After I finish the final assignment or exam in each of my classes this semester, I plan to write a quick post summarizing my final thoughts about the course.
This class, also referred to as “Mind 2 Market” or “Lab 2 Market,” is cross-listed at the Law School, McCombs, and various schools of natural sciences.
- Getting into the Class. In previous semesters, I have tried to get into this class by placing it at the top of my priority list during Early Registration at the Law School without any luck. The MBA folks, it would appear, don’t think as highly of the course. The market clearing price was a whopping zero points during bidding. Having said that, the course was full and lots of waitlisted folks showed up on the first day of class. For reasons I’ll get to in a second, there is a lot of attrition in this class. Ultimately, anyone who wanted in got into the course.
- Deliverables. Where do I start? This class, as the professor will tell you, is a lot of work and nearly all of it is done in teams. I know what you MBA types are thinking: “So what? I work in teams all the time. It’s no big deal.” All I can say is that working in your MBA Study Team is effortless for a reason. You’ve spent lots of time with those folks and–surprise!!!–it turns out that MBA types work and problem-solve in shockingly similar ways. One of the major take-aways of this course comes from the experience and challenges of working in cross-disciplinary teams. In short, there’s lots of writing and presenting, and a moderate amount of number crunching. One long-ish individual paper due at the end of the semester. No exam.
- The Professor. Professor Nichols was outstanding, when he was in class. The thing about the best professors at UT is that people just can’t get enough of them. Professor Nichols is definitely pulled in a million different directions by a million different, important causes during the course of any one semester. To make up for this, he has two T.A.s for what is typically a very small class.
- Idea 2 Product. Students who take this class in the Spring are expected to participate in the I2P competition held at UT during the semester.
Read the full article: Final Thoughts: Entrepreneurship of Technology