]]>I am a second year MBA student at Washington University’s Olin Business School. I graduated with a degree in Architecture from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where I served as President of the Women in Architecture organization and studied abroad in Rome, Italy. Before returning to graduate school, I worked at an engineering firm and was highly involved in my community as a volunteer for the American Red Cross and United Way. Now at Olin, I am concentrating in Brand Management and Marketing Consulting/Strategy while serving as President of the Olin Marketing Association.
As an MBA student with a non-business background, I found MBA Math to be particularly helpful. The lessons gave me a comprehensive overview of the quantitative work that would be performed during the core curriculum of the program. MBA Math is unique in that it provides the flexibility to work at one’s own pace to meet personal objectives. It’s a great transition to graduate school.
Here's a workshop description:
This two-hour workshop will build on the pre-work coverage of finance and accounting basics to develop insight into the ongoing credit market crisis. Rather than do a broad but shallow survey of quant skills needed in the MBA first year, I've picked a few tools and a relevant topic from the current business press. We'll dig into the basics of bond valuation and balance sheet leverage with two goals in mind:
To learn more about the broader conference and to register, visit the Forté conference site.
To learn more about the workshop or to take a look at the pre-work material on finance and accounting as an example of the MBA Math lecture material, visit the MBA Math workshop site.
]]>]]>At Columbia, financial calculators are always allowed if you want. However, most professors do have laptop off policy at classes while some exams only allow you to use financial calculators.
]]>At Kelley, the guiding rule is that laptops should remain off during class unless working in Excel. With that said, most of the professors are flexible and have no problems with laptop use as long as they are being used for class materials or taking notes. It's clear from day 1 what each respective professor's policy is and that policy is often determined by the type of material / cases covered.
A blank Excel sheet is usually allowed for exams. Some professors have open book test, however it should be noted that the time available for most seven week course exams is 1.5 hours. Students can use financial calculators if they choose to, but none of the classes that I took spend any time discussing their functions and certainly did not require them.
]]>For class: HBS classes are laptop-down, including finance classes. You can use calculators during the class to follow along with the discussion. For the most part, there is no need for a financial calculator; a regular calculator will probably be enough. I had a financial calculator, but never used it for functions beyond mult/division during class.
For exams: All HBS exams are case-based, usually with a 4-5 hour time limit, and grades are based on a written response/analysis of the case. For FIN 1 & 2 exams, you're required to attach exhibits to support your analysis from an excel model you build during the exam. Everything's open book and open note w/exception of online sources, and you can use calculators and Excel. Since the response requires a lot of excel, I never used a calculator. I'd say the same for most of my classmates.
]]>At UCLA Anderson, we needed to know how to take a first derivative for a unit of MANAGERIAL ECONOMICS. I wouldn’t suggest taking an extensive calculus course just to learn how to take a first derivative. I took an INTRO TO CALCULUS course and regret wasting the time. I now know a lot of calculus that I will never apply. My time would have been better spent preparing for school.
In finance, some professors used advanced calculus to show how certain formulas are derived. Knowing calculus makes you feel better while watching or reading a complex derivation, BUT at the end of the day you’re tested on and use the formula…not how it was derived!
Ultimately, I would give calculus low priority in terms of preparation. If you want to get a basic understanding of a subject that you haven’t had any exposure to I would recommend, in addition to mbamath.com:
READING:THE CARTOON GUIDE TO STATISTICS (seriously, this book is great)
ACCOUNTING FOR DUMMIES
TAKING:MATHEMATICS FOR MANAGEMENT (most universities offer them online during the summer)