$12,000 Well Spent

$12,000 well spent again. Let's see what I learned this quarter...

Chicago Asia Pacific Group: CAP takes up most of my free time outside of class. CAP and the NBA playoffs and the random Red Sox game that pops up. Anyway, we have a good group going. Meeting every week to make sure everybody is on the same page. Conference planning has been tough but very rewarding. We've actually succeeded in getting some really high profile people to commit to speak to our students. Funding is coming along. But most importantly, everybody seems to be having fun.

International Comparative Organizations: I'll admit it, I didn't learn much in this class. Some random facts are always useful, such as inequality isn't caused by China, US is land of opportunity only if you are an immigrant, Japan's employed for life schemes aren't really employed for life - just employed for three-quarter life, etc etc. Lots of fun facts, not many tools. The professor could have gone one step further.

Data-Driven Marketing: Although the lectures were sloooooooow to develop, the class was quite fun to be in. Given my background, I say slooooooow because the class spent a few classes on regressions. If we could learn more about model building, that would be awesome. I've never enjoyed doing homework, but this class was different. Each homework was like a consulting project. Here's a bunch of data, go figure out what to do. This is precisely why I came to business school: learn what to do with data and then make recommendations based on numbers.

Investments: Professor Akash (Can't spell his last name) is a handful and a hit or miss with the students. Some like him a lot, including yours truly; some don't, including my entire study group. Like him or not, my advice is that at least listen to him. He sounds like your grandma, very high strung, and is always very passionate with class. Anyway, I learnt a great deal in this class, including (His words, his emphasis):

1. University of Chicago discovered everything in modern financial economics.
2. Math is not your friend. (his words, not mine)
3. Fisher Black of Black Scholes option pricing lived a sad sad sad life.
4. Myron Scholes is the luckiest academic.
5. University of Chicago is the only school in the world that teaches this stuff.
6. You will not see this material (pointing at blackboard) in any textbook that I know of.
7. Goldman Sachs will ask you this question (pointing to homework) in your interview.
8. You are studying at the University of Chicago, not HBS or Stanford or Kellogg. You have to know this stuff (pointing at blackboard/slides violently)
9. I am the same as Gene Fama; we both get horrible student evaluations. I am the same as Fisher Black; he was also a physicist. But that is where all the similarities end.
10. This (pointing at blackboard) is child's play. This is nothing. (pointint at us) You will learn much much more in financial engineering. CHILD'S PLAY!