Friday, December 6, 2013

Course Review

I enjoyed the overall structure of the course and the way that it was taught. I personally thought that this course was very informative and insightful, particularly in a way that I thought I could apply in future situations such as my career. More specifically, I thought that the online blog posts and the excel homework made me keep up to date with all my coursework in the class. I felt like the blog posts in the class provided a good review of the class session for the week because it required us to summarize and apply the content that we learned in the classroom to our blog posts. I also thought that the excel homework problems were a good reinforcement of the information provided in the textbook.

In addition, I thought that most of the content that was covered in this course was relatively new for me. Most of the excel topics that were covered such as transfer pricing and insurance was definitely doable in terms of the amount of math involved, but was novel in the sense that I had never seen these types of models before. I am sure I will encounter these similar types of topics in future economics classes that I take at this University. I am also considering into going into financial consulting in the future so I know that I will most likely encounter these topics again.

One critique that I had for the course was the content of the textbook. I felt like the content of the textbook was very dry and that I learned the material better when it was explained in class through the powerpoints or through the excel homework. Nevertheless, I did feel that the textbook was very thorough in explaining various subject matters in detail. I consulted the textbook numerous times especially for topics that I had trouble understanding.

Another thing that I had difficulty with in this course was the format of the exams. I felt that the exams were just the excel homework and this is where some people had trouble. I thought that there was a lot more material covered in the class lectures that could have been on the exams. Furthermore, it was easy to lose a lot of points on the exam if one question was answered incorrectly.


Overall, I would definitely recommend this course to anyone. This was a tremendously helpful course that I will hopefully reflect back on and utilize the knowledge gained in this classroom for my future endeavors. 

3 comments:

  1. Thanks for you comments. I agree that Milgrom and Roberts is a bit dry - one reason we also had Bolman and Deal to read. But it is thorough and provides an alternative approach to how the topics were covered in class and in the Excel homework. I like the idea that students have alternative paths for accessing information on the same ideas.

    As to the tests, it is necessary to do a sampling in them rather than test everything we covered, unless the entire format were changed to something like a 50 question multiple choice test. My heart wouldn't be in that, though for moral hazard on my side of the equation, it would reduce the grading I have to do. But on your side of the equation, I don't think it would help.

    I'm glad that otherwise you liked the course. It's good to get feedback like that.

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  2. I agree that I learned much more from the class lectures and Excel than from the textbook. I prefer it that way, but I did feel as if I'd gotten the books for no reason.

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  3. I agree that the excel homework and blogging helped keep me on track for the class. Although some of the topics we covered in class were not new, the information we learned about them (algebraically and modeling) was something I never thought about and it gave me a better understanding so I agree that the topics were very interesting.

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