Class starts today

It is very hot out there, and very hot in my non-air-conditioned third-floor apartment. It remains to be seen just how much I sweat through my first-day-of-school ensemble today as I hike around the campus, ducking into three classes, a career-related lunch session for second-year students, a meeting about the Human Capital Club I'm helping to start and, ultimately, a cohort barbecue to help welcome the first-year students. I'd sweat through such a day regardless of the heat.

Yesterday, the dean welcomed back us second-year students with a lunch at the Lawn Club (pictured). She spoke of her plans for the year and then gave the floor to one of our school's most esteemed faculty members, Bob Shiller, who lectured about the economy. He's one of those highly accomplished academics who humbly acts as if he just stumbled into prominence by mistake. That's a nice contrast from the all-too-common opposite.

Back to today's menu, the courses are: Venture Capital ("VC" as it's called around these parts) at 8:30, Theory of Media at 10:10 and Corporate Finance ("corp fin" as it's called around these parts) at 1. The first class had an optional paper for the first day, which I did. Well, optional in the sense that you have to do two of four possible case write-ups, and I decided to go ahead and give the first one a shot. I figured my future self who is buried in work will be very grateful that my former self decided to do this. The case was about a recent MBA grad who's trying to decide which of three VC firm offers to take. As you might guess, the case was written before the global financial crisis. I'm not sure needing to decide between three fabulous VC offers is a common dilemma today. Anyway, the case involved forecasting some expected earnings and was pretty fun. The media class, as I've mentioned, is cross-listed under Film and Literature, and it's quite a hike from the School of Management. I'm looking forward to it, although the reading was toasty dry. We also had extensive readings for corp fin that I bravely fought through violent yawns to undertake. I mean, we're talking boooring. But the good news is that my professor is supposed to be amazing; the Class of 2010 voted her the best teacher of last year. Here's hoping she can make this subject somewhat nifty.