Stick a Fork In Me

I'm done with my grading. Not surprisingly, I handed in grades at 4:45 this afternoon, and got my first email at 7. But for a change, the first one wasn't of the "why didn't I get a higher grade" variety. The student wrote:

Dear Unknown Professor:

I just wanted to thank you again for a really great semester. You really helped me work hard in areas I didn't think I could and pushed me harder than I thought I could handle, but it overall seemed to pay off very well with my final grade. I learned a lot in your class this semester which I am hoping will help with my future finance classes since I am a Finance major.

He struggled all semester, and pulled off a B+ - proof that hard work pays off.

I'll take it. Now back to research.

I have two papers I'm hoping to send to the AAA (American Accounting Association) meeting (the deadline's in 2 weeks), and a third I'm hoping to send to the FMA (Financial Management Association) meeting (the deadline's in about 3 1/2 weeks). So, I have three papers to work on (one's being sent to both conferences).

Of course, I still have to buy something shiny for the Unknown Wife.

My Students Are a Mixed Bag

It's that time of year again - the end of the semester. This time around, I'm teaching at both ends of the spectrum - the required undergraduate core class and the student-managed portfolio class.

And it looks like my students performed at both ends of the spectrum, too.

Running the student-managed fund class is always a great gig - it's small (about 10-12) and invariably composed of the best students in the college. They just gave their end-of-the semester presentation to a group of about 30 attendees (including a number of portfolio managers, analysts, and assorted other finance professionals). They probably did as good a job as any group I've seen to date. They were relaxed, professional, very competent, and they looked good in their suits and ties. They did a great job of explaining how they managed the fund and more importantly, why. There were a couple of attendees that made them peel back the curtain on what assumptions they used in their discounted cash flow analyses, and they acquitted themselves very well. In fact, there's a good possibility that one of them may landed an interview with a mutual fund company as a result of his performance (he got pushed pretty hard by a couple of the attendees, and did a great job defending himself). So, all in all, it was an excellent showing.

On the other hand (and after all, I've had a lot of econ training, so there's always another hand), my core finance class didn't do nearly as well on this last exam as they did on the second one. Some of it is probably the material (their math skills are more than a bit lacking, and this section requires more mathematical reasoning), but a lot of it seems like they simply hadn't done the necessary work solving problems. Still, there were some pretty good performances. Overall, it's a bit depressing, but it's given me some food for thought as to how I can approach the material in this section differently the next time I teach it.

Ah well - you win some and you lose some.

Making The Grade

I was cleaning out some to the 1500+ emails I've let accumulate in my gmail account (unlimited space leads to sloppy housekeeping), and I came across this old (but still excellent) piece titled "Making the Grade", by Georgia Tech physics professor Kurt Weisenfeld:

IT WAS A ROOKIE ERROR. AFTER 10 YEARS I SHOULD HAVE known better, but I went to my office the day after final grades were posted. There was a tentative knock on the door.
""Professor Wiesenfeld? I took your Physics 2121 class? I flunked it? I wonder if there's anything I can do to improve my grade?'' I thought: ""Why are you asking me? Isn't it too late to worry about it? Do you dislike making declarative statements?''

...Time was, when you received a grade, that was it. You might groan and moan, but you accepted it as the outcome of your efforts or lack thereof (and, yes, sometimes a tough grader). In the last few years, however, some students have developed a disgruntled-consumer approach. If they don't like their grade, they go to the ""return'' counter to trade it in for something better.

What alarms me is their indifference toward grades as an indication of personal effort and performance. Many, when pressed about why they think they deserve a better grade, admit they don't deserve one but would like one anyway. Having been raised on gold stars for effort and smiley faces for self-esteem, they've learned that they can get by without hard work and real talent if they can talk the professor into giving them a break.

Read the whole thing here - it'll be part of my next semester's syllabus.

What Does The Class of 2014 Know?

When I was an undergrad (yeah, I know - a long time ago), I would often roll my eyes when a professor made a cultural reference that was about 30 years before my time. Now I increasingly find myself in the clueless professor's shoes. It's not surprising, since I've lived almost 3x as long as incoming freshmen.

Every year, Beloit College publishes a "mindset" list for the incoming freshman class. It lists some of the "cultural touchstones" are a part of the class's lives (who were mostly born in 1992). Here are some of the items on this year's list that stood out:

4. Al Gore has always been animated.
12. Clint Eastwood is better known as a sensitive director than as Dirty Harry.
27. Computers have never lacked a CD-ROM disk drive.
53. J.R. Ewing has always been dead and gone. Hasn't he?
64. Having hundreds of cable channels but nothing to watch has always been routine.

Read the whole thing here - interesting stuff, and it'll make some of you shake your heads at how the world has changed in such a short time.

A New Excuse: My Prescription Ran Out

The Telegraph (UK) gives us this article on the possibility that we might have "memory pills" (medicines that enhance our ability to learn and remember things more easily:

The medicine has been designed originally to help treat Alzheimer's disease, but could be adapted and licensed for sale in a weaker form within the next few years.

One brand of memory-enhancing pill is being developed by the multinational company AstraZeneca in collaboration with Targacept, an American company, while Epix Pharmaceuticals, also from the US, is developing another.

Both have "cognitive-enhancing effects" which are aimed at treating patients with age-related memory loss.

Read the whole thing here

I expect that if the pills become available in the U.K., they'll make their way her into a black market long before they become legally available. My students have told me that there's a growing use of Adderal and Ritalin among their fellow students when studying for exams.

I can see it now - a student explaining their poor performance on an exam because their prescription ran out.

Oh, the humanity.

A Favorite Student Nails It

I just heard that one of my favorite undergrads (yes, I do have favorites) just accepted a job offer at a major banking firms (one o0f the ten largest in the country). He's an interesting profile: a so-so GPA (just south of 3.0), that was mostly due being an engineering major his first year and a half before switching to finance. But, he comes across as much better than his GPA - he's really passionate about finance, was president of our local FMA student chapter, and is a heck of a nice guy.

He somehow managed to get an internship at the bank this summer, and totally nailed it. That wasn't surprising, because he always did FAR more work in class than I asked, and always asked for more. He just got the offer (and accepted it ) today, and came into my office to tell me about it about 10 minutes ago. It was a pretty good one - mid 50s , a couple thousand signing bonus, and great benefits.

It just goes to show that internships matter - a lot. After he graduates, he'll be working in a temporary slot at the firm for six months until his training program starts. So, he figures it'll be a good time to knock out the CFA Level 1 exam (did I mention he really likes finance and isn't afraid of extra work?)