Monday, February 06, 2006

Fall Semester 2004 Mod A - Economics

Managerial Economics ... I hate econ. For my undergrad, I had to take three econ classes. The first one was the standard Econ 110. I've been told (and I believe it) that either you get it or you don't. I simply don't get it. I understand the basic concepts, but beyond that, I'm lost. Econ 110 at BYU was my first experience with economics. I did well enough. I got a B in that class. I had to take it as part of my application into the Marriott School of Managment.

Once I was in the business school, I had to take a micro and a macro econ class. The micro class was more of a finance class as I remember it. Crawford was my teacher. It was the 2nd worse grade I received at BYU. I think I got a C- or something. Then I took the macro class. I actually enjoyed the lectures, but I didn't do too well on the final. My teacher was Koller (I can't believe he's still teaching ... he was a relic when I was there 6 years ago). I got a C in the macro class. I think I got a grand total of 4 C's while at BYU. Two of them came from those econ classes.

Managerial Economics

The managerial economics class at Cox was no different. I enjoyed the lectures and the teacher, but when it came to homework assignments and the final ... I bombed. I remember going to the review session. Davis, the teacher, got up there and went over the homework assignments. The problems and solutions started to make sense to me, but by the time the final rolled around, I was probably more confused than before. The final was ... horrible.

To offer a little background ... after I returned from a 2-year mission to Central America, one of the first classes I took was calculus. I was so confused in that class. These freshmen were running around me in circles when it came to math. I was the most un-prepared student going into that final. It got so bad, during the test, that I started writing down random numbers ... whatever popped into my mind. I knew I was going to flunk the class, so I didn't invest too much time in actually taking the test. I ended up getting somewhere around a 30%. Fortunately for all the homework assignments (you got the points for simply turning in something), I passed the class with a C+. I ended up taking the class over and got a B+, which helped me get into the business school.

So back to econ at Cox. The final was just about as bad as the calculus final I took. I stared at this one question for about 45 minutes. I was CLUELESS. I remember thinking about how I was going to drop out of school and all that jazz. It wasn't a great feeling. I didn't get off to a good start. I earned myself a solid C in that class ... which is like a D- in MBA school.

Because of that class, I was immediately put on academic probation! That was a first! You must maintain a GPA above 3.00 while at Cox. At the end of the semester, I received this letter from the office telling me I was on probation. I got pretty stressed. During the holiday break, I made all these goals and study plans to do better.

Anyway ... I'm done with economics. Hopefully I won't have to deal with taking another econ class for the rest of my life!

Chess Update

Everyday, I go to chessgames.com and attempt to solve the puzzle. Mondays are usually very easy. Today's was no different. It was simply a removal of the guard. The exchange was a rook for a queen and knight - not a bad trade!

Excel Modeling

Right now I'm taking an Excel modeling class ... maximizations, minimizations, etc. We're supposed to be working on this extra credit problem. We're supposed to find an arbitration for a foreign exchange using the transportation model. It's pretty hard. The teacher said it'd be difficult. Work looks like it's going to be slow today, so I'm going to work on this problem.

Next time, I'll talk about my stats class.

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