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For this week’s blog post, I would like to review some of the opinions and critiques I have about the course.

First of all, there were many new topics for me in terms of organizations. Among all, transaction cost, which was one of the first few topics introduced left a deep impression on me. It is not my first time learning the concept, but I was able to understand the true meaning and how it applies to nearly every task that I complete, which was nice. I also liked the discussion of incentives and punishment in work setting a lot, such as how incentives can drive an employee to work more efficiently and how punishment can discourage employees and hinder the particular employee’s growth. I was also impressed how much Professor Arvan put into the course. Professor Arvan offered me an office hour via phone over the weekend and I see how much work is needed to put together the excel assignments. I also believe having soft deadlines can be time consuming as it requires the grader to check blogs continuously for new submissions, but this policy, as its purpose, allowed me to express all I want to express with thorough consideration without the time constraint.

Regarding live session classes, I attended most classes, except for the days that I had to take GMAT exam or was sick. I did not speak much in class, because I was worried my answer was wrong or worried that others will not able to relate to my story as I have a different learning culture/experience than majority of the class. I do not know about other people, but I enjoy lecture style classes with small component of discussion as I like notes that I can refer back. Mostly-discussion class made me hard to absorb the material once I missed a concept. We discussed a lot about the past and future blog posts, but talked less about the excel homework, which was doable with few hours of investment, but I was very confused of what I was doing/calculating or the purpose of the assignments. As Professor Arvan mentioned, it is our task as the students to find the connections between each assignment, but I believe I lack this skill and need the instructor to guide me how one is related to another. I am better at it now I believe but need to get better at it for future courses to come.

Online blogging was a very new experience for me. Like we mentioned in class, not many higher-level economics classes that students take require some sort of writing. I liked sharing my story without my identity being disclosed. It was also enjoyable to write, knowing that Professor Arvan actually reads and provides in-depth comments.  If we could have discussed an example story of the prompt before it is due rather than after will allow students to grasp the direction of the blog. Sometimes, I see comments of my blogs and other students’ blog that we focus on one aspect when we are supposed to think more deeply upon another.

As a general opinion of this course, it was inconvenient that there was no way to track the work before Professor Arvan uploads the grade to Moodle. I was not sure if I submitted a concept quiz or Excel homework, after a few days of completing it, because there was no record that I could refer back to. If only we could receive a submission verification email that we could refer back to. The video lectures could have been helpful, but if also delivered in live sessions. Actual instructing on how the equations work and proves of those equation would have been very beneficial. Lastly, I believe there was less incentive of coming to class. I went to most classes, because that is what I do for all other classes. Some people did not show up majority of time, because what is graded, such as blog posts, concept quizzes, and excel homework, can be easily done without coming to lecture, while except that there was one excel homework that needed in class equation to be completed.

I joined the course late, because this class was not on my radar until I had to add a course for dropping another. In overall, I enjoyed the class and liked most of the discussion and stories shared by Professor and other peers.