Electives GuideNotes from your Leadership Fellows

4/17/2009

IntroductionThese are general thoughts from some of the leadership fellows. It is organized by Department and then by Cohort or individual who contributed. Feel free to reach out to any of the LF’s for more information.

Other resources:

WaGat: https://apps.wharton.upenn.edu/wagat/

Auction Research: You can research the feedback, bidding history, etc from the auction interface.

Advice from your Cohort A FellowsOverall

Good professors make good classes. Ideally, take classes that you are interested in with good professors. If you have the option of taking a semi-interesting class with a great professor vs a very interesting class with an average professor, take the semi-interesting class.

Majors – FNCE classes have mostly below average teachers. Don’t take loads of average FNCE classes just to get the major.

Don’t stress about a major – take classes that interest you and you will figure out a major. The few classes that were required for my major were among my least favorite classes.

Don’t freak out if you don’t get all the classes you want in the fall by the end of this year. Sometimes classes/sections/professors are added over the summer. Also, spaces in classes tend to open up in rounds 7 and 8.

Favorites

LGST 813 – Legal Aspects of Entrepreneurship (Borghese) – Best class I’ve taken at Wharton. Every student at Wharton should take this class. Taught by actual attorneys, who are also entrepreneurs. Surveys everything you need to know about running a business. Interesting information for anyone – not just those interested in entrepreneurship

Legal Aspects of Entrepreneurship – While the three hour class is a little exhausting, especially since you are taking lecture notes the whole time, this class is worth the points. It is taught by two practicing lawyers that have great chemistry and are very entertaining with their stories. Also, this class is very practical and applicable, even if you don’t want to be an entrepreneur.

MGMT 671 – Total Leadership (Friedman) – Stew’s deep dive into you as a person. Most insightful and introspective class I’ve taken. Can be transformational. Makes you define what and who are important in your life, while tying it together into career and life goals.

MGMT 801 – Entrepreneurship (any prof) – great case-based class that introduces you to start-up companies.

MGMT 691 – Negotiations - Try to get Diamond. This is a must for students, especially international students .

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Negotiations – I’ve heard some people are turned off by Diamond’s aggressive (arrogant) personality (especially females). I think you will get the most out of this course is you have a professor who has a style similar to your own. I have Brandt, who is incredibly laid back (not at all your stereotypically aggressive negotiator). I didn’t think I was learning anything in class because of the slow pace, but have recently reflected a little bit and think I’ve learned a lot from him.

Negotiations – This is a “must take” at Wharton. I didn’t have enough for Diamond, but I paid 100 points for Pope, who I thought was great. This class has probably been the most applicable to the real world. For example, I save over $1000 on my Spring Break plans through negotiating!

MGMT 815 – Sports Biz Mgmt (Rosner) – If you like sports, this is a great class with a light workload

OPIM 692 – Retail Supply Chain Management – Fisher is really passionate about retail and brings in great speakers (he has a lot of great contacts). The class is a lot of work (a case for every class), but it’s mostly interesting reading about your favorite stores and restaurants (crosses a lot of industries). Class is half undergrads, which makes the conversation quite annoying at times.

Mktg 773 – Consumer behavior with Neidermeier – interesting information, entertaining lectures, minimal work. Course runs like a high school intro to psychology/sociology course with a little added application to business. Neidermeier is good, but probably not worth the thousands of points people pay for him.

Problems in Financial Reporting – I would call this class forensic accounting. It is a deep dive into accounting issues that companies try to fudge to make themselves look better. Even if you don’t want to go into finance and accounting, it is still an interesting class. Plus, Bushee is very entertaining.

Least Favorites

ACF w/ any professor other than Goldstein.

FNCE 738 (Funding Investments) – tedious, unfocused and average professors

Advertising Management – McNealy is easy and entertaining (and brings snacks), but was mostly a waste of time (definitely don’t take more than one McNealy class – they are all the same)

Corporate Valuation – As a non-finance person I took this thinking it would be good background in corp val for consulting. But Holthausen is way too technical and basically teaches nitty gritty accounting. A lot of people liked it if they had a strong accounting/IB background (even if he tells you on the first day that the course is not for people with valuation experience). I’ve heard the other professors are more high-level, but you don’t learn as much.

Joint Marketing / Operations – if you like talking about your feelings, this class is for you. The teacher is really sweet and passionate about the topics, but the course material is limited and cases are repetitive from every other marketing or opim class I’ve taken. It’s required for the major (joint mktg/opim), but I’ve heard a lot of people got out of it just by asking the program office.

MKTG 796 – Retailing – Content is limited. Hoch does a poor job facilitating discussions. You get a lot of stories about people’s personal shopping experiences

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Other General Advice

Cohort H· A Negotiations course is definitely something to take if you can fit it into your schedule; however, you don’t need to pay up for Diamond. He has fun, entertaining stories, but in the end the most value you’ll get from this course is practice, which you get plenty of from any professor. Save your points for Siggelkow.

· Most of the courses offered here at Wharton have interesting and relevant content, so I would focus on taking courses from professors who you like. Take the time to research the professors you’re interested in taking courses from (talk to 2nd years, look them up on Wagat, even stop by their office). They will make a huge difference in how much you learn and how enjoyable your time will be here (except Negotiations).

· Don’t forget the communications classes. They’re only 0.25 credits and really helpful.

Bidding advice:· Bid high for courses you really want, and bid for them in the first round. Classes tend to go for less in Round 1, increase during the middle rounds, then come down toward the end. Base your Round 1 bids on historical prices, then bump them up as much as you are comfortable so that you get what you really want.

Cohort IDefinitely take:

1. Problems in Financial Reporting, with Bushee (fall)… unless you really disliked accounting, this class is excellent and the best class of second year

2. Legal Aspects of Entrepreneurship, with Borghese (fall or spring)

3. Negotiations class – they are easy, worthwhile, and social… I have it with Pope and he is great

Other thoughts:

1. I’ve heard Siggelkow is awesome. Take that. He was on sabbatical for us, which is such a shame.

2. I really enjoyed Entrepreneurship through Acquisition. The professor is not academic, he is a dude off the street, and the content is kind of empty. But working on the project – if you have a good team and a good idea for a project – is really cool.

3. DO NOT TAKE Leading Effective Teams with Mueller. From the 90-minute session that she led during LF training, I could tell she sucks, and people who took her class confirmed it.

4. Nations politics markets is supposed to be fantastic…. Along similar lines, some class by Henisz about “political environment for multinationals / geopolitics” is supposed to be very good.

5. Real estate – if you’re interested in something in real estate, they recommend Sinai for Real estate investments, or Nakahara for Real estate development (he won a teaching award in 2008)

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6. At beginning of year, a lot of people were saying that Urban Fiscal Policy with Inman was going to be good, but I’ve heard a lot of people since then say that it wasn’t good. Rohit will have an opinion.

7. Karthik teaches Enabling Technologies. He might be on sabbatical next year, but if he’s not, that’s worth taking because he’s so money.

ACCT

Cohort BProblems in Fin. Reporting (Bushee) - worth taking for any finance major, highlights a lot of key concepts that are relevant in financial statement analysis. Bushee is fun to sit through, if not overly sarcastic, there is a fair amount of work in this class. I took this with Bushee and it was actually my favorite course at Wharton.

Favorites:* ACCT 742 (Problems with Financial Reporting) with Bushee

* ACCT 897 (Tax Strategy) with Blouin - dry subject matter, but important for people looking to go into finance or PE. I think Blouin is really knowledgeable too. Hardly any work.

Least Favorites:* ACCT 742 (Problems with Financial Reporting) with Defeo - supposedly a great class with Bushee (listed above in favorites), but I got nothing out of it with this guy. No work though.

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BPUB

Cohort BBehavioral Economics: Wolfers. A professor that you either love or hate but is really knowledgeable. The class is a lot of work but very interesting if you are motivated and want to learn about prediction markets. Tends to go very high on the auction.

Cohort EBPUB789 – Neutral, interesting discussion on economies of developing nations but Pack talks a lot

BPUB720 – Thumbs Up, Wolfers is a different guy in this behavior econ class, interesting topics (e.g., predictive markets, sports betting), readings are dense, but ok amount of work

BPUB720 – Thumbs Up… Prediction Markets/Behavioral Economics class with Wolfers, who I know you have had experience with. He is really in his element in this class and makes the class very engaging, in addition to being pretty much the foremost expert worldwide.

Cohort H

Favorites:· BPUB 789 Nations Politics and Markets – Professor Pack is a veteran of the World Bank and global markets. Class is non-conventional, interesting and learned a bunch. For more info, ask Rai.

· BPUB Behavioral Econ – Unique class, got to like Prof Wolfers or you will hate the class.

FNCE

Cohort BACF (Goldstein) - really good professor, broad class that has a lot of case writeups due, but worth taking, likely even for non-majors. I had another Professor and liked the course as well for similar reasons. ACF is the class I would probably recommend everyone to take because the topics discussed is knowledge companies will take for granted from us having gone to Wharton.

Funding Investments (Hauswald) - awful professor, too many assignments (problem sets and cases) and not terribly useful material. I had a different visiting professor and didn't gain much from the class. Our workload was definitely less intense though. Not very useful material, combined with awful prof, not recommended.

Real Estate Inv. (Ferriera) - good class with practical knowledge, even for non-majors. People that took Sinai really enjoyed him as well, but for fewer points I think Ferriera is a good value.

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Estate Planning (Hallman) - big lecture based class taught in G06. It's pretty much a primer on personal finance and is useful, but so lecture based it's too boring for me to attend that often. Still information that's worth knowing and almost no work required for the course.

Investment Mgmt. (Keim) - terrible class, overly quantitative, feels like an undergrad course.

Favorites:* FNCE 728 (Corp Val) with Holthausen - most people want to take this with Wessels, but I thought Holthausen was really good and probably only 1/3rd of the points! Downside is that it's quite a lot of work.

* FNCE 750 (VC) with Yasuda - another hard class, lots of work, but I think the professor is quite good (also, Metrick will no longer be teaching after this year).

Least Favorites:* FNCE 725 (Fixed Income) with Duffee - really hard, not very useful, and a sh*tload of work

* FNCE 738 (Funding Investments) with Musto - subject matter is moderately interesting, but Prof doesn't stimulate much interest.

* FNCE 751 (Finance of Buyouts & Acquisitions) - Not as interesting as title suggests. Way too much subjective, theoretical stuff and very little focus on LBO modeling; prof is a nice guy but not engaging.

Cohort EFNCE602 (Siegel) – Thumbs Up, worth the points, interesting market analysis portion every class which is also open to non-registered people

FNCE726 – Neutral. Serves purpose in going in depth about finance topics at nice pace, 5-6 case write-ups and two tests. I had Sigurdsson, who was not a good professor, so class itself was boring.

FNCE602 (Asher) – Neutral, A good alternative if you don’t/can’t pay the points for Siegel. More formulaic teaching style, but does a pretty good job of relating material to the real world.

FNCE721 – Neutral, Good overall class and important for real estate majors. Not overly taxing. Neutral on Wong. Have heard more praise around Linneman and Sinai.

FNCE726 (Goldstein) – Thumbs Up, Goldstein is a solid professor in this section. Great all around FNCE class. Some say it is a great class for future bankers. Taught as one lecture then on group case (LBO, DCF, Cash Flow, Cost of Capital, etc.), repeated 8-10 times.

FNCE728 – Thumbs Up, Another great class for bankers. Holthausen’s section is tough, but worth it if you’re into this stuff (tons of minutia around cash flows, different valuation methodologies, etc). Others are reportedly easier, but less robust.

FNCE750 – Neutral (Wong), Thumbs Up (Wessels), Have heard EXCELLENT things about Wessels (one of the marquee professors at Wharton, but expensive). Yasuda is more dry, less applicable to reality and not overall recommended. If you can pay for Wessels, it’ll pay off.

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FNCE751 – Thumbs Down, Savor is dry and not engaging. The course content has potential, but falls short of inspiring.

FNCE726 (Goldstein) – Awesome. Another of my favorite classes here as prof was good and provided general overview of corp finance concepts. Not sure how people feel about other profs as they can be less stimulating and also mandate even more case work.

FNCE/REAL721 – Not so good. Wait to take this with Sinai as he is much better than the professor I had.

FNCE750--another of my favorite classes at Wharton. Wessels is an amazing prof. I don’t have a big interest in VC so I don’t find the subject matter terribly exciting, but Wessels makes the class great (I would not take the class with any of the other profs as you can just read Metrick's book). Wessels brings a strategic approach to valuation which makes this finance class teach you to think in new ways, rather than just learning finance formulas. Take any class Wessels teaches, regardless of the cost.

Cohort H

Favorites:· FNCE 726 ACF with Prof. Goldstein—kind of a basic Wharton class if you are interested in learning the fundamentals of finance, but I would recommend taking with Goldstein. He is organized, comprehensive, not as organized as Prof. Allen from FNCE601 but certainly much more organized than other Wharton profs. Good basic material.

Hated:· FNCE 738—Funding Investments—very tedious and detailed. If you enjoy finding bond term structures, using the yield curve, calculating options values, etc. then you will enjoy. A very technical course for someone pursuing a finance career as opposed to the casual financier who just wants to make sure they have some of the general concepts down. We had a visiting professor this year who was not very good, but I hear the usual Wharton guy, Hauswald, is not so great either.

Cohort I* FNCE 750 (VC and Finance of Innovation) - Wessels is a good professor (I sat in on his class all of Q1 last semester and he was engaging). Yasuda is good in that you learn the material but it’s a little drier (seems more quantitative)

* FNCE 731 (ICF) – Marston is an awful professor. I didn’t learn anything in that class, and his notes are terrible.

* FNCE 726 (ACF) – Great class. Cases take a long time, but you learn a lot. Goldstein is a great professor.

MGMT

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Cohort BSports Business (Rosner) - great class, very little work, really interesting. All lecture based, Rosner knows everything about sports

Corporate Governance (Bidwell) - interesting case base class with a lot of discussion. Some reading required, but only one project due at the end

Negotiations (Brandt) - Brandt is incredibly laid back, our workload is much lighter than other negotiations classes. Interesting sports slant as he was an agent, overall I really enjoyed him. I would strongly recommend Diamond since I took it with another prof and hardly got anything out of the class.

Entrepreneurship (Hsu) - A pretty interesting class with a good professor. The only deliverable is a group business plan and presentation due at the end. The class started strong for me but tailed off a little towards the end of the quarter. Definitely worth taking though if you think you might want to start a business some day. Very interesting readings.

Entrepreneurship Through Acquisitions (Chalfin) - I wouldn't recommend taking this course unless you need an easy management half credit. Chalfin is mostly a story teller and you don't really learn anything of significant value but it is an easy class. Agree, waste of time.

Strategic Implementation (Hrebiniak) - This class has not lived up to the expectations I had for it. I feel the material is redundant with other classes in many instances and that some classes tend to really drag. Sometimes the case discussions are interesting though and Hrebiniak's jokes can be funny if you haven't taken one of his classes before. If you have, then be prepared to hear the same jokes and stories again.

***If Sigglekow is back next year then I would recommend taking one of his classes if you can. He is supposed to be a great professor but also probably a bit harder than most in terms of cold calling and calling people out for BS comments.

* MGMT 871 (Multinational Business Strategy) with Berry - this is basically advanced global strategy. Very interesting material, great cases and relevant articles, fun simulation exercise across a 6 week period where you run your own business - much better than SABRE. There is a lot of work required (3 individual case write-ups, 3 simulation strategy write-ups, 1 group case write-up) but definitely a tremendous course in developing one's ability to think big picture and globally. No final. The professor is quirky -keeps me awake in class.

* MGMT 671 (Executive Leadership) with Stew Friedman - this is based on his concept of Total Leadership and integrating your four domains (self, work/school, social/community, family) so you are more effective in life. Most transformational class I have taken at Wharton. Requires a fair bit of self-reflection. Lots of work up front but lessens greatly in the second half of the semester. Would recommend for everyone if you're open to it.

* MGMT/OPIM 691 (Negotiations) with visiting professor - great class and useful regardless of what you want to do in life. Doesn't matter who the professor is since you learn the various concepts and techniques with all professors. Diamond will have better anecdotes but you practice similar negotiations (so it depends on how you learn best - through stories or experientially). Bid high in first round if you want Diamond - almost impossible to get after Round 1.

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* MGMT 701 (Strategy) with Siggelkow - one of the best classes I've taken at Wharton. A must-take for aspiring consultants. Really hones your big picture thinking and applies frameworks to deepen your analysis of problems. Siggelkow was a tremendous professor but is on sabbatical this coming year. Would still be worth taking if content is similar with a half decent professor.

* MGMT 721 (M&A - Corporate Dev't) with Singh - interesting class with good cases. Professor is funny and usually interesting. Fair amount of reading (usually a case and maybe 1 - 3 articles per class) but only one 20 page paper (rough draft and final) due during the whole semester - work in groups of 4.

* MGMT 811 (Entrepreneurship via Acquisition) with Chalfin - somewhat useful readings but professor was dry and not the best at facilitating discussions. Final project is picking a company to acquire and doing a comprehensive analysis. Go into the class with a company in mind - otherwise you spend a ton of time finding a company and it's difficult to do a thorough analysis in the 6 week period. (one of the least favorites)

Cohort EMGMT801 – Thumbs Up, great overview of entrepreneurship

MGMT811 – Neutral, practical but not terribly intriguing

MGMT701 – Thumbs Down (if it is with visiting professor don’t take it, recommended if Siggelkow is back)

MGMT810 – Neutral, interesting guest speakers and nice to have forum to talk about social entrepreneurship; however MacMillan is not an engaging professor (aka grumpy)

MGMT751 – Thumbs Up, MacDuffie is ok (not great discussion facilitator). HR topics covered were interesting (e.g., talent models, culture, incentives, etc.). Lot of reading, but few actual assignments. Useful later in career.

MGMT833 – Family business class. Great class. Strong all around. Prof is Alexander, a former family businessman with strong credentials and who can keep the class lively. Very interesting.

MGMT801 – Awesome class, one of the best I have taken at Wharton. Dushnitsky was awesome, but I am told Hsu is even better. Decent amount of work, but cases are all relevant and current and "cool" (Crunch gym, Nantucket Nectars, Zipcar, etc).

MGMT811 – Not good. Do not take. Enough said.

MGMT804--this class was ok. The professor, Sammut, had an interesting style to teach as he used one case study which built upon itself each week--this "case" (it was semi-fictional) was used as the basis for weekly assignments and weekly lectures. Again, I found it tough to stay awake as it was late on Monday afternoons.

Cohort H

Favorites:· MGMT 690, Managerial Decision Making – I loved how Enrico, a visiting teacher from INSEAD, taught this course, but I imagine it would still be good even without him. Class combines some statistics with psychology

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with behavioral economics. Very interesting and useful in the long-run to help you identify traps in your own decision-making process. Applies to all careers and contexts.

· MGMT 701, Strategy and Competitive Advantage – Loved the content, hated the professor. Good news is Siggelkow is coming back to teach this course next year. With him teaching it, this is a must take class for anyone!

· MGMT 871 Multinational Management– great class amazing teacher! For details as Rai.

· MGMT801 Entrepreneurship—took this with the first-semester teacher and really enjoyed. It takes all the concepts you learn in the core and just applies them to entrepreneurial contexts in particular. A different perspective on your traditional business concepts. Some interesting speakers, too.

· MGMT 671, Total Leadership – One of the best courses I’ve taken at Wharton, and without a doubt the most life changing (I’m not saying that lightly). Plus, you get to see Stew Friedman much more relaxed and approachable.

· MGMT 721 Corp Dev M&A—BEST class BEST teacher! Chaudhuri is very concise, can move a case discussion and actually seems to make work somewhat enjoyable. Was offered in the fall in 2008 but this year will be offered in Spring 2010.

Hated:· MGMT 714—American Business History—Professor is really not that good. He really tries and the workload is actually fairly light, readings are somewhat interesting, but 3 hours of class is just painful. The class lacks structure. It is a weird history class in that he never really lectures about dates, timelines, etc. We just do readings, usually primary sources (sometimes boring legal contracts), and then have discussion but since none of us are grounded in the general history the discussion is usually pretty bad.

· MGMT 740, Leading Effective Teams – Stay as far away from this course as you can, especially if Jen Mueller is teaching it!! It started out good, but then at about the half-way point (well after the drop deadline, unfortunately) it all went downhill fast. Talk to Jeff Wilen if you don’t believe me.

Cohort I* MGMT 801 – Hsu is a good professor. Great class to take and the cases are pretty recent and interesting. You basically write a business plan in this class.

* MGMT 804 (Venture Capital and Entrepreneurial Management) – Sammut is a good professor. The class is 3 hours on Monday late afternoons so it can be tough to stay engaged, but he knows his material, has industry experience, and you learn more of the management side of what VC’s do (due diligence, term sheets, etc).

* MGMT 810 (Societal Wealth Venturing) – Class takes a look at creating ventures that are both profitable and provide social wealth. Great speakers who actually start these enterprises. Note that most of the class is undergraduates, but there are usually 10 – 12 MBAs who take it.

MKTG

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Cohort BConsumer Behavior (Niedermier) - fun light class that feels more like a psych class than a marketing class. You don't need the book and the lectures are enough for you to do well, 3 light classes are all that are due in the course. Very entertaining and you do get some insights from the class although not very practical ones.

Pricing Policy (Zhou) - good class that rehashes a number of concepts from other classes in the core. Zhou (maybe Zhang, I don't remember) is pretty funny and there are a couple of cases due but the workload is reasonable. I did not learn much from this class.

New Product Mgmt (McNealy) - McNealy's classes are all pretty entertaining and easy, very little actual work due and he brings snacks to every class. His jokes do get pretty repetitive though, so after 6 weeks you'll be ready to get out of the class.

Models for marketing: (Peres) heavy workload, professor was not very good but for people going into Marketing the class gives you very good modern tools that are easily applicable.

Hated:* MKTG 773 (Consumer Behavior) with Bolton - moderately interesting, though I didn't take much away from this. Not much work. Friends who had Neidhemaier (sp?) loved this class, however. Very psychologically-based - not quantitative.

* MKTG 753 (New Product Dev't) with Eliashberg - the class was fine and required very little work (about 30 minutes a week beyond class until the final project, which was fairly simple). Very basic concepts so I don't feel like I learned a lot. Might be good for those with no marketing experience who need an easy class but not that exciting.

* MKTG classes with McNealy: McNealy teaches three marketing classes - multinational mktg, advertising, and new product dev't. He teaches all three classes in a similar manner with similar content so would recommend taking only one of his classes. He is amusing, easy, and doesn't require a lot of work, however.

Cohort EMKTG754 – Thumbs Up, pricing is useful and Zhang is fun

MTKG756 – Thumbs Up, required for marketing major, a stat heavy class, Zauberman recommended

MKTG777 – Thumbs Up, pending professor. Jap was great (visiting professor from Emory). Relevant, timely topics (search engine marketing, digital media, social media, B2B, etc.). Recommend shopping first to test prof.

MKTG782 – Thumbs Down, McNealy is a bad professor in my opinion. Class lacks depth and new content, more MKTG101 for the undergrads than multinational marketing for MBA, discussion drags with undergrads

MKTG773—Thumbs Up, audited class with Niedermeier (good lectures), fun, interesting, about consumer psychology

MKTG755--ok. Class is fun and McNealy is certainly a character that brings a lot to the table. However, I don’t feel like it has been very relevant for me. Only recommended to mktg majors or anyone that thinks they will ever have to interact with an ad agency.

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MKTG773—fun class that touches on social psychology. Very little work. Though lectures can get a little long, class discussion is usually pretty enjoyable.

Cohort H

Favorites:· MKTG 753 New Product Development—Prof. McNealy is a veteran from J&J. The class is pretty easy so take it if you need some credits and are somewhat interested in marketing. The cases were interesting but not particularly well discussed, but good stories. Two group projects are not that hard. Best part of the class is that it seems to combine every marketing concept into one class, so actually is a good “overall” marketing class. He teaches multinational marketing, too, so only take one or the other because I hear that he repeats stories. He brings food to every class!

Cohort IProfessors:

* Do not take anything with Professor Di Benedetto. He may be “easy” i.e. his classes don’t require that much work, but he’s an awful professor and I didn’t learn anything in his class (Entrepreneurial Marketing for example).

* Professor McNealy is pretty good, entertaining. But I’m told all of his classes are kind of the same (I took New Product Marketing)

* Professor Iyenger is great for Marketing Research. The class is very statistics heavy and requires a fair bit of work, but he explains the concepts well.

So, professors I really liked are Zauberman and McNeilly. Jap is decent. Peres, Renana did not impress me and is to be avoided.

MKTG 756 Marketing Research - I really like this class. I think that Zauberman is great, if you can take him. MKTG 753 New Product Management Will it be McNeily? He is great, I really enjoy him. You won't learn a ton of concete stuff, but you will learn and he's fun to listen to. MKTG 754 Pricing Policy - Yes, great to know. Professor Zhang is really knowledgeable and good at teaching it. MKTG 755 Advertising Management - Not convinced of this class, good, but it's not leaving me with many take aways. MKTG 771 Models in Marketing Strategy - Not sure, but I did have a marketing models class with Peres and it was one of my least favorite classes at Wharton. MKTG 777 Marketing Strategy - Jap is good, not awesome, but good. I think this class is worth it. MKTG 892 Creativity - No idea.

OPIM

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Cohort BDecision support systems: Hill: course that is methods of data mining. I think I did not get anything applicable from the course although it does give you new skills that hypothetically you could use in very specific situations. Not very recommendable.

* OPIM / MGMT 690 (Managerial Decision-Making) with Uri Simonsohn: loved this class - super-interesting (his aim is "1/1/infinity" meaning he teaches you 1 thing every class that you remember for the rest of your life), almost no work. I think this should be required in the Core!

* OPIM 651 (Innovation) with Karl Ulrich: super-interesting class for thinking about starting a new business (Ulrich is also the man in this field); medium work-load, though what you do is really interesting (develop and evaluate new biz opportunities).

* OPIM 653 (Financial Engineering) with Katalan - incredibly complex and technical subject matter, but really interesting and Ziv is a great teacher. I took Pass / Fail which entails almost no work.

Cohort EOPIM692--class is between ok and good. Fisher is really knowledgeable on retail and guest speakers are really entertaining. However, undergrads really detract from class experience as they insist on talking about trivial shopping experiences.

OPIM 691--class is good and fun. Haselhuhn is a young professor who makes the class entertaining. (but he could do a better job at cutting off derailing conversations). Diamond is obviously supposed to be the best, not sure about any other professors.

OPIM653—awesome class, but very hard. Problem sets take a LONG time. Ziv teaches with same energy and passion that he taught the core.

Cohort H· OPIM 665 Ops Management in Health Care—Great professor, for details ask Raimundo.

REAL

Cohort EREAL821--Ok, part of the RE requirement. All RE majors should def. wait until next spring to take this class and hope that Nakahara teaches it (although, he does make you do a lot of work).

REAL840—awesome class, but lots of work—5 interesting cases which can be very time consuming. Real Estate majors should def. take, I encourage others interested to take as well. I have learned more in Gyourko’s class than all other Wharton real estate classes that I have taken combined.

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Cohort I* REAL 721 (Real Estate Investments) – Sinai is worth the points. You will get a general overview of real estate finance, the terms, and different types of real estate properties, learn how to value them, modeling, etc. Cases and exams are hard, but you learn a lot.

WHCP

Cohort BCrisis Communication (Warshaw) - I really enjoyed the practice this class gave, and it allows you to practice your public speaking under a variety of settings. Warshaw is really pretty good and very sweet. I Agree.

Cohort EWHCP899 – Thumbs Up, practical advanced persuasion class with media training (teleprompter!)

Other

Cohort BPortuguese for Spanish Speakers: amazing course, lots of work and depends a lot on the teacher you get assigned to.

Photography I: Lots of work, you spend many hours in the dark room but very interesting if you like photography.

I am adding here the recommendations that were given to me last year:

Favorites:* GAFL 502 (Public Speaking for Government and Nonprofit Leaders) - through the FELS School. If you are interested in taking any of the communications classes - you will need to bid on them first round. They go for a lot of points and are nearly impossible to get in after Round 1 of the auction. A friend of mine is taking a public speaking class at FELS which is actually taught by a Wharton Communications professor. This one is similar to 653 but a full semester and a great opportunity to practice speaking in different scenarios. To register, go to the MBA Program Office with the course number and give them your name. Syllabus is here: http://www.fels.upenn.edu/Syllabi/GAFL502.pdf

Cohort ELGST809 – If you like sports, you’ll love this class. Professor (Rosner) is great and knows his stuff. The class is fun and a relatively light workload.

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Cohort H· MGEC 899, Financial Crisis – An amazing course that is obviously so relevant. Not every speaker has been great, but most have been, and I’ve learned a ton from this course. I hear they are going to offer it again next year, so keep an eye out for it.

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