Will Sitch online

The winter 2009 quarter brought our working group closer together (read: cliquing is on in full force) and further separated us from “The Others” enrolled in the same courses but on the alternate schedule. The Others are just like the mysterious group that live on the island in the TV show Lost. Very suspect. We try not to make eye contact when we meet at lunch or dinner.

The core courses are offered in two schedules, so for this quarter you can either take econ first followed by stats, or stats first followed by econ. Of course one of the two courses is going to be considered the harder course, and most people want to take that course earlier in the day. It makes sense, who wants to go to stats from 6-9PM on Friday nights? Wouldn’t you rather take some easy econ course when you’re tired and tuning out?

So all the nerdy students who are thinking ahead pick the harder course first, and of course it fills up fast. The slackers who forget to register, the broke folk stuck waiting for student aid, and those of us who don’t like keeners end up in the non-optimal schedule. Which is fine, because there are less people in the non-optimal schedule. Plus those people are cooler. That’s why we call the others “The Others”. Ingroup/outgroup sociology in action!

Christian V spent this second quarter with The Others. He was part of the original crew who met way back during our Orientation session. Jillian, Bobby and I stayed true with the rest of the cool kids we’ve made friends with. Christian didn’t want to commit to us so early. He wanted to see other people. He wanted to explore what b-skool has to offer. He wanted to see if the grass was greener on the other side. Needless to say, he was pretty miserable for the whole term and is coming back to the dream team for our third quarter. We’re not sure if we trust him now. He might be a spy.

Speaking of our third quarter, the Spring 2009 quarter is the last of our core classes. After this we’ll be able to choose our own breadth and elective courses. It’s sad because inevitably our group is going to split up and take different courses on different nights, but it’s exciting as well because we all get to choose our own adventure. I think our clique, Jillian, Bobby, Erika, Brad, Pat, Dan, Jon, me, and maybe Christian, will stick together. We’re going to Las Vegas together in May; Christian “has plans”. More on that later.

So in our second quarter we had econ and stats. Here are my reviews and grades:

MGB 202A: Microeconomics with Prof. Victor Stango

Official course description: Examines the decisions of consumers, business and government, and how these players interact. This course covers a variety of topics in economics, including supply and demand, efficiency, pricing and game theory. We will also cover the use and interpretation of economic data, and the rationale and effects of government policies affecting business. Fundamental concepts such as marginal analysis, opportunity cost, economies of scale and external effects are applied to current examples, in particular in the area of information technology

The real course description: Supply and demand. Supply and demand in perfectly competitive markets. Elasticity. The invisible hand. Supply and demand for oligopolies and monopolies. Supply and demand and labour costs and fixed costs and taxes and governments and social costs and efficiencies and deadweight losses. Oh, plus some game theory.

The professor: Victor is an excellent and effective teacher. He thoroughly understands economics and conveyed the material in a way that was interesting and relevant. He lead wide-ranging discussions that touched on everything from bank failures to policy decisions. Homework, in-class assignments, and tests were well thought out and pretty easy if you did the homework. The textbook was great.

The grade: I got an A+. I give the instructor and the class an A+.

MGB 203A: Statistics with Prof. Bill Ellis

Course description: Introduces statistics and data analysis for managerial decision-making. Descriptive statistics, principles of data collection, sampling, quality control, statistical inference. Application of data-analytic methods to problems in marketing, finance, accounting, production, operations and public policy.

The real course description: Data analysis techniques, sampling theory, hypothesis testing, statistical estimation. Lots of coverage on the math, which was silly because we didn’t do anything manually, we used excel and plug-ins for all problem solving. Lots of homework, which was necessary. The tests were difficult, and we all lost marks for stupid reasons: Brad got dinged for not writing “Dear Boss” on a question that asked him to summarize a data analysis to his employer.

The professor: Bill is a competent instructor working with complicated course material. I felt that he could have focused more on practical applications of the material, but the mechanics of stats are difficult. I think we should have skimmed over the math and focused more on why the tools are important and how to use them effectively. The lectures were long and difficult to follow. The textbook was horrible, poorly written and unsuitable both for a light ‘management’ approach to stats and also for a heavier ‘math’ approach.

The grade: I got an A. I give Bill and the course a B.

Spring 2009:
Marketing with Prof. Jenni Smith and Corporate Finance with Prof. Brad Barber. Plus a trip (my first) to Las Vegas in May.