Have some class(es)

I have head each of my four classes, and I am convinced that this is going to be my favorite quarter yet, since I'm truly and genuinely interested in 3 1/2 of the four classes. Here's the breakdown:

1. Employee. One of our required first-year "perspective" classes that looks at management problems through the lens of the employee, and talks about how we as managers can best hire, motivate, manage and generally lead employees. Basically an HR course, but one that focuses more specifically on the relationship between manager and employee (as opposed to, say, the broader organizational structure of a firm). I'm way excited about this.

2. The Global Macroeconomy. Another required first-year class, but this is the first year it's required; last year it was a semester-long elective. That makes two things immediately different: For one, there are second-year students who were allowed to take this first-year class, since their option for the elective disappeared. Also, the semester's worth of material has been condensed into six weeks. Between you and me, macro was my worst grade in college, and I had a really hard time following it. But that was more than 10 years ago, and I think/hope that maturity, wisdom and previous business classes will make this class more interesting. But it's going to be tough nevertheless.

3. The Operations Engine. When I enjoyed the probability portion of Probability & Statistics so much in Fall 1 (first quarter), I asked the professor about careers that used some of these nifty probability techniques, and he said, "Operations." So ever since then I've been eager and curious about this class. It's still too early for me to know exactly what we're getting into, but my preliminary assessment is pretty positive: great professors, and a first homework assignment on queueing theory that I really enjoyed.

4. Statistical Modeling. This is my first elective, and most of the students are second-years. We learn more about statistics while working on one major project, putting together a data set of our choosing, doing some analysis, and presenting it. I'm going to do something about chart positions of songs, since I happen to be interested in that, and happen to have a giant book of every Billboard Hot 100 Singles chart in the 1990s. The data has been collected! I'll collect more data, of course.
Meanwhile, the fifth implicity class is always LDP, our monthly evening class about leadership and values. We have a meeting next week.