Jovers

And just like that, my penultimate semester is finished and I’ve received my final grades. This semester was a bit odd, as I had two of the best professors in my undergraduate career and then two of maybe my worst. Either way, I’m happy I’ve finished and only have one more semester to go! Here is my semester recap.

FIN 345 – Investments
I really enjoyed this class. All of my finance professors have been rather disappointing – they have all been very smart, intelligent men, but they just couldn’t teach their knowledge very effectively. This professor was really great. We had a lot of individual projects (which I loved, there are not many things worse than a group project) and they were actually really beneficial. For example, I had a mutual fund project where we had to pick funds to invest in, explain why, and why it would reach our long-term goal. It’s really practical knowledge for personal use, whereas most of my finance classes only teach corporate investing. So it was a nice personal touch.

He was also a very fair grader and very organized. His lectures were a bit boring sometimes, but I do feel like I learned a lot, which I can’t say for all of the classes that I take.

Grade: A
Credits: 3

MIS 402 – Management Information Systems
This class was the most boring class I’ve ever taken. I had to bribe myself to go to class everyday (If you go to class today you can stop by Walgreens and buy some candy!) and I really didn’t learn a whole lot from it. I felt a bit bad for the professor because he kind of looked like your grandpa and was the sweetest person. He did have some interesting stories from his career and always had juicy gossip about the university he would share if we looked especially bored.

Grade: A
Credits: 3

MGT 355 – Organizational Leadership
I have mixed feelings about this class. This is the strictest professor I’ve had before. She wouldn’t allow people to leave the classroom once the class started and conversely she would make you feel very uncomfortable if you were late.

That being said, this was such a beneficial class. We mostly studied case studies of employees who made some kind of mistake in their career and then would discuss how to fix the situation, how they could have avoided the mistake, what they did well, etc. I took something away from each discussion that I can apply to my career.

The class was a ton of work. We had assignments for every class, plus a very big presentation we had to give in front of business executives, and very long tests. She also expected active participation, and would pull you aside if you weren’t adding enough to the conversation. That being said, it was worth it to be a part of the case study discussions, and I would still recommend the professor to other students, despite how much of a pain it was.

Grade: A
Credits: 3

ENT 460 – Intro to Entrepreneurship
This was a very frustrating class. First, our professor hardly spoke English. He was an extremely smart man, had started numerous very successful business so had great experiences. He just couldn’t articulate that to the students. Not only could he not lecture because of this, his expectations for all assignments, projects, and papers were very unclear. Most of the time he didn’t even give us due dates!

Second, this class was mostly group work – which okay, I’m used to it – but our group consisted of seven people. Have you ever tried to get seven people, each with their own jobs and lives and other classes, to meet up and work on projects together? It’s impossible. So that was frustrating because all of our schedules conflicted.

There was one class that I was very, very uncomfortable. Our professor essentially changed the whole assignment for a paper that was due in two days. Students were were so upset that they were shouting at him. Instead of remaining calm, he argued and shouted back. Near the end of the class, he was practically screaming. I would have left if the door wasn’t on the complete other side of the classroom.

Nonetheless, I somehow managed to pass the class with above 100%, which I didn’t even know was possible in college, so there’s that.

Grade: A
Credits: 3

Overall, a mixed bag. I’m hoping that my last semester of undergrad will be interesting and beneficial!

Happy 2016!

We rang in the new year for the first time in Kansas City. We’ve always gone home to be with friends and family, but we weren’t able to go back because of work. We wanted our celebration to be relatively chill after constantly being on the go around Christmas. I cooked some fri-do pizzas as a special meal since it’s a bit of a pain to make (and I always seem to forget to set the dough out to rise).

We watched a movie and played some video games, but by 11PM we both just went to bed. We had both been up since about 5:30AM and were pooped. I set an alarm for midnight because my mom’s birthday is January 1st, so I could call her to wish her a happy birthday. I like to think that the whole world is celebrating her birthday on New Year’s Eve. She deserves it.

I usually don’t set many goals for myself each year. If there is something that I want to change or start doing, I try to do it as soon as I can. I used to think that new year’s resolutions were stupid because of this (look at any of my past first posts of the year), but it’s always good to do a self-evaluation no matter the day. So I may have had a slight change of heart. Anyhow, I set myself a few annual goals that I’d like to work on this year. I didn’t include some obvious ones, like “Graduate!” or “Move home!” because unless I have some emergency life change, these should come naturally.

Goals for 2016:

Be more consistent in my blogging. Looking back at my consistency of my posts always hurts a bit because I can be so all over the place! Sometimes I will post every other day for two weeks and then you won’t hear from me for a month. I’ve found that organizing my posts and setting up a “blogging process” has really helped me stay consistent over the last several months (post coming soon on this!), so continuing that this year I think will really help me achieve this goal.

I was curious to see over the years how my blogging consistency has compared, so I tallied up the posts for each month and year. In 2015, I published 45 posts, which is three and a half posts a month. Not staggering, but it’s better than in 2014 and 2013 where I only had 27 and 33, respectively. Last year was the first year to break the downward trend, so I want to keep that going this year! I also realize that more isn’t necessarily better (quality > quantity) , but I feel like I always have something to say and not enough time to say it, so this goal is really more about disciplining myself to sit down and write on a regular basis.
Read 52 books. This was the only goal I set for myself last year, and I’m pretty sure from now until eternity I will be challenging myself to read more. I completed my goal last year, while planning a wedding, while my then fiancé was in another country, and while working full time and going to school full time, so I know I can do it again this year, sans wedding. You can track my progress on my Goodreads!
Be bold. I usually don’t add goals that aren’t very measurable, however I feel that this one is necessary for me to write down. As a quiet introvert, I’ve noticed the past couple months (a talk with my professor started me thinking on it) how much I can sometimes miss out. I pass up opportunities because I fear change and I don’t speak up often because I worry what people will think. My goal this year is to be bold and not think so much about just being me. I’m not sure how I’ll view if I was successful in this area at the end of this year, but I’ll just wing it.

I only made one goal for myself last year and that was to read 52 books in 2015. I included audiobooks, ebooks, and re-reads in my count and I am happy to say I reached 52 exactly!

I also have some exciting new things that I’m going to introduce to the blog this year, to give this place a more well-rounded view of me. I did an informal evaluation of what I consider most important to me and what I spend the most time doing, and what I blog about doesn’t proportionally equal either of those. So I’m excited to introduce some new topics this year that I think you will all enjoy!

I hope you all had a safe and fun new year’s eve, and I wish the best for you in 2016!

Fall 2015 Semester Review

Hey there, 2016