The Spring of Things

I'm back in class. This semester, Statistics, and Firms & Markets, which I am told is macroeconomics.

The Winter Intensives were aptly named. I don't know that I could run on that schedule year-round, not effectively anyway. Also, while I am glad that I took Strategy I and Strategy II together, I see the wisdom of spacing them apart. I will probably forget most of what I learned by this time next year.

It is nice to have the weather warming, even if just for a little while. marching downtown through the ice and the wind was not conducive to learning.

Winter of Discontent

So, it's been a long winter.

I got Bs in my first classes; one was a B+ and one was a B-. Now I'm in Winter Intensive Strategy classes. I love them, maybe because they're all about concept and there's no real responsibility. I'm not sure I'd love strategy so much if I had a stake in whether or not my strategy would work.

Our instructors for Strategy I and Strategy II are very different from each other. Our Strat II prof is very real and blunt about the motivations and goals of firms. It's nothing I disagree with; I've always thought firms were about making money, and ultimately, innovating ways to make money. Certainly, the firms we've studied have been very innovative (DeBeers, Pepsi, Google).

It is a dismal time to be eying the corporate world though. Millions of Americans have lost their jobs, and firms can't get capital to float their projects. Now the debate is turning to the mass bonuses certain financiers received; hand-in-hand with that is the observation that Bank of America overpaid for Merril Lynch because the top talent left the firm with their bonuses.

So that was interesting. 

This week we finish up Strategy II, and next week start regular Spring term classes: Firms and Markets, and Statistics.