To begin my review of Econ
490, much of the class material covered was new to me. I would like to start
with a couple of lessons and specific material that I benefited from the most.
The book written by Bolman and Deal that was a complimentary text to the class
taught me a lot about management and organizations as whole. It highlighted the
various components of successful teams and organizations as well as show how
and why less effective teams function. Hoping to be the leader of a team one
day, maybe management, this was pertinent information for me. We built on the
different types of managers in class and how each deal with conflict. Also
further discussed in class was the incentive based way employees operate and
how managers can make the office more efficient. This led to excel home works
that explained the math behind this. I felt that the content discussed in class
was always made more clear by doing the excel home works. I learned a lot from
these. I also felt that the blogging in this class was a useful way to tie
course material to real life experiences. Each week I would write up a very
short, rough draft and continuously edit and add more leading up to Friday.
When writing, it is good to take breaks and come back with a fresh mind. This
allows you to re-read your work having milled it over a few times. I did not
feel that this course was especially tasking. The excel home works were
relatively challenging but not very time consuming. There was always videos that
could help and professor Arvan was quick to respond to questions posted on the website.
Blogging was a bit more time consuming if you drafted your posts as suggested.
How much time you spent on them was entirely up to the writer. What you put
into this class is what you got out of it.
I also found that the final
project was especially useful. Most students have never read scholarly articles
written for economics purposes. We took that to a new level when we had to read
and critique an article that pertained to the class. This was much needed
exposure that will help students transfer into graduate school. It sometimes
seems daunting reviewing the work that has had so much more experience with
economics but this project helped eliminate this fear.
One thing I would have liked
to see in this course was an option to watch or listen to lectures online.
Missing class caused you to fall behind and only sometimes were there online
options to catch you up. I also would have liked more of the math behind the
home works to be taught in class. The videos posted were very helpful but
sometimes an in class visual would have made things much more clear. Although this
might take away from the discussions on the blog posts, it may make the excel
work done more useful.
In the future, perhaps after
I graduate, I hope to continue blogging and reviewing economics articles. This
class developed a style of writing for me that I had not been exposed to
before. I would definitely suggest this course for economics and non-economics majors alike.
