Mid Semester
It’s hard to believe that 7 weeks have already passed since the semester began. It’s been quite busy as evidenced by my lack of writing. What has taken up most of my time?
I’ve got the work of about 5 classes right now, although two will be done as of tomorrow night. I have a paper for my fundraising class and a paper for my team building class. I also have a problem set due Wednesday, which I’ve mostly written, but also needs polish.
So far, courses are all pretty good. I’m a little disappointed with fundraising, but the book is excellent and I have enjoyed the assignments. I do with Hands On Gulf Coast had gotten back to me so I could have done some analysis on them, but ah well.
My favorite course to date is the International Economic Development course taught by Jonathan Morduch. He’s an engaging lecturer and the material, focusing mostly on microfinance, is very interesting. Contrasting with the laser focus of microfinance is Paul Smoke’s and Leonardo Romeo’s Decentralized Development Planning course. I enjoy it because we talk about high level planning systems and processes in developing countries. Currently, the focus is just on learning about those systems, but we will eventually get into case studies to transform the abstract into something concrete. I’m looking forward to that.
Outside of class, I work 20 hours a week building a budget spreadsheet. I’m in the Finance and HR department of the school, so I’m working on a school-wide tool to track expenses and build budgets. It’s kinda cool and I’m learning a ton about pivot tables. Who knew they were so powerful? Just about every developer and spreadsheet junkie out there making a living playing with Excel. I’m slowly joining the ranks.
Anyway, I’ll write a more detailed post when I’m not about ready to pass out.