The profs.. the good, bad and ugly

Here comes the details on Profs. The best teachers that I saw all came from Michaelmas term. I dunno why. If any of the teachers are reading this, please accept my sincere apologies for breaking many hearts. I just mean to give a honest picture the new ones…and hey, read my disclaimers from the previous post.

Mich term:

The best ones:
Thomas Powell, who teaches Strategy, is the first great teacher I will mention anywhere. Many of us recorded his teaching; I took notes on anything he said. He is great strategist and draws from his personal experiences. I liked the way he started his classed with some Question or something and then kept it under control. James Taylor is a great teacher. As much as Statistics was complicated. He made it very easy and fun to learn. His funny quotes and stats at the footer of presentations were most enjoyed. We made fun o him in class, when he rhymes dome (well there is a case on Dome’s probability on having oil) like a British. Some of us took photos with flash and he never objected. Sweet chap. Tomo Suzuki teaches Financial reporting. For some of us, Accounting is like eating medicine... the inevitable. He makes it very simple with his lemonade store example. He even brings lemon to the class. Great guy, who made our money worth. Alex Guembal is not a basic financial guy, economics I suppose. But he teaches the simple finance clearly. Good teacher for finance dumbos like me.

The okay ones:
Laura taught us Organization behaviour (DEM) – 1 – okay types; I cut most of her classes and never regretted :)


Hilary:

The best ones:
The top name that comes to mind is David Arnold who teaches Marketing... great guy, he taught in Harvard and has now become a consultant... Very good method of case handling. I always thought marketing was the cheesy and softy stuff. He made me rethink; marketing is as much creativity and number crunching as finance or strategy. Go prepared with calculations for his class, otherwise you will not benefit. The Operations Management teachers (2 or 3 of them) were all very good. They were innovative in adding new curriculum on the go (they added some on online advertising logistics, which was very informative for me). They also added a few games which got the point very clearly... I loved those games and the lessons learnt.

The normal ones:
TIS teachers (Victor Siedal and Marc Ventresca) are okay types – not bad, but nothing worth noting. They try to add as much material, text in the presentations and sometimes lack correlation between topics. IBGG teachers – there were three teachers who teach international Business and Eric Thun is the best in the lot; he also will teach Business in China in Trinity. So his examples are very lively. The other profs, Dana Brown and Mari Sako – I have never attended their sessions. I was in Dana’s class and slept the first class. Though this will not work and started attending Eric’s class from the second lecture. The Financial management course teachers (Chris Chapman and Niels Dechow) are alright. Chris teaches the first 4 and Neils the last 3 sessions. 5th was a mock exam to get people hands on the problems – a major waste of time. Both were alright, but nothing was revealing or very interesting. I missed studying macro economics from Oren Sussman, but have heard he is a great teacher. The other elective, Marketing and Culture, was taken by Linda Scott. I didn’t attend her class, but she had invited quite a few practical marketing people from the industry to give a talk. I don’t have other first hand info on her.

Trinity term:

The best:
There were tons of electives and hence profs. I will just talk abt those who come to the top of my mind. Tim Jenkinson taught PE and was applauded by everyone for the way he presented the topic. I attended the restructuring and implementation by Oren Sussman and Duncan Angwin. Oren is a bit complicated and too deep to understand, but is the best in the lot. He simplifies the M&A concepts to simple object game (he loves naming them, A, B C), but it will take a while to like him and appreciate him. Strategic decision making was taken by Brad Killaly, from the US UCI University. Great guy, but he was constrained by quite a lot of Oxford rules. His games and explanations were good. He even spent around an hour and helped me lay my personal career on a Sat. Marketing innovation is taken by Laura cousins from LBS. She is a great teacher and makes learning enjoyable. She included marks for presentation, which I liked very much (and we got the top marks too!).

Now follows the subjects that I didn’t take, but heard from friends. Corporate evaluation was taught by some McKinsey visiting profs and it was very well appreciated all over. Celin rochon took a couple of financial subjects (Risk Mgt and one more). My friends who took the subject, she would basically read fro the presentation and is best skipped. By Trinity you would have your hands full that you need extra time anyways. Entrepreneurial finance was taught by the MBA director (Stephan chambers) and Stephen Duckett – My friends said good things abut these profs too.

The Okay ones:
Doug Holt teaches branding. He is one of those Profs who is great subject matter expert, but cannot run teach proficiently. He calls his course as Branding, but actually it is cultural branding – a weird concept which is his own finding. This is an advanced branding concept and great technique for companies that have money to spend. But, I was looking to learn basic Branding techniques and was greatly disappointed in his class. Most companies appreciate him and laud him; some student did too. I and my friends could not. Enterprenuerial and technology ventures (ETV) was taken by Victor siedal and the comments above (in Hilary) would apply. Eamonn Molloy took the Portfolio subject for us. A nice guy, but is not a great teacher. Well, he is not a teacher at all; he is more into organizing other speakers, games and stuff. But he makes it easy for the students to score marks, which may not be great thing in the long term.

until the next one on the actual electives to take, miss and audit... Ciao.