November isn't a happy month for many first-year business students, wrote Richard Bloom, a former Report on Business reporter, in his Nov. 11 Globe and Mail column about studying for an MBA at York’s Schulich School of Business. At the beginning of the month, all of the new concepts we've been taught are tested in a flurry of mid-term exams, he wrote. As the month progresses, we have individual assignments due, team research reports due, and conferences on numerous business-related issues we're encouraged to attend. Oh, and don't forget the summer internship hunt. November is when I'm supposed to set up informational interviews with executives, polish up my resumé and attend a networking event on Bay Street. That's plenty to digest, but none of the textbooks or management theories have taught me the biggest lesson I've learned since enrolling in an MBA program two months ago – a lesson I'll need to apply through the rest of this program and my whole working life. The lesson: Don't panic. Panic is the worst enemy of anyone who wants to succeed. And if you don't want panic to put you under, find sound strategies to deal with it.
York prof helped nab child porn user
A former top scientist with the Department of National Defence has received what is believed to be the longest sentence imposed in Canada for possession of child pornography, reported the Ottawa Citizen and the Toronto Star Nov. 11. Blair Evans, 55, received the equivalent of a 47-month prison term for his third conviction for illegally accessing child pornography through the Internet. In May 2004, a professor at York University recognized Evans and contacted police about his use of a computer with Internet access. Evans was arrested on June 14, 2004, for using the computers to access child porn chat rooms in defiance of probation orders.
Biting into loan sharks
Christmas is just a month away, wrote The Toronto Sun’s business editor Linda Leatherdale in a Nov. 11 column. That means a feeding frenzy for sharp-toothed bottom-feeders, who prey on our most destitute. I'm referring, she wrote, to payday outfits and other lenders charging usury rates of interest to cash-strapped Canadians who can't get cheaper credit from our banks. This loan sharking must stop. But these scuzzy operators are still out there feasting, even after a York University professor, studying the thorny issue for Ottawa, uncovered alleged rates of interest of 300 per cent to (sitting down?) 1,000,000 per cent in a thriving business worth $1.7 billion a year. She did not name the professor.