Groups...Oh Groups

After my final CHESS run, I kept on trying to figure out how my final week just bottomed out and dropped my average weekly profit below $70,000. When Kathleen and I sat down and did the transient displacement calculations (fancy name for deciding if it's a good idea to accept a certain group or not.) After plugging all the data into our spreadsheet and found that we missed out on $14,000 of pure revenue. The was a group, Ford Motor Co., that asked to for 100 rooms for $70 from Tuesday to Thursday. When I saw this request, I immediately declined the request because I didn't want to sacrifice 100 rooms at $70 per room on a Tuesday when I could sell out without selling any rooms for $70.

That Tuesday, my hotel did well, but the following Wednesday and Thursday were dismal and I could have really used the extra 100 rooms because I ended up with over 120 empty rooms that weren't making me any money. Had I accepted the Ford Motors request, my group would have been extremely close to reaching the weekly goal of $70,000 profit. It would have been so close that if I sold just a few more rooms on random days, my hotel would have surpassed the goal of $70,000.

The funny thing is that when I first started, I didn't want to accept any groups because I didn't think the idea of giving away rooms would be profitable. When I made the change to accept as many groups as I could, as long as they didn't stay on my high transient demand days, I made a concious effort to analyze each offer, but on the final request, my decision was influenced by my original strategy.

It's agonizing to know that I was so close to reaching my goal and fell short on the last week of the simulation, but at the same time, it's cool to know that I came so close to reaching the goal using my own strategies that had to evolve after each trial run. I made the changes I thought I needed to make and I can rest assured that it was the hours spent combing through previous performance details that led me to developing my current expense setting strategy.

The Last Day...

Tomorrow is the day: our Final Exam.  Time has literally flown by so fast, since hugging my mom goodbye at the high school around 3 in the morning until now.  Once we arrived at Cornell the whole campus and the people was like a foreign expereince to me.  I have met so many great people and have learned so much about myself in these four weeks with the ILC.  And unfortunately, it will soon come to a close.  I wish I had more time to tell you about this reflection experience of mine, but I will have to save it for another time as I need to invest as much time as I can to study for this final!

Today we learned about Race and Equality in the Western Tradition. For the first time we studied American philosophers, Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X.  This was the final segment of the class: Professor Kramnick’s last lecture, Ulas’ final discussion, it has all come to a close. I am so sad that the class is almost over, but I am so appreciative of all the opportunities that have been made available to me through the Ivy League Connection and Cornell Summer College. There will be another entry for reflection another day, but I have to get back to studying, wish us luck!

Final Frenzy

I apologize in advance for this blog being shorter than usual. Finals are tomorrow so that means today was "study and don't socialize" day. This was it. Our final lecture! We went over freedom and justice through the eyes of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. Since the reading the night before was pretty straight-forward, the lecture was mostly review. During the discussion section, we quickly went over the abstract ideas of King and Malcolm X. Afterwards, we went over some of the earlier writers and did some mock questions.

In the afternoon, most of our class (including all of us in the Cornell cohort for Freedom & Justice) took advantage of the optional review discussion with Professor Kramnick. This was a time when students can ask Professor Kramnick any clarification questions. After the discussion, it was off to the books. We spent most of our evening studying for our final. Hannon was kind enough to share the packet his discussion group made with the logistics of every writer thus far. 

At this point, I feel that I know the fundamentals of each writer. However, the part that worries me the most is the structuring of my writing. Well, I'm going to study some more. After all, some more studying never hurts anyone. At least I don't have to wake up until 8:30 AM instead of 7:30 AM tomorrow. Best of luck to all that are taking finals tomorrow!

One More Day

Today was the last full school day, since tomorrow ends at noon. These last two weeks felt it went a little too fast. I was starting to enjoy this campus. Though I hated the long walks to class, the campus is amazing, and the people here are great.

Our class started with office hours for about 2 and a-half hours. Mark and Reneta wanted us to work on the final report and try to finish it before the end of class so people won’t stay up all night to do it. Since our group was extremely organized, we were almost done before lunch time. Everyone in our group had most of their work done and we just needed to edit and add everything in our final template. We continued on our final report by adding small details to it in the afternoon. When Mark looked over at our near complete report, he said he was impressed at how far we were on the paper. The entire day was just about the report. We wanted it to be really good, so our group kept on editing. It felt weird to have our last office hours as well as having our last proper lectures. Technically, our classes are almost all over, and I am excited to stay at the Statler Hotel and also to return to my house.

At the end of office hours, 9 PM, I had free time. I was so happy that my group had finished, and I didn't need to stay up at night to work on it. I could get a good nights sleep before my last school day ever in Cornell this year. I went to the lounge and watched some TV shows. All that's left for tomorrow is the evaluation and saying goodbye to everyone in the hotel management class; I would hate saying goodbye to my new friends Jiyoon, Julia and Andrea but I am more excited to go back home.

The three weeks has passed by very quickly, and it is already the last day of class tomorrow. Once I turn in my report, I will be officially done with our course. It was a great experience and I cannot wait until graduation on Saturday! 

Completing Camp Kramnick

It will be another short blog today as tomorrow is the final for our course. Our last official class covered the philosophies of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X regarding racial equality. Professor Kramnick gave us a quick farewell speech, and wished us well. The discussion section was the same as ever, an expansion of the lecture's topic. After lunch we had the day off, with an optional discussion with Kramnick at 2. The discussion with Professor Kramnick was interesting, but not particularly helpful for the final. I spent the rest of of the day studying for the final alone and with various classmates.

It is sad to think this program is almost over. I have gotten so used to the daily routine of the class and living individually. I am going to miss all my class mates and teachers, and the feeling that every day I am becoming a more intellectual person. Hopefully the test goes well! It's almost the end!

Report! What is your status? Part 2

The class had only one goal today - work on our final reports! From 8:30 AM to 11:00 AM, 12:45 PM to 5:30 PM, and 7:00 PM to 9:15 PM, my group worked hard to complete our report. The computer lab was open and stocked with TAs for almost the entire day, and most of us took advantage of that. It was a really long day, but it was worth it. Many groups, including mine, were able to completely finish.

The only other task we completed today in class was watching a video and having a small lecture on work-environment personalities. The video had demonstrations of the different personalities, and it was really funny (a nice break from the stressful report); everyone laughed when they saw their personalities being impersonated. On the second day of class, we all had to take a personality test, and were placed in groups based on the results. Mark's and Reneta's hopes were that we would learn to work with different types of people successfully. Tonight I saw several groups fighting, so I'm not sure how effective that was. We also found out that Mark had a little experiment of his own - he put three people with "pure" forms (persuader-persuader, stabilizer-stabilizer, and analyzer-analyzer) of their personalities in a group together; he couldn't find a controller-controller, so he picked an analyzer-controller instead as the fourth member. The group how no comment on how well they worked together. My group is fairly balanced, and we work well together (although we don't always get along).

Unfortunately, there is nothing else to talk about for today. I am also running on about three hours of sleep; since my group is finished, though, I can at least go to bed early. Tomorrow is printing day, as well as our final class day. I don't like business anymore, and it was a hard class for me, but in some ways (like the good exercise I get from walking up hills to class everyday, and the amazing views), I will miss being here. I won't miss dorm life though; I like my having my own shower and sink!