shared drive for the program.

When I return to my desk I find that my boss has dropped off two versions of a proprietary agreement statement. He asks me to scour the document for discrepancies. We want to make sure GE is covered and properly protected and that any changes since the last run of this document do not infringe on that.

The rest of the afternoon is spent deflecting teasing remarks about my Boston Business Journal article. You see, I had brought it into work to show my boss.  Another employee asked to ‘borrow’ it and instead made several photocopies and pasted my mug all over the office! I was humiliated and had to endure relentless teasing the rest of the day. Ugh! I just hope people don’t think I was causing a disruption in the work place or that I’m conceited.

That night my Market Research group and I come to the executive decision that we will need to pursue a new company for our marketing research consulting project: TRU Chocolate. We are all excited about taste-testing the new product and interacting with a company that is very responsive to our project needs. 

Later I get an e-mail from the Northeastern Career Center letting the second-years know that we should expect first-year students to begin contacting us soon regarding our corporate residencies! I’m so excited and hope that at least ONE will call me up for an informational interview.

Wednesday is the first day of my ‘Finance for Non-Financial Professionals’ course (but really, let’s call it what it is: Finance for Dummies). I have completed (nearly) all of my pre-work and am excited to be in a classroom setting again. I walk in and am greeted by a lovely spread of breakfast baked goods, coffee, fruit and a granola yogurt parfait. I’m also handed a pristine binder for the class, a name tag and crisp version of GE’s 2010 annual report. I soon learn that our professor for the course is from the Wharton school of business- wow! Nice job GE!

While the day is long, we cover a ton of useful information and the professor is great at applying all of the concepts to ‘real world’ GE business issues. It was a really great refresher of both Accounting and Finance from my first year and I was pleased to realize how much I remember! I even contribute in the class on topics regarding stock repurchase, dividends and more (I did my Finance case write-up on that topic, after all).

By Thursday we are really getting into the nitty-gritty of GE's financial statements. It was always a wonder to me how much information is out in the public sphere if only you know how to read it! All of GE's various business as diverse as GE Capital, GE Energy, GE Home and Business Solutions, etc. make for amazing material for discussion and analysis. During lunch that day, I check my work e-mail to find that my cube-mate and I have been directed to move cubes. While I'm a bit bummed initially I cheer up when I find out that we will be taking over the home of a former co-op we befriended during the summer months.

By the end of class on Friday I am filled to the brim with financial knowledge (and am consequently, a bit tuckered out). While all of the topics covered in the class ended up being review for me, I felt that having these three days to dedicate solely to finance really helped to solidify the subject.

When I return home that night I see that I have received not one, but TWO interview requests from first-years! Yay!  I immediately set about writing both students back. I will meet with one tomorrow and the other later in the week.

On my same e-mail list I receive a notification from Northeastern that the time has come to register for graduation! EEEK! Yikes! How can that have come so soon?

Saturday morning I’m up early go to pick up my iPhone 4s but, alas, just 24 hours after its release it is already sold out! Ugh! I will have to wait 3-4 weeks for it to come in the mail. Since I’m still rockin’ a 3G (yes, that’s 3G, not 3GS) I hope I can make it that long…

Roxy's Gourmet Grilles Cheese

After my phone debacle I'm a bit dejected but luckily I spot The Boston Book Festival occurring in Copley Square. Besides books, which I love, there are also food trucks (which, as we all know, I also love!). I peruse some prints, indulge in Roxy's Gourmet Grilled Cheese (hello mighty rib melt!) and even an apple crumble cupcake from the Cupcakory truck. Fabulous!

Luckily all of the food was of the fast variety because I have to jet back to campus to meet with the first of my first-year interviewers. He seems very excited about hearing about GE Aviation and my co-op and I try to give him the best run-down I can. 

Sunday is my catch up day. But, besides all of that boring stuff like homework and errands (blah) I put in my deposit for my winter camel trek in Morocco! The two-day trek is part of my three-week winter travel schedule that will see me in Portugal, Spain and Morocco. Eeek! I can't wait to spend New Year's Eve in the Erg Chebbi Desert! Now I just have to be patient...

*The views expressed in this blog are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of GE Aviation, Northeastern University, their staff, employees or affiliates.