Hello. My name is Ed (aka edowave). After graduating from the University of Florida in 97', I moved to Tokyo, Japan to study the wonderful sport and art of Judo. While there, I started working for an HR firm training Japanese mangers who were being transferred to their offices in the US. I quickly hit a ceiling there, and in order to "move up", I was told I had to have an MBA. The options in Japan at the time were pretty slim, Temple University, or McGill. Both were very expensive programs. However, I heard some schools were offering courses via a still fairly new media known as "the Internet" using blazing fast 56k speeds. I decided to do some research and found a group called "alt.education.distance" and started reading and asking some questions. I found about 5 different programs I was interested in (Amberton, Baker, City, Heriot-Watt, and Andrew Jackson.) After some education from the group about the differences between RA, NA, and Royal Charter accredidation, I decided on the Heriot-Watt program and signed up for my first course in 1999. Two years into the program, taking only one course at a time, I was only about half-way finished. I decided to finish the MBA full-time by transfering on campus in Edinburgh. It was a fantastic experience that got me "fired up" about education. After completing the Heriot-Watt MBA in Edinburgh, I moved back to Florida, and applied to a technical management PhD program. Not only was I accepted, but I was also awarded an assitantship! UF also allowed me to transfer 30 credits from the Heriot-Watt MBA to my PhD program. While at UF, I decided to pick up another Masters. This was in Food and Resource Economics, and now I am currently in my dissertation phase of my PhD. I hope to complete everything by the end of summer. DegreeInfo has been a great source of information for me (I followed the gang over from alt.distance.education) and enjoy giving back to the group whenever I can. Feel free to ask away if you have a question.
Hi Ed - That's a very interesting set og experiences that you've had. Can you tell us something about your dissertation?
Oh! It's edowave! And here I had been misreading that as eduwave. I had thought your screen name was meant to imply that you hyad caught the wave of distance education.
Ha ha, nope, its edowave. It was the name of a dive club in Japan I had. (I am also a certified scuba instructor.) eduwave would be pretty good though. As for my dissertation, my research is on agricultural decision making under land use change in Florida. There was a lot of real-estate speculation in Florida before the bust, and a lot of farmers ended up selling their land, or just were no longer able to farm because of the lost supporting industries. I'm looking at what where the exact variables that farmers used in their decision to stop farming, and then maybe come up with a model that can be used to predict farmer decision making in the future.
Hi ed did you take any of the intro to biz research subjects? I am looking for someone who has already completed it or halfway there. I just started the DBA with HW am worried abt the exams.
Edowave, I didn't know you did judo! I have been training judo since 1994 and am a second dan. Do you still practice?
Hey, I lost my farm, I don't take judo and I'm not into Biz but I am into scuba. Oh yeah, this thread is 4 years old.
Old thread indeed. I forgot about when we did the "introduce yourself" posts. @sharonsaz: I didn't do the HW DBA, only the MBA. @Might_Tiki: No longer do Judo. With my current schedule, there just isn't any dojo around here that I can get to in a reasonable amount of time. Also, other hobbies are taking up my time (trap shooting, teaching scuba, HAM radio, home remodeling.)
