UC Davis Working Professional (Bay Area) MBA course review
MGB 201A: Organizational Behavior with Greta Hsu
Date evaluated: Fall 2008 at the Bay Area Working Professional San Ramon campus.
Official course description: This is an introductory course in the management of modern organizations. The purpose of this course is to provide an understanding of the behaviors, problems, and effective management of organizations and their members. The course uses readings, cases, exercises, and films to survey problems confronting organizational managers, and demonstrate practical skills for analyzing and solving those problems. Topics include attribution and stereotypes, influence and power, motivation, conflict and negotiation, group and team decision making, justice and ethics, and leadership and perception management.
The real course description: This was a business psychology course, very interesting and probably the most useful course with regards to managing other people. We discussed everything from how people think, how to get others to do things, negotiation strategies, decision-making processes, and basic leadership. Our classes were always fun and the topics were always interesting; our in-class exercises were very cool – from our Everest Summit Attempt (my character had HAPE, my team left me behind), to a personal leadership assessment (I am an excellent manager and gosh-darn-it, people like me).
The professor: Prof. Hsu was very pleasant during the course, but the exam was a bit of a surprise. We knew it was going to be a difficult final, but some of the questions were in regards to what a specific author had written. I spent no time memorizing who had said what, I spent my time focusing on what had been said. It’s a minor gripe. We were assigned a non-fiction novel to read, and one of our class assignments focused on the novel, and it was okay. The textpack course materials were fantastic, and I will definitely keep and refer to them again.
The grade: I got an A in the class, and I give the course and the instructor an A-. [Edit, Apr 2010: Upon reflection, I think this course was one of the better core classes we took. I can’t believe I was so hard on Greta. I’ll bump the grade to an A.]