S|O|C Course Survey Results

1
SOC Course Survey Results

• April 21, 2005

2
Survey Methodology

• 32 Respondents
• Courses divided into four categories
• Operations
• Management (including Strategy)
• Statistics
• Information Systems
• Courses rated from 1 (Awful) to 5 (Excellent)

3
Operations Management
Average Score
4.5 3.5 4.0
3.5 3.5
4
Operations Management (cont.)
Comments

• Definitely take Supply Chain with Seshadri and
  Decision Models with Juran. I recommend taking
  Decision Models as early as possible so you can
  use the skills in other classes
• Supply Chain was useful and full of practical
  uses
• Supply Chain was one of the most disappointing
  courses I have taken. It is organized poorly and
  there is little educational value above the core
  operations class
• Service Ops Strategy is a hidden gem! Very
  relevant to all sorts of disciplines
• Decision Models (and Juran) is awesomeIf you
  are not a whiz at Excel, definitely take
  Decisions Models
• Decision models is valuable for people with
  limited excel experience looking to expand it.
  It's best for intermediate users. Too advanced
  for beginners and too redundant for experts

5
Management
Average Score
4.5 4.1 4.3
5.0 4.3
6
Management (cont.)

• The rest

7
Management (cont.)
Comments

• Anderson is really good. I like the way
  Brandenburger teaches his class because you can
  see how much he loves the subject. But if you
  want lively interaction, it's not for you.
• Competitive Strategies in the Marketplace was a
  great course, the project gets you very involved
  and forces you to think like a high level manager
• While Power Politics had interesting cases,
  discussions and topics seemed to be common sense
• Managing Growing Companies is one of the best
  courses I've taken. It's very practical and
  combines everything else you learn in business
  school. Managing High Performance Teams has
  potential, but falls short a bit.
• Negotiations is a great class -- everyone should
  take it.
• Cameron Anderson will soon be our Damodaran for
  Management
• Shapira's managerial decision making is a sleeper
  class. When I took it, it was all part-timers.
  It's very interesting and a pretty light
  workload.
• Take Cameron Anderson if possible for Conflict
  Negotiation and Power Politics

8
Statistics

• Few respondents
• of Respondents Avg. Score
• Regression Multivariate Analysis 4 4.3
• Mathematics of Investment 4 4.5
• Applied Stochastic Processes 1 3.0

Comments

• Mathematics of Investment was the best course I
  have taken at Stern. Highly recommended to
  everyone, especially finance majors.
• Simonoff and Tenenbein are great stats
  professors! Don't underestimate the value of
  being able to perform robust regression/data
  analysis.

9
Information Systems

• Few respondents
• of Respondents Average Score
• Managing the Digital Firm 2
  2.0
• Adv. Tech for Business 2 2.5
• Data Mining 1 3.0
• Financial Info. Systems 1 4.0

Comments

• The courses have been pretty bad
• I only took managing the digital firm. It is an
  OK class. The readings are interesting, but the
  professor has a hard time controlling the
  discussion. It often goes off on tangents, away
  from the general topic. The topics get shuffled
  or pushed off. Also, it seems like many of the
  part-timers in the class are IT professionals. As
  a classmate put it, it's like having CPA's in an
  Intro-accounting class.

10
Overall Favorites