Thoughts in a Skitoliv World

A few highlights from the memorial day weekend.

Sunday:

The weekend started on Sunday due to graduation events at the U. I got up there around 10 and then proceeded to make breakfast for everyone, Emma, Mark, Bob and Jude. Judith remarked that I am the breakfast King of the Poconos, and I said that we all had little jobs to do at the lake, I did not want to be accused of slacking mine.

Mark, Robert and I moved the big sailboat out of the basement and down to the beach. This is always a fun event, but we managed it without much difficulty.

Usually on memorial day, the beach is empty as it is still fairly chilly in the mountains; however, with the warm weather, our beach was jammed packed. The one thing i dislike about that is that people do not follow the rules for Lake Naomi, and without rules, we have anarchy. (more on this later).

No wind, so Judith, Mark and I went fishing, caught two pickerel, the second of which broke my line while I was attempting to unhook it.

Wind finally picked up, so Mark, Robert, David (next door neighbor), and I went sailing.

We were putting the sailboat away, and a guy was standing by the boats with his dog. One of the rules that people forget, despite a big sign that says no dogs on the beach, is that they bring their dog on the beach. Robert informed the man of his error and he responded by saying "I am waiting for my kids." Oh wait, I am sorry, you are right, the sign does read "No dogs on the beach unless you are waiting for your kids." The guy then got belligerent towards Robert and challenged him to call the Ranger, which I promptly did. The guy then went and hid in the woods when the Ranger showed up. Not only was he a jerk, but he was a coward as well.

Lauren arrived and we attempted to go to the club for dinner, they informed us that the grill was closed on Sundays, which makes little sense to me for a holiday weekend. We went to this Mexican restaurant that occupies a space in Pocono Pines where there has been no fewer than 423 different restaurants. So I am sure we will have many opportunities to eat there.

Lauren and I won at Trivial Pursuit.

Monday:

Went Kayaking in the morning.

The proceeded to make Blueberry Pancakes for everyone.

Good wind so we took Lauren sailing. Each time the boat got up on its side, Lauren had this look on her face that said "oh no! this time we are going to flip!" Yet she seemed to enjoy it.

Mark and Emma headed back to D.C

We went sailing again, and were able to go for a swim off of Turtle Island, the water was freezing!

Robert and Judith headed home.

Lauren and I got food from Amadeo’s which was really good. They have one of the largest selections of food anywhere.

We went fishing, and caught nothing. Both of us fell asleep on the couch around 9 (party animals).

Tuesday:

cleaned up and headed home

Well lets get right to it. These classes are in need of a serious overhaul at the UoD. I am not saying that they are not necessary, but they either need new teachers or new curriculum to make them better than they are. So with out further ado, the list

3. Ethics, Dr. Gary Weaver. Dr. Weaver is actually a heck of a nice guy, and he supports the DSF, however, his class is so boring that I once was banging my head against the desk in hopes that I would knock myself unconcious. He speaks in the same voice all the time and that is way to soft and monotonous. A major detriment to this class was that I took it during the summer and four hours of class is just way too much. Dr. Weaver also wanted to know how everything was an ethical decision. Duane and I once commented that many of the decisions had nothing to do with ethics in the slightest, but were simple bottom line decisions. This class should be one of the best at the U as everyone can use a better understanding of ethical behavior, but Dr. Weaver needs to go.

The next two classes are very close in how bad they suck. It was a close race to determine which was the absolute worst class, but I think I figured it out.

2. Corporate Strategy, Dr. Misanganyi. Where do I start. I do not think I learned anything in this class except that Vilmos really likes geometric representations of strategy. Vilmos was one big contradiction after another. He is a teacher that would never say what he wanted for required work, and then mark you down for not reading his mind and putting in elements he wanted to see. I spent an hour in his office trying to get him to tell me what he wanted to see in the paper, and then he slaughtered my paper, because I did not have what he wanted. The guy spent an hour detailing what he wanted to see on our final presentations, and then told all of us that we did it wrong. The guy never really said anything about forming a strategy other than draw circles and put stuff in the circles. He is a complete and utter loon that should not be teaching. He set absurd criteria for class participation, and made it 30% of our final grade. He had this annoying habit of asking us "what’s the answer guys" and most of the class was not sure he had asked a question. Crackpot, and I can not think of anything nice to say about this class.

and finally….

1. Accounting 800, Dr. Scott. Dr. Scott should never ever ever ever be allowed near a classroom again. Perhaps her research is so fantastic that it warratns her being in academia, but she should never be allowed to interact with students again. This class is one of the first that you take at graduate school. I imagine that it should be used to talk about the fundamentals of Accounting, yet Dr. Scott used it as a platform to complain abou tthe accounting scandals that had recently occured. Never once did she tells about any of the tools used in accounting, i.e. debits and credits, or how to read any of the finacials. This became a problem as she assigined a ridiculous project, gave no direction about what she wanted to see, and could not believe that we had no idea how to interpret what the company we were assigned was saying. Dr. Scott was also very condescending to people with questions and acted like we were idiots for not understanding something. Her tests were a joke, when the entire class does horrendous on a take home exam, you know you are a bad teacher. This is one of the problems with higher education, people like her get tenured based on their research and they have no business being teachers. Go woRk in a think tank some where Dr. Scott, never set foot in a classroom again. You really have no idea how to effectively teach, your class was one of the biggest wastes of my time.

I currently have two weeks of classes left at the University of Delaware. With that in mind, I thought I would share my favorite classes that I took.

Best Classes:

3. Marketing, Professor Ajay Manrai. Many of the professors in graduate school suscribe to the case method of teaching, read a case the week before and we will discuss it in class, Ajay was no different. What I liked about this class was that Ajay really did strive to teach us something. While it did take a while to get used to the way he wanted us to attack the case, it proved beneficial in other classes, knowing how to read and analyzie cases.

2.  Strategic Mangement, Professor Mark Hovde. I took this class during the summer, summer classes are marathon 4hour affairs that rapidly become annoying. Prof. Hovde ran a class with lots of discussion, and my class was really really good at arguing with each other. I know that may seem a shock that I enjoy arguing but there we have it.

The Best Class at UD’s MBA:

1. Management Information Systems (ACCT 801), Dr. Scot Jones. This may be a shock to some of you but I loved this class. Dr. Jones kept me interested in pretty much every class. I loved the discussion and felt that I got the most out this class that I could. Dr. Jones always preached that there were no right or wrong answers, as  long as we took a position and were prepared to defend it, he would listen to us. Another class where argument was key, so you can see why I liked it.

Tune in later for the WORST classes at UD.