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3/14/2007

Gender Bias Exams and Condoms

I have two finals both due on Thursday.

The first is for private equity and is a take home case exam on telemarketing acquisitions. I hate telemarketing. Why are my case finals all about products I don't like (frozen dog food, pharma, telecom, etc)? Anyway, I've mentioned that this class puts the fear in me; that sentiment has not changed. The qualitative analysis of the telemarketing industry was fairly straight forward, but the quantitative part of the case will be a challenge for me. Either way, the pain will go away soon.

The second is for the marketing channel class. This particular take home case is Mary Kay Inc., the direct sales beauty product company, and was written by Kellogg. I have to say the case sucks. The case writer didn't put a lot of information about Mary Kay; instead, there were data regarding the change of demographics in the US. I know nothing about beauty products. I can't even segment the market! AND the case doesn't even have that information! Nonetheless, I will BS my way through... and hope that the professor doesn't read student blogs.

Yup, hence my title: gender bias exams. If the case had sufficient information about the industry, I don't mind it. However, this MK case has very little information about the industry (most information is about the channel). Plus the exam instructions did not exclude information outside of the case, meaning that people familiar with MK are at a distinct advantage when it comes to this exam.

Anyway, I'm done bitching. In between taking breaks, which were in between brief spurts of studying, I bought a pair of shoes yesterday (for those who are keeping score, thats: study, break, shop, break, study), which led to this conversation:

Me: I bought shoes yesterday!
Nameless: Oh, how are they?
Me: Cole Haan, they are very comfy!
Nameless: How comfy?
Me: Fits like a condom, it's great.
Nameless: Condoms are comfy?

Despite finals, this is still a very relaxing week! Alright, back to beauty products. I can't wait to go to Cozumel. Hopefully can scuba dive a bit and also learn how to wind surf (again) and surf.

6 comments:

shmoo said...

Seems strange to me that you're going to have problems with the quantitative part la...

Josekin said...

Yes la... I dun like filance la.

The Dirty Canuck said...

re: PE - um, i should probably start that sometime now, right? damn you, Veronica Mars Season One. i should try to be less beholden to tiny blonde women from SoCal who solve mysteries and pun verily.

re: MK case - i see what you're saying. i think that people who know more about that company will probably have some insight above and beyond those that don't. keyword being "people". in the same way that i had to do extra reading for a case last year on Massey Ferguson (tractor manufacturer), not because i'm a woman, but because i'm from the city. i wouldn't expect city-dwellers to know much about MF, male of female.

Wakechick said...

The case pretty much sucks for everyone. There is NO information in that darn thing.

Anonymous said...

hm.. interesting.

The Dirty Canuck said...

now why didn't i say what i meant nicely like WC? sorry for being overly blunt, buddy.