Economics 490 has been very beneficial with
learning more in depth about Organizations. Although I believe I did have a
good amount of knowledge before beginning the course, the course was very
helpful with explaining specific examples, models, and the algebra behind the
models. The live class was different than many economic courses that I have
taken in the past. A lot of my political science course have the same type of
structure that this course did and I believe that this method of teaching is
more enjoyable for students. The interaction was constant and entertaining
during class. It also made me feel as if skipping a class would be detrimental
for my grade in the course since that is how we learned most of our concepts
and where I was really able to finally understand the Excel homework.
Blogging
was something new from me and I am pretty indifferent with my opinions towards
it. I do think it was a great idea to have discussions about the blog posts in
class and how the professor called out specific student’s blog posts because
that showed that what I was writing will actually be read. I did feel that I
did learn a lot about blogging and about how an economic concept could be
perceived as something completely different from different students. I made
sure to write my blog posts first and then read my peers to test my knowledge
beforehand on the concept that we were to talk about. For my blog posts my
process was pretty standard. If I didn’t understand a concept I would go back to
our class website and read more about it or Google the concept and just write
for anywhere from 20-40 minutes. The Excel homework required some research
before hand so that I could understand the concepts or else I would never be
able to complete the assignments. The Excel homework usually took a lot longer
than the blog posts and every Excel homework varied in the amount of time it
took me to complete it.
What
I think could be an improvement in the course is for every Excel homework assigned
if as a class we had a discussion about the concept and basic equations before
the homework was due and not after. I think this would tie everything together
more and I know we did it a couple of times but to make it a requirement before
every assignment would be beneficial and cut a lot of time that the Excel
homework took to complete.
