Will Sitch online

The first quarter of b-school was kinda awesome. I met a bunch of cool kids, learned a lot more about finance than I thought I was going to, and the material in class was incredibly relevant to the crashing economy and failing banks. We talked about mark-to-market financial accounting the weekend before Lehman Bros tanked! Very cool.

MGB 200A: Financial accounting with Prof. Michelle Yetman

Course Description:
Introduces the concepts and objectives underlying the preparation of financial statements. Topics include understanding the accounting cycle, measurement and valuation problems associated with financial statement components, consideration of the usefulness of financial statements in the analysis of a corporation’s operations.

This course is a management-level introduction to financial accounting with lots of emphasis on GAAP and the four financial statements: the balance sheet, statement of cash flows, statement of stockholders equity, and income statement. We talked a lot about best practices and the impact certain decisions have on a company’s perceived financial health, but also touched on how to use metrics to measure performance. I found financial/performance metrics analysis very interesting and I will probably try to take more classes on this topic.

Prof. Yetman was very concerned with our grades, and worked diligently to prepare us for quizzes and the final. She really cared about us and even joined us several times for a beer after class. All the material we were tested on was covered in class or in the homework assignments. The textbook was excellent and the course pack was well put together; I am going to keep the material for future reference. I got an A+ in the class, and I give the course and the instructor an A.

MGB 201A: Organizational behaviour with Prof. Greta Hsu

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.

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).

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. I got an A in the class, and I give the course and the instructor an A-.

Winter 2009: Microeconomics with Prof. Victor Stango (and a textbook co-authored by Ben Bernanke!), and Statistics with Prof. Bill Ellis