Dropping derivatives and exercising my options

I ended up dropping the derivatives class last week because I found the material to be a bit too technical and did not like the professor's teaching styles. This will let  me to further concentrate on the other five classes I am taking. And by dropping the class I can go to an earlier section of the marketing class and end my day a bit early.

 

The first assignment of the marketing class is due this week. We have the option of writing a case write up for either the case due tomorrow or the one due Thursday. I am going to do the one due tomorrow. Usually when professors give me the option on which assignments to write up, I always do the early ones because they are usually graded more leniently and doing so gets them out of the way so that I can concentrate on the other assignments.

 

While this is the second week of class at Kenan-Flagler, the rest o the university will not begin class until Wednesday. On my way home tonight from the library I drove past many small groups of undergrads navigating their way between the dorms, the fraternity houses, and Franklin Street. As I drove I marvel at the options that are available to them at this stage in their lives and wonder if they will take full advantage of them or if they will look back when they are in their thirties and wish they had made some choices differently.

Tags: MBA Experience

Tough times ahead for the Wahoos

Greetings from Charlottesville, Virginia. I stopped by Central Virginia this morning on my way to our nation’s capital where I will be attending the thirtieth birthday bash of a friend of mine from UVA. I will be having lunch later today at the Boar’s Head Inn with another friend of mine from my undergrad years whom I have not seen in almost eight years.

 

These are tough times for students, alumni, and other supporters of the University of Virginia.  Earlier this week, U.S. News & World Report came out with its annual rankings of America’s top college and UVA’s rankings fell to 24th among top national universities. While we are still the number two public university in the national (behind Berkeley), number 24 overall is the lowest we’ve been in the years since I have been a Wahoo. During my first year, UVA jumped from number 21 to number 18 and during my last year, UVA was still the number 1 public university in the country.

 

And we are not doing all that well in other areas. After arriving in Charlottesville five years ago to much fanfare, Al Groh has failed to light new fire into our football program. In September, I will get to see Virginia play in person for the first time in two years as the Cavaliers go to Durham to play against Duke. Never in my life did I think Virginia would be chosen to play at Duke’s homecoming.

Tags: UVA

CNN will leave this to your interpretation

I am not sure what CNN is trying to convey in this headline paragraph. Is it trying to tell us that John Karr has been "saying quite a lot" or that he has been "staying quiet a lot." I don't know because the folks down in the CNN Headquarters in Atlanta do not proofread their stories before they are posted on the Internets.

Through the roof

I don’t believe all the news about inflation being non-existent. I was at the Martini Bar earlier tonight and went downstairs for a 25 cent beer only to find out that the price of the beer has been increased to 50 cents. That’s pretty significant. Not only is it a 100 percent increase but if you were to consider the basket of goods that an average Kenan-Flagler student has to purchase on a given week, the “25 cent beer” makes up a substantial allocation of that student’s financial aid disbursements every semester.

Tags: Economics, Martini Bar

What almost could have been

At lunch today I was milling about Café McColl trying to decide what to have for lunch. Normally the place gets mobbed at around 12:30 each day as students rush from classes, which end at 12:20, to the lines that form by the cashiers. But it was well past 1 o’clock and I noticed the relative calm in the cafeteria.  There was a lot of people in the cafeteria but most had segregated themselves into different geographical subsets and were busy either enjoying their meals, typing into their laptops, or having animated conversations. The television in the corner was showing the news (it was actually showing The 700 Club) and no one was paying particular attention.

 

I then tried to imagine what very easily could have been an alternative to what I was witnessing. I imagined the television screen showing breaking news coverage of airplanes having blown up over the Atlantic, reporters interviewing terrorism experts, and discussing the impact of an international full ground stop. The sound I was hearing in the cafeteria was replaced by the stone silence of students standing in front of the television screen, a silence regularly interrupted by the sound of students sobbing at the news of what had just occurred.

 

Some people look at horrors that occurred and ask “if only we had known.” I look at the tragedies that were avoided and ask “why aren’t we more grateful.” 

Tags: Terrorism

Practicing negotiations

Not a whole lot happened today. I front loaded my classes by going to the 8am section of fixed income followed by the 9:30 one for mergers & analysis. I dropped negotiations but still have not decided on whether to take all the six classes I am currently signed up for or to drop either derivatives or fixed income.

 

The negotiations professor emailed me yesterday because I had missed the first class. When I went to talk to her, she said for me to take the class, she would have to pair me up with another student who had also missed the first class and we would have to do the first negotiations exercise before the second class.

 

Doing the exercise is non-negotiable.

Cutting class

Now that I have attended a session of each of the seven classes I am currently signed up for, I should be able to easily figure out which two I want to drop. Between negotiations, fixed income, and derivatives, I have to drop at least one, preferably two. Yet the decision is not as simple as it sounds. 

 

I am pretty certain I will be dropping negotiations this Mod. I am currently on the wait list for this class in Mod II and if I don’t get a spot, I can always sign up for it again in Mods III and IV. The only reason that would propel me to take it now is that the class requires a minimum of work outside of the classroom. Fixed income is a pretty useful class and the professor knows his material very well. He also taught the derivatives class until this year. Derivatives is now taught by a young professor who just came to Kenan-Flagler from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. I am not sure how I like the material, the class, or his teaching style. He spent the first thirty minutes today telling us “the rules” of the class including his promise to fail anyone who opens a laptop during lecture. There is a graded assignment due every week and he cold calls students at every session on the reading material. The only reason I would have to go through with the course is once he began teaching the material, I actually found it quite interesting. Both derivatives and fixed income are introductory classes that build up to an optional advanced class in Mod II.

 

The classes that I know for certain I want to take are pretty descent. The marketing class has only eight students in it. It used to be offered every spring but the school has decided to change the schedule to every fall. Since it was most recently offered earlier this year, many of my classmates have already taken it. I will be spending my Tuesday and Thursday mornings with two professors who are both quite entertaining, one’s name is Bushman while the other’s is Landsman. One began class today by hooking his Mac laptop to the classroom’s sound system and playing his favorite Beatles songs from his iTunes. The other one …I am going to refrain from saying anything about him for the time being except that he has certain habits that are quite eccentric. Hopefully I will be able to blog more about him later on in the Mod when I can better articulate his characteristics to my readers. The mergers and acquisition class is pretty much what I expected. The professor said she appreciates clsas participation because “sometimes I get bored of my own voice.” I am going to try to sit on the right side of the room so that if I ever get bored I can look straight ahead out the window (the seating in most classrooms are in a U shaped arrangement) where I can see the top of the UNC Hospital where the emergency helicopter takes off and lands several times an hour.

 

And speaking of seating arrangements, I think it goes without saying that I am going to sit as far away as I can from any classmate who uses a Dell laptop.

Tags: MBA Experience, classes