MBA: Statistics and Microeconomics

This past week we started with a new module in the course curriculum. It's called Making Decisions in a World of Complexity. The theme of studying two aspects of the same topic continued pairing Microeconomics with Statistics. The microeconomics course is about the big picture thinking regarding industries and society while the statistics course deals with how to collect and manage the numbers that aid in forming the economic picture.

Microeconomics
The course is actually titled The Global Environment of Business. Prof. John McHale is really a brilliant guy. You can tell that he's highly intelligent and knows his stuff really well. I get the impression that he thinks at such a high level that he has a hard time explaining economics concepts in simple terms. I asked a couple questions in class and got some really long answers when I was just looking for a simple one. I think he's so advanced in the field where some of the basic concepts like the supply-demand curve is second nature to him that he has a hard time relating to people who have no experience in the field.

The course gets really interesting at times. We discussed big issues like Peak Oil and Climate Change from an economic perspective. One team had an interesting presentation about the Stern Report. My team had to present an alternate point of view by Bjorn Lomborg. We had to read a chapter from his book "Cool It" and present the information as advocates of his argument. You can get the gist of his point of view from this YouTube video.

Apart from the funny similarity of his name to a character in Office Space, I think Lomborg is missing the boat on some key aspects of the increasing global temperature. He's primarily concerned with some big humanitarian issues in the world like HIV, poverty, and famine. My view is that if the global temperatures continue to increase, the weather instability will magnify the issues that he's concerned with. Maybe my reading of The Weathermakers has had a big influence on my point of view, but that's another topic of discussion.

In any case, I still have to learn the material and understand some of the economic analysis tools that we're being taught.

Statistics
The course is actually titled Acquisition and Analysis of Information for Management and Prof. Jeff McGill does an excellent job of making the topic interesting. In a way, it's refreshing to be back to the familiar world of formulae and number crunching where there are definite right and wrong answers. It's been a really long time since I did anything with statistics though and I don't remember much from my university course. I do remember that I didn't enjoy it very much and that I didn't do very well in it.

Naturally, the course is heavily dependent on using spreadsheets and in our case, Microsoft Excel 2007. In one sense, the Microsoft programmers have done a good job in including some advanced analysis tools that makes breaking down data very easy. In another sense, the new interface is very unintuitive and is cumbersome to use. It takes a while to get use to it and the simple tasks take longer than usual since I spend a lot of time trying to find where the commands are.

The course material isn't difficult in itself, but the time crunch of learning everything in a span of a week and a half is pretty challenging. Some members of our class have no background in using formulae and some have never used MS Excel. It's a steep learning curve for them. I'll encounter the same thing when we get to the finance courses.

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I decided to run for the student executive body. They are the link between the program administration and the class. I ran for the fit-to-lead liaison position and found out today that I got elected. The fit-to-lead program (you can read about it at the bottom of this page) is there to make sure the students get a balanced experience and form healthy lifestyle habits. They provide information about healthy diets and set up opportunities for people to get out and be active. They also set up personal training sessions and fitness assessments. I ran because I thought it would be a fun thing to do. I know it's going to be a tough balancing act between my school work and the liaison duties, but it's only for a year and I think I'll have a lot of fun doing it. Along with a couple of other guys, I've already played a part in getting a sailing program running (we'll find out more concrete details this coming week). I also made a personal list of things that I want to do this summer...getting the class involved in them will make it more fun.