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My thoughts about what I would be doing in the Economics of Organizations when I had initially registered for this course ended up being much different than my experience in the class. The format of this class was something I had never been exposed to before at the University of Illinois.

The course material in itself I found to be very interesting however, I often struggled with the organization of the course itself. I often found myself confused on where to access course information when it came to the homework, projects, and especially the blog posts. I am not sure if it was caused by my unfamiliarity with blog based websites but the organizational aspect of the course was something I was not a fan of. Usually, my classes and the information needed are all available on the one-course website which makes it easier for me to keep up with the class. I often found myself missing information which then made me fall behind in the class.

In regard to the blog posts, this was something that I often struggled with. The soft deadline was something I appreciated but also often came back to bite me. I was incredibly busy with events outside of school, in particular, interviewing for companies that often required me to be busy traveling on Fridays and then throughout the weekend. Because of the soft deadline, I found myself forgetting about the blog post as a whole. The blog posts usually took me about two hours and I believe that is due to my uncomfortableness with writing. I have never enjoyed writing and struggle to put my experiences into words.

My favorite part of the course was the excel homework by far. I found that this is the type of learning that I enjoy the most and succeed in. I was able to read through the excel homework and learn as I completed the questions. The excel homework usually took me about an hour to complete each week. I didn’t really need to prepare for the excel homework since it was more of a learn as you go situation for me. I just needed to prepare adequate time to complete the homework before the 11pm deadline.

During the start of the semester, I went to many of the classes and enjoyed the smaller portions of the class. I especially liked the extra credit that was offered for attending. Once that was taken away, I had less of an incentive to go to class however still attended a lot of class afterwards. When I attended class, I recognized that my classmates were usually the same each class session. I wish that there was more discussion in class, rather than just student response to questions posed by the professor. It would have been nice to also have done some icebreaker games and introductions in some of the classes so that people could have been more comfortable with one another. Everyone was a familiar face, however it still felt like none of us knew each other.

In closing, I really liked the class material and what I had learned during this course however, the organizational structure of the course is something that I hope would be changed for future classes. 


Comments

  1. Professor ArvanDecember 10, 2017 at 3:09 PM

    Let me comment about your post as if I were your manager rather than the professor, but where the other me (the professor) was your client. You have to be proactive. If you are not going to do what the client wants, because you have unavoidable and important other obligations, then you need to explain that to the client in a way that is understood. Further, you may have to negotiate an alternative solution that is agreeable both to you and the client.

    Now I'm switching back to professor mode. I was somewhat aware that you were in job search mode. But I didn't feel very well informed on those matters. I think it was your responsibility to make me better understand the situation. But that didn't happen.

    Now a different perspective, one I will speculate about. I gather that this semester was the first one where you were looking for a job in this way. Did you speculate at all about the time commitment that would entail? I don't know what that is, but for the sake of discussion, let's say that time commitment was equivalent to the amount of time you'd spend in a single course. If that's even close to being right, the issue is whether you over-committed time-wise, assuming you could manage your normal load and the job search as well, or if you made a suitable accommodation. I can't tell from my end. But it sure looks like you over-committed, from the little I know.

    In past offerings of the class I have heard comments about preferring to use Compass rather than the approach I opt or. But those comments are comparatively rare. So while I don't want to discount what you say entirely, I will say your message would be more credible from my vantage if you delivered it after putting more effort into the class.

    The students who indicated they liked the course thought the blogging was among the best parts of the class. if your view is to win the argument, that's the counter view you need to reckon with.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Amy FinkelsteinDecember 12, 2017 at 8:26 AM

      I appreciate your perspective as a manager rather than a professor. I have found that I need to experience things first hand, which is why I will use this experience to make sure that I need to reach out before I am overwhelmed. That was what happened to me this semester. I apologize that I did not inform you enough of what was occurring outside the classroom that had affected my performance inside the classroom. In the future, I will be proactive in seeing when I am struggling to maintain performance and let my managers, future professors, clients, etc. know.

      My view is not to win an argument, just to share with you my experience with this class.

      Delete
  2. David RicardoDecember 12, 2017 at 7:09 AM

    First of all good luck with your job search! I also spent a lot of time this semester trying to figure out what I want to do once I have graduated. Between looking at graduate schools, possible jobs, internships etc. I spent more time in September working on that than I did on school work, so know how much of a struggle that can be.

    I thought that you had an interesting point with the blog layout. I can remember the first two weeks were tough for me too. We didn't have consistent assignments yet and I think that I missed part of the first excel homework because I didn't see it in the calendar. Two things that helped me a lot were the google calendar on the upper left (has every single assignment in it) and the linked section below that (had all of the excel homework information, class project information etc. linked to each tab).

    ReplyDelete
  3. Amy FinkelsteinDecember 12, 2017 at 8:30 AM

    I hope that you also have had luck with your post graduation plans! It can be extremely overwhelming entering the real world! I know a lot of my group members also struggled to figure out the course website.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Janet Yellen Econ 490 fall 2017December 13, 2017 at 3:13 PM

    I agree with your view of the Excel homework. Another class where this set up was similar was in Econ 203. Throughout the assignment you learned as you went which made it easier to decipher what you were doing wrong. The explanations on the Excel homework were comprehensible, and although some homework assignments took me longer they were all manageable.

    The course as a whole was something I had never been exposed before to as well; however, I think the purpose of it was to test one's effort given a free range of possibilities to conduct work.

    ReplyDelete

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