What I learned... about Economics

This was easily my favorite class for several reasons. Primarily the professor, Dr. Gerald Swanson, renowned in his field and, like me, an "older" geezer-type, had a distinct way of relating to the young kids. He actually got them/me thinking about economics in very simple terms. It isn't complicated.

What is economics? It's an exchange. People engage in voluntary transactions they believe will make them better off. We usually think in terms of money: I have money and need a chair, you have a chair and need money. We exchange and everybody's happy. But economics can be about any exchange. I have a painting that you like, you have a chair that I like. If we both believe we will be better off with the other thing, we have an economic transaction.

Economics is a social science. It's all about human behavior. Human wants are insatiable - we all want more of something. Scarcity is a reality - we all have limited resources so we need to make good choices. Optimization is our goal; we want to maximize our well-being within the limits of our resources. I only have $50 to spend. What's the best chair I can get for $50? Or, can I get an adequate chair for just $30 and pocket the extra $20?

That's the thing about retail stores. Ideally retailers would never put the price on the things they're selling. Once they label something with a price, they're leaving money in the pocket of some consumers. Let's say I want to buy a pair of shoes and I'm willing to pay $80. So I go shopping. I find the perfect pair for $60. Only I know I'm willing to spend $80. If the shoe store owner could read my mind, he would have priced the shoes at $80 and we both would have been happy. Okay, we're both still happy, but he left me with an extra $20 that he could have gotten - he just didn't know it. But if he priced the shoes at $80 and the next person coming in the store could only pay $60, the retailer would also lose money because that person would walk out without buying.

As a retailer, how can I maximize my profit? By selling the same thing at different prices to different consumers. This is called price discrimination and is perfectly legal. Airlines do it every day. It doesn't cost the airline less to fly that plane on Tuesday, but they lower the price for people willing to fly on Tuesday because the airline is better off with a full plane at a lower price per ticket than a half-empty plane at regular price. Movie theaters have discounts based on age, time of day, student status, etc. They're called price-seekers - trying to find the maximum price each consumer is willing to pay.

Senior citizen discounts, coupons, limited-time offers, mail-in rebates - these are all examples of price discrimination. And once their fixed costs are covered, every additional sale is mostly profit anyway so it doesn't matter what they charge. This is why colleges have scholarships. Empty seats in a classroom can be filled at no additional cost to the university. They already covered their costs with tuition-paying students so the marginal cost of an additional student is zero! And the college gets to look noble and generous.

That's enough for today. But it's not the last you'll hear from me about economics. They should make this class a requirement for every student.

What I learned: Arbitrage

I'd heard the word before without ever understanding it. Arbitrage is the ability to find identical investments that have differing prices and taking advantage of this disparity without risking a cent of your own money.

For example, if iPads are selling in the US for $500 but are only available in Europe for the equivalent of $600, you can borrow $500 from the bank, buy an iPad, sell it via the internet for $550, pay back the bank, and pocket the $50. You haven’t used a penny of your own money. If you owe any interest to the bank, it is probably minimal. This is arbitrage.

What I learned: Stock diversification

If you load up your investment portfolio with only tech stocks or only pharmaceuticals, for example, your risk level is high because what impacts one type of stock will likely impact all the other similar stocks. This is called independent risk, or idiosyncratic risk, and it’s completely unnecessary. You can virtually eliminate this risk – diversify it away – simply by having a minimum of 30 different types of investments in your portfolio.

A lot of folks who are interested in investing for the future also own a home. Of course a home is a great investment but, unless you’re a millionaire, you’re putting a whole lot of eggs in the same basket (subjecting yourself to idiosyncratic risk). This is especially true if you also own an index fund that is in REITs (Real Estate Investment Trusts) and maybe even own a second home for rental income.

Here’s how to find out how diversified you are. Take your net worth (assets minus your debts) and divide by 30. This is the theoretical maximum you should have in any single investment in order to be properly diversified. If your net worth is, say, $450,000 (including the estimated resale value of your home minus your mortgage balance), then the most you should be holding in real estate is $15,000.
However, if you’re like most Americans, your home is probably at least 40% of your portfolio. Add to that your REITs and that rental property, and you’re way under-diversified. If you don’t own a home, maybe you should just own $15,000 worth of REITs. It is, of course, a personal choice. Just keep this in mind when you consider the riskiness of your investments.

What I learned: About Curves

A “curve” in college is usually a straight line.

In Economics there are two curves: the demand curve and the supply curve. Draw both on a graph and you basically have an X. No one bothers to calculate the actual curve, if there is one.

Grade on the curve, or apply a curve at the end of the semester. This also means a straight line. Sure, the bell-shaped graph representing all the grades is curvy, but the cut-off point is still a straight line.

Had one prof who declared at the beginning of the semester that 25% of the class would get an A, 50% would get a B, and 25% would get a C. Period. Seems like a straight "curve" to me! Theoretically I suppose one could possibly do nothing other than register for his class and still get a C, but I wasn’t willing to find out. I got a B.

What I Learned: Point-slope formula

Probably the biggest thing college did for me was in the area of math refresher. Ashamed to say I had let my math skills slip mightily over the years.

I know I probably learned this formula in high school but since there was a 30-year gap for me between high school and college, I guess I plumb forgot it!

The point-slope formula (also known as the slope-intercept equation) was the very first thing I learned in remedial math class. Those of us who failed the math assessment during student orientation had to take this extra class designed to get us up to speed before taking real college math.

First day of class Dr. Jessica Knapp (who looks nothing like a math teacher, by the way!) brought stacks and stacks of styrofoam cups and passed out maybe 10 or 12 cups to each group of 2 or 3 students. Our task was to construct a formula that would tell her how high the stack was. And the formula had to work even when she combined two of the stacks.

Some of the students got out their trusty ruler, measured one of the cups, and multiplied that by the number of cups. Okay, okay, I almost did the same thing. But then I noticed another measurement we needed to have. The distance between the lip of the first cup and the lip of the second.

So you really need TWO measurements in this formula. One will be used just once, and the other will be repeated as many times as you have cups. This is called the point-slope formula: y = mx + b

y is the height of the entire stack
m is the number of cups
x is the height of the lip
b is the height of the first cup below the lip

So the height of the stack is 12 (cups) x .5 (half an inch) + 4 (inches)

I can’t tell you how many times over the course of my four year college career this formula popped up. Over and over and over again - in economics, finance, statistics - everywhere. Very useful formula! I think it's magic in its simplicity.

Next phase coming up!

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All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another. -Anatole France, novelist, essayist, Nobel laureate (1844-1924)
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As you may have guessed, my college career is over! Even though I "walked" (graduated) in May, I still had two general education classes to finish up in the summer. That's done so just waiting for them to officially issue the degree. Somewhat anticlimactic! It's strange to think there's whole new crop of freshmen eagerly anticipating their first taste of college - and they're all FOUR YEARS YOUNGER than the toddlers in my class!

So the door is closing on the school phase of my life. Turns out it is also closing on the retirement/leisure phase - I start my first accounting job next week! Thankfully it is only part time and probably temporary. After four years of primarily being home, it will be difficult to have to report to work every day again. But I'm looking forward to finally learning how accounting works in real life. Turns out college accounting courses only touch the surface of a wide array of topics. It takes real job experience before most of it makes sense.

My new company is in residential and commercial property management - mostly in Arizona, but branching out to other states. I'll start out in Accounts Receivable but they promised I will learn a lot about the other facets of accounting, too. Having only worked as a secretary for a state government-owned university, the public sector is a giant blind spot for me. I'm looking forward to learning a lot!

At a recent family reunion, a very astute cousin asked me some interesting questions about my college experience. She got me to thinking about the key things I learned so I'll try to post some observations in the next few weeks in case you find them interesting, too.

Is it over yet?

This semester has long ago worn out its welcome! And I still have a major assignment in each class due this week. Just one final exam, though, thank goodness. It has been a good semester, but once that grade card starts to fill up with completed scores, the itch to finish it off is almost unbearable. Get done already!

As part of the preceptor role in the Business Communications class, I acted as moderator for one of 20 rooms full of dapperly dressed Juniors ready with their big Case Competition presentations. Six teams of 4-6 students were assigned to my room and made PowerPoint presentations to a panel of local executives. This year's case was GEICO insurance company, who asked them to give ideas on how to reach and retain young people such as themselves. Some had creative ideas and some not-so-creative - but it was fun and I was glad to avoid presenting this year. Moderator I can do!

In the midst of this end-of-semester angst, my hubby snagged himself a modest promotion which requires showing up for work about 1,400 miles from Tucson! So the rush to get him ready has somewhat interfered with my school work. Now that he is packed off to Idaho, though, there is much to do before I am finally awarded grades for this long semester (don't much care what grades they are at this point!). Then I will have an 8-day break before winter session and Microeconomics looms. I think a quick trip to Idaho might just be the escape I need!

I have Office Hours!

http://tinyurl.com/2c6fe2m

Okay, technically just HOUR (singular), but still... As mentioned, I'm a teaching assistant (preceptor) for the Business Communication class I took last spring. This means I can attend class without doing the homework! I'm just there to help out if the students need me. It's a large class of 29 students but of course not all of them show up on any given day. (Never figured out how or why they do that. Life is so much easier if you just attend class. But then I'm not their mother, so...)

Anyhow, preceptors are required to staff the Help Desk one hour a week; mine is Wednesdays, noon to 1pm. Turns out it is a pretty good time to reread the chapter for 2pm Accounting class. I can count on one hand the number of students who have dropped in - let's see... one, two, yup, that would be THREE in, what, seven weeks? But a few of them have emailed me their papers, too, so I guess that counts.

The more interesting part of preceptor-ing has been helping the prof with grading. This was one of my goals - to speed him up a bit with the grading process. Last semester he was pretty slow at releasing grades on stuff we'd turned in weeks before. So far I think I've failed in that goal, but at least I've maybe helped him adjust to having two classes to grade where last semester he was teaching only one. (In his defense, he also has a full-time "real" job, plus a two-year-old son at home!)

Papers are typed using the student's choice of word processing program then uploaded electronically to a service called Turnitin.com. This service checks the paper for plagiarism against literally billions of sources, including student papers from prior and current semesters at this and many other universities. In about 5 minutes per paper, it returns an "originality score" as a percentage of the total paper. The grader can view the paper in its original form on-screen with the "plagiarized" bits highlighted and identified as to source. We can also apply comments directly to the on-screen paper to suggest grammar corrections or make other recommendations. This has forced me to relearn some grammar and basic writing rules to explain WHY the student's choice might be incorrect.

Eller College's standard Business Writing Rubric emphasizes: Critical thinking (audience, purpose, context), logic/reasoning (claim or assertion, idea unity and integrity, supporting evidence), structural coherence (internal logic, transitions, language use), information design (format, visual design, professionalism), and error interference (credibility, grammar, punctuation). The rubric is activated on the paper itself and the grader selects a high or low target for each of the five areas. The combined score is applied to the points for that assignment and the result is their grade.

Of course I'm not doing any actual grading (apparently I need a PhD for that!) but Dr. Liers will use my comments on the papers to supplement his own comments and my work will help him apply a grade. The papers I'm "grading" are business letters in final draft form which the students will then revise and resubmit as part of their "portfolio" at the end of the semester.

The business writing "Boot Camp" consists of three business letters: standard ("routine"), negative message (or "bad news"), and persuasive. Topics center on a case study; this semester it's the issue of genetically engineered salmon currently under review by the FDA. (More info: http://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/PublicHealthFocus/ucm224089.htm) As a fictional intern at SeafoodSource.com, an industry news source (a real company following the hearings), the student crafts letters for signature by his or her "boss" and creates the "transmittal email" to the boss summarizing the content of their attached letter. This is something most of them will be involved in doing when they become gainfully employed in a couple of years.

While some students have surprised me with their grasp of the assignments, most of them are painfully unprepared for this style of writing. They overuse superlatives and cliches, and too often it's clear they haven't thought through the assignment at all - they've just started writing (probably at midnight before it's due). The Persuasive Letter assignment clarifies they are to pick three points for elaboration to convince the reader. If they would just DO that, it would be a lot easier to grade! Instead they regurgitate facts unrelated to their points - and then their points (if they have them) are introduced only in the summary paragraph at the end! Sigh.

The big Writing Assessment comes in early November. They will be given a couple pages of background information on an issue one day prior, which they can read and annotate in preparation for class. In class they will be handed their assignment (one of the letter styles - my guess is "negative message") and they will have about an hour to craft their letter and submit it to Turnitin.com at the end of class. Irrespective of their grade on anything else this semester, they must pass this writing assessment with 80% or higher. Failing students must enroll in an additional 2-credit lab prior to graduation.

This brings me to the second part of my preceptor duties. Next week I will shift my focus to the lab of students who failed the writing assessment in prior semesters. Typically (I've heard) these are international students struggling with English as their second language. I'm looking forward to it because they are often the more serious kids who want to learn. Recalling my own experience many eons ago as a 20-year-old in France helps give me a tiny bit of perspective. I have nothing but admiration for these kids' courage - attending college in a foreign language. As I understand it, there is no real "grade" to achieve in this lab. Once the student has completed it, they are awarded the grade they earned in the earlier semester.

Meanwhile, my other classes are going well. Learning a lot, enjoying the subjects. Met last week with my advisor for "degree check" and I'm right on target for the big day in May 2011. Woohoo!!

Hmmm, this is old hat!

Well, not entirely, but this is the first semester that I haven’t felt anxiety, wondering what will come next and whether I will be able to manage it all. Prior semesters always had a new element… new experience, new subject matter, new college, new schedule... Well, some of that is still present here at the beginning of my senior year. For one thing, my classes this semester all begin at 2:00 pm or later! After six semesters of morning classes, I took the opportunity to give this a try. Gives me what seems like tons of time for homework in the mornings when my brain is fresh. Still working out a timetable but expect to get into that familiar rhythm soon. Classes are new, of course, and professors, but there is a calmer feeling this time. I’ve been through the worst (Financial Accounting 1 & 2!), and have nearly 80% of my courses behind me. It’s feeling very comfortable now. I will make it! I will graduate on time. And I will enjoy these last two semesters – for the most part! The unknown parts aren’t so scary anymore. I have that “been there, done that” feeling. It feels great.

One of my courses this semester, “Integrating Business Fundamentals with Ethics and Law,” has a twist that I wish every course offered. Dr. Cummins teaches in a regular classroom, but records it live on WebEx. So I can “attend” at home by joining the class on computer! She can see who is “present” and we can use the chat feature to ask questions. She answers as though we are sitting right there in the classroom. The only time we must attend in person is for exams, however I do want to experience it at least once from the classroom side. She authored the textbook, and is funny, engaging, and perfect for this method of teaching. Class sessions are stored for viewing and re-viewing whenever we wish. This would have been very useful for some of those really difficult courses.

My other class is Accounting Information Systems in which I expect to learn all the things I was doing wrong when I tried to develop Access databases for my old job! I knew there were supposed to be complex relationships between all the tables, but I just didn’t understand how to make them work. Day two of class and I’m already elbow deep in relational databases. Right up my alley!

At the end of last semester my Business Communications professor asked if I would consider being a teaching assistant (preceptor) for the same class this semester. I agreed, so that rounds out my schedule. I’ll attend most classes and assist students with all the same assignments I completed last Spring. I don’t really need the credit hours, but it seemed like an interesting experience and a way to get to know Dr. Liers a bit better. He’s a professional writer and you just never know when you'll need that kind of assistance down the road.

So my next 15 weeks are set! By Christmas, I'll be a senior-and-a-half, and have just two upper division classes remaining before graduation in May. Yay!

If I had to pick a minor...

It took me several semesters to figure out why a college student would need to choose a "minor." The best answer anyone could give me was that some departments didn't let you take their classes without declaring a minor in their college. Guess that makes sense. Turns out I didn't need to worry about that, but if I had to pick one, it would have been Economics, primarily due to Dr. Gerald Swanson. That link will take you to an article that honors his 40 years of teaching. Dr. Swanson's "Principles of Economics" class was certainly one of my favorites.

If you have time, play the little movie at the end of the article and you can see him hold the attention of every student in a classroom that seats 500!

And to think I almost didn't take his class. At the last minute I switched my Winter Session class to Managerial Accounting because my accounting lab instructor was teaching it. That meant Economics 200 would have to move to Spring 2008 and Dr. Swanson's class was the only one that fit my schedule. Talk about serendipitous!

I'm a senior now!

No, no, not a senior citizen (although I'm heading down that hill FAST!), but a college senior. How time has flown. Saw a fresh crop of undergrads brandishing their "2010" folders at the Student Union the other day and realized it had been THREE YEARS since I proudly carried my "2007" credentials-in-cardboard. It has been a fun and interesting ride, and I can finally see the horizon.

If it's true that the first two semesters of the accounting curriculum are the hardest, then I have successfully and officially survived. Turns out I'm only an "average" accounting student but, considering the difficulty of the material and the breakneck speed at which we are supposed to "learn" it, I'm okay with that. If scoring in the mid-70s is the worst of it, then average is exactly my style.

A fellow (older) student and I have discussed the relative merits of a department that feels the need to place obstacles in the way of future accountants as they have deliberately done with Intermediate Accounting I and II. I suppose their intent is to turn out only the "best and brightest" accountants and gain a reputation for this consistency. But in the real world, darned good accountants can come from solid C-students and we all know it. My friend had the guts to email an influential professor in the accounting department with this brilliant suggestion: that they continue this "barrier to entry" for only those students yearning to spend 80+ hours per week working for one of the "Big Four" accounting firms following graduation. She recommends they leave us poor grunts - who will be content to get a local job and learn the ropes and perform adequately for our paycheck - to the less rigorous classes. It would be refreshing to take classes that teach us valuable things that we will actually experience in the job market. Her email likely won't change the world, but it was certainly worth a try.

Meanwhile, with those two giant obstacles safely behind me, I'm on to more enjoyable things like Macroeconomics and Tax Accounting! It's almost a shame I chose to take Macroeconomics in a rushed semester because it was SO interesting and probably ranks up there with one of the best learning experiences of my college career. To understand even a tiny bit about classical economics and how Adam Smith (and JB Say and Ricardo) saw things and how Schumpeter, Keynes and then Hayek totally changed how economics are viewed was exciting and mind-expanding. It was one of those mental upgrades that will stick with me the rest of my life. I'm definitely better for the experience.

Now, just two days into my Intro to Federal Taxation course, I have hope that at last I have found a class that will be less of a struggle, given my 10 years at H&R Block. Not that I already know everything by any means, but it is a relief to be able to follow the concepts and anticipate the structure. I have adequate time to spend on the homework and can keep up with the readings and it appears that is all it will take.

My afternoon

Sold an old desktop computer on eBay yesterday for a little over $100 (yay). Now have to figure out how to erase hard drive (boo). Found free open-source software that will do it (yay). Copied it to CD from new computer, carried to old computer to install. Needs to connect to internet (boo). (Old computer is dial-up only!). Better to purchase reputable product from Best Buy ($20, boo). Came home, inserted CD, it ALSO needs to connect to internet (boo)! Tried connecting phone line... nothing. Oh, yeah, fried internal modem years ago in lightning storm (boo). Where did we put that external modem? Hmm, think we donated it (boo). Okay, try ethernet from newer cable modem we are now using. Nope, doesn't work (boo). Okay, how much would computer store charge to perform service? Umm, $75 (boo). Back to square one. Need a cheap modem. Almost out the door to Radio Shack but dark recesses of brain remembered old Bluetooth modem. Where did we put that? Hmm, found a Dynex Wireless dongle (don't ask). Doesn't look like a modem, but what the heck, plug it in. System recognized it (yay). Asked for accompanying CD (boo). Found CD in old storage (yay). Installed and connected to Apple Airport (yay!). Logged in and finally installed Drive Scrubber (yay). Rebooted three times (this old computer is GLACIAL!) before looking for more info at iolo.com to find I needed to change boot order (boo). Finally figured out how to do that and it is now "scrubbing"! Yay! (Maybe not worth $100+!). Tomorrow: packing and shipping!

I think there's less competition

Lately I've noticed something about my accounting class that seems a little different from last semester. The really smart kids aren't quite as smug. Can't put my finger on it, and maybe its just me and a shift in MY attitude, but I do hear the smart kids haggling more with the prof over a point here and there on a quiz or exam as though they think they're going to need that point when the final tally is made. They're still smart, just not so cocky now. Don't know if they're finding the material more challenging... I'm actually finding it just a sliver easier - maybe due to an adjustment downward in my expectations! Anyway, it's a refreshing change.

By throwing caution to the winds and allowing the department to place me in a random Business Communications class this semester, I ended up in a 3:30 pm class with the "PM Cohort" and learned something that seems so obvious now. I've always been a "morning person" - more energy and/or active brain cells happening before 10:00 am than anytime after. So my assumption was to select the "AM Cohort" preference on my Eller entrance paperwork. Turns out I'm SO MUCH happier to have mornings to STUDY and prepare for an afternoon classtime. Huh! Better late than never, I guess!

My summer classes are in place now. Macroeconomics in the super-condensed Pre-session (so I guess I'll learn a LOT about very LARGE economic theories in a very SHORT time period! Ack!). Then Summer One is my next accounting class - an elective: Intro to Federal Taxation. (Hoping this one will be a bit easier due to my H&R Block experience... hoping!) Then Summer Two is Quantitative Financial Management. I'll be available to analyze your portfolio in August... NOT!

Constant measuring is tedious

My second accounting exam is behind me and coming up next is the Business Communications writing assessment. Won't know until Monday how I did on accounting - she never releases the grades early; we have to suffer in a classroom of our peers as we are handed back our exams and peek nervously at the score hidden on page 8!

In the writing assessment, we are expected to study a business case this weekend and know enough about the basic elements of a local business to write a moderately complex business letter to match a specific issue we won't know until we walk into the classroom. Then we have an hour to analyze and craft our message.

Like Gilda Radner used to say, it's always something! The perpetual nature of learning - testing - learning - testing gets really old about this time of the semester. The end is in sight, but so much more to get through.

There is such a stark contrast between the cloud that hovers while studying for exams - especially the accounting ones - and the sunshine that appears when you leave the classroom after turning in your test. It doesn't really matter how well or poorly you've done on the exam, the sun is always shining at that moment because you have three or four days' rest before picking up the textbook to start the next chapter. And there's a renewal of hope as you determine to really study this time and do so much better on the next exam!

Wow, where'd the semester go?

Spring break is already over, and the semester is shrinking by the day! Just six weeks to go and probably the most difficult part yet to come.

Financial Accounting Part 2 is as hard as Part 1 was last semester, but with a different professor. I like both profs, actually. Had this one for Introductory Accounting in Fall 2008 (wow, that seems like forever ago!), so I'm already familiar with - and like - her teaching style. But the material is very difficult and we move much too fast for my liking. My first exam grade wasn't great, but was good enough to make the rest of the semester salvagable as long as I continue to work hard. Exam 2 is coming up fast, and Exam 3 (the Final) will be (horrors!) cumulative! (Ack, ya mean I gotta remember this stuff??!)

The Business Communications class, which I had somewhat dreaded, is actually fun. The professor is a kooky/likeable guy who isn't all that personally invested in the outcome of our collective performance (the way I heard some of the BNAD professors have been in the past... and present!). He's a professional writer by trade and has taught us a lot about condensing our writing and polishing up what I thought was pretty decent writing. We've covered routine, negative-news, and persuasive letters, memos, emails, formal reports, and a presentation. The group project is starting up now and it looks like I'm in a fun group.

Working at the H&R Block tax office around 15-25 hours a week cuts into my study time a bit, but I'm handling it. Enjoying seeing most of my repeat clients even though our numbers are down a bit overall this year. I'm anxious for April 15 to get here.

Took quiz #5 in accounting just this morning. Don't know yet how I did, but having that quiz score in the gradebook is something of a turning point in the semester. All future quizzes will only count if I score better than the first five (only our highest five scores count). I always like having that flexibility - and it helps (a little) with the old test-anxiety ogre that sits on my shoulder and tries to scramble my brain!

So it's onward and upward from here. Already planned out my summer sessions (all three of 'em), fall semester (just two classes), winter session (one class), and spring semester (two more). With any luck I'll graduate a year from this May and only have two "fun" sophomore-type classes to finish that summer after graduation. They let you graduate as long as your core courses are complete and you can finish up the leftovers in summer session.

I'm seeing a faint glow on the horizon, now!

Legos in college?

We're studying Process Selection and Facility Layout in Operations Management and yesterday we got to build with Legos! It really was a useful exercise that gave us hands-on practice with Cycle Times, Line Balancing, Precedence Diagrams, and, of course, teamwork. In teams of four, first we built the plane (pictured here) and took it apart a couple of times. Then we created a list of steps and put it into a precedence diagram so we knew what parts preceded which other parts. (This was a LOT harder than I thought!) We timed each step (on average it takes 3 seconds to pick up two Lego pieces and put them together). Prof gave us a cycle time of 25 seconds (this would be the station that took the longest time) and we assigned steps to each station based on the cycle time. This is called "balancing the line." We each took a station and sorted out the parts we each were responsible for. Although I insisted we needed to be sent to Las Vegas for a week of training, the prof wouldn't go for it and made us implement the line anyway. Dry run of the entire process showed that we hadn't quite balanced the line efficiently because two of the stations had too much idle time. Adjustments were made. Then each team was timed with winning team rewarded with leftover Christmas candy. We didn't win, but then we didn't lose, either. And we actually LEARNED something. Imagine that!

The carnage was minimal

Well, it all turned out pretty good for a first semester in upper division classes! It was pretty stressful waiting for grades at the end, but with a couple of "curved" classes, I was able to hang onto a fairly decent GPA.

I'm not sure how I feel about grade curves, even though they have worked in my favor more than once. It's not something I completely understand, but it seems as though college professors (at least some of them) are quite enamored of the infamous normal distribution "bell curve" and are likely encouraged (by their departments, maybe?) to normalize the final grades to fit it. However, it just doesn't feel right to me. Those who earned the highest grades should be rewarded, yet, in a curve, their grades are "normalized" down. Of course no one in "A" territory is in any danger of getting a lower grade, but those of us who either screwed up an exam or two (me!), or just got lazy at some point during the semester (not me), shouldn't really be allowed to get the same grade as those who worked the hardest. (Here's a prof who agrees!)

Maybe it's best not to fight the system, though, especially when some grades are awfully subjective to begin with. Projects that don't have "right" or "wrong" answers are pretty hard to grade, I would imagine. Rubrics are used - and often published along with the project description - so we know exactly the items that need to be present in a paper or presentation, but it's still a subjective exercise by the prof or grader(s) to decide how well we hit or missed those specific targets.

In any case, I'm ecstatic with how my grade sheet turned out for the semester, but hardly have time to enjoy it as Winter Session started just two days after my final exam! Operations Management is the class I'm in now. It covers things like forecasting, supply chain management, inventory, facility layout, productivity, and capacity. Taught by a PhD student who is somewhat making it up as he goes along! Only 14 students in class so there is a lot of interaction and the concepts aren't all that new to me. There is a lot to fit into the 14 days of class, but I love the opportunity to focus on just the one subject.

I'm only enrolled in two courses for Spring semester: Intermediate Financial Accounting (Part 2), and Business Communications. A year ago I assumed the Bus. Comm. class would be a slam dunk because it looked that way in the course catalog. Spent most of my secretarial career communicating in a myriad of ways for the Grounds Department - writing memos, conducting small training sessions, coordinating events, contacting vendors, etc. But I got wind of how convoluted they made this course for the incoming Eller students and dropped it from my Fall schedule so I could concentrate on Accounting. Can't put it off forever, however, and it isn't offered in the abbreviated semesters (winter or summer) so I do have to endure the case competition and other busywork things that are fine and dandy for the kids but seem like overkill to us older students! Group projects and presentations, here I come!

Spring will be a light semester due to my commitment at H&R Block - I'm scheduled around 15 hours a week there. New semester starts just one day after Winter Session ends so there's truly no rest for the wicked!

Chester was right!

Golf class was entirely on the driving range and practice areas, just like my nephew predicted.

I'm just a whisker away from the end of Fall Semester 2009 (yippee!) but before I bury my nose in my accounting book (for the next 9 days before final exam), I want to recount my experience in Golf class.

Golf started midway through the semester, being just a 1-credit course. Met twice a week at 9:00 a.m. for about an hour, sometimes longer. Two groups of 16 students met simultaneously along with two PGA pros (Peter Federhar and Bill Hird). When I initially saw the roster for "my" class, I was the only "girl" on the list! I panicked a little and emailed the UA prof in charge but he assured me the class was geared toward the beginning golfer and that I likely wouldn't find myself so out of place once it got started.

He, too, was right! A lot of the students had never played before. The first day I was plenty early at Randolph golf course and waited apprehensively as the group trickled in... all guys. Then, at the last minute, coming from the other direction, I was relieved to see another female student who had biked from campus and had misjudged the distance so was just a few minutes late. We latched onto each other and became fast friends. Shawna* asked me if I knew of a bus line that ran from campus to the golf course because it was just too far to bike. Well, I didn't, but it didn't matter because I wasn't about to let her do that when I could just swing by campus - only a little out of my way - and pick her up. She is just a freshman and must be the luckiest girl on campus because the class is so popular it usually fills up within minutes of open registration. I didn't even know the class existed until my sophomore year and only got in on my third attempt!

We spent the first two days just putting on the practice greens. Turns out, all golf strokes are built around the same motion so it's a good idea to get it right on the putting green before you move to the bigger swings. After that we moved to mats on the driving range and worked our way from chipping to pitching to driving as the weeks evolved. Finally we left the mats and learned how different it was driving off the grass. Two buckets of balls was the standard daily requirement (around 120 total swings) and Pete and Bill would make their way through the group to give individual instruction. I was amazed at how helpful their suggestions were. Seemed like each thing they told us to do worked like magic and we continued to improve every day.

Besides the swing instruction, they gave us tips on how to "look" like we weren't beginners when playing with peers or eventual bosses, and how to keep the game moving and not be the one slowing everyone down. They also went through some of the golf etiquette and how not to annoy your fellow players on the greens!

We were to bring our own clubs if we had some and my old second-hand set elicited some chuckles from Bill and Pete. "Ah, I see we have some clubs from the dark ages!" But they encouraged me to use them while we were just learning. After a few weeks Pete produced a newer ladies 7-iron and explained everything that was different between the new technology and my old stuff. After just a few swings, I could really tell the difference so I asked where I could find me a nice starter set. They recommended not going to the expense of getting "fitted" because I'm just a beginner and don't know yet what kinds of clubs are out there and what my preferences might be. I was able to find a really nice used set called Precise for just under $100 at the Golf Exchange store. Pete recommended the place because if I didn't like one or more of the clubs, they would exchange them, unlike the golf stores featuring brand new clubs.

Just before Thanksgiving we had a "bunker day" and learned how to get out of the sand traps (or at least learned how you're *supposed* to do it!). And then the final two days of golfing were spent in a practice area that has four separate greens fanned out from the same tee box area at different distances (around 47 yards up to 160 - all par 3 holes). We divided up into groups of 5 or 6 and played a scramble to each of the greens. Fortunately with a scramble, you all get to hit a drive shot, but then everyone moves their ball to the place where the best shot landed and everyone continues from there. That sure speeds things up and still gives you the feeling of a golf game.

The "final exam" was a written test for which we were given a review sheet with about double the information on it. A little memorization was all it took. I wish all my finals were exactly like that one!

So, all in all I feel like I improved a great deal (and so did my hubby because I would come home and give him all the same pointers!) and can actually not look like an idiot if I'm ever in a position to play with a group. It's good exercise and great fun (when your swing is good - and okay fun when its not!) and in a pleasant setting. I'm going to have to find time to keep it up, though, because they said we would notice a big difference if we lapsed even two weeks between practice driving. Now that I know about the 4-hole practice area, we can try to get there once a week or so. The regular driving range is good, too, but those $7 buckets of balls can add up fast!

*Not her real name.

Well, that was weird

Two exams in one day and I did better on the one I studied LESS for! The Management exam was a bit easier than I expected - there was a LOT of content in those five chapters and the exam could have been a lot harder, so I'm very happy with my grade.

The Accounting exam was about what I expected in terms of content and I even had time to FINISH and recheck several answers. But, while I earned an improvement over my grade on the first accounting exam, I sure didn't do as well as I expected. Sigh. I'll visit the professor next week to see if I made some stupid errors or exactly where things went wrong.

All things considered, though, when examining the two aspects of my accounting class, I'm getting a solid A in the quizzes and in-class activities and that is very encouraging. It is only the exams that are bringing my grade down. So maybe the exams are set up to be that much more difficult...? Anyway, just 34 more calendar days and I think I can escape with a C. I can certainly live with that! What is it they say? "Survive and advance!"

Big test comin' up

Been studying VERY HARD for the last 8 days getting all the various accounting concepts of revenue recognition and inventory valuation clear in my head. Took the practice exam about an hour ago without books or notes and got everything RIGHT except a couple of journal entries! ALL my numbers were right and I finished just 5 minutes over the designated time. Whew! Now if I can just manage to NOT look like this little guy on test day!