What a semester!

From optimization models to monte carlo simulations, the learning was great and the multitude of aha moments made decision modeling one of the best classes I have ever taken. How do I determine what I mean by class ever taken? In my life as a student, there are 4 classes which I define as the best(I am sure there are others but they do not pass the best criteria):

1996 - 1997: English Literature, Girls Preparatory School, Mr. Todd Wells
2000: Sociology of Religion, Dr. Leonard Pinto
2000: Writing & Rhetoric, Dr. Anna Macbriar
2007: Decision Modeling, Dr. Patrick Noonan

How did I come up with the list?

First? I look at what I value in a class...an environment that embraces all ideas and thoughts, the goal of the class is to help the student to learn to think not necessarily to learn information, work-ethic and student engagement are the keys to success (the class teaches discipline in thinking - like training for a marathon).

So, my fundamental objective in a classroom is to maximize the process of understanding the granular aspects of life and to be able to apply these aspects to the ordinary aspects of life.

How am I going to evaluate if I achieved this in a classroom?

• Quality of classroom experience (10%)
• diversity of exercises in the class
  
• Rating of (good, bad, ok) of actual topics and discussions
  
• Quality of work assignments (10%)
• Freedom in work assignment (did the assignment feel like I would want to do this whether or not a grade was assigned?)
  
• Difficulty of work assignments (20%)
• # of hours spent on the class outside of class
• Disciplined thinking required for the assignment
  
• Availability of the professor (10%)
  
• Amount of dialogue in the classroom and one-on-one with the professor
• Long-term value of the course (50%)
  
• Number of times I reference the class per year
  

Although decision modeling has not quite yet met the long-term value standard for the assessment - I have no doubt that it will.

The purpose of the class was to teach the student how to think. Yes, the tools we learned were cool and supported are learning but the learning was really in the doing. For example, our final project looked at the Atlanta Water Crisis and how to help the parties involved make decisions on how to get Atlanta out of the water crisis. We spent 3 hours a day * 5 days a week for 3 weeks not building models separately but researching, discussing, modeling, and listening to eachother just begin to scratch the service of the problem. What we learned is that the model and the numbers are just there to help us understand pieces of the problem and understand how to look at the problem but just as valuable is to be able to have a robust understanding of all the players in a problem, their needs, their logic and how to synthesize it into your own point of view and values that drive decisions.

It was remarkable and life changing. The rest of this blog is dedicated to other points along the way where I was able to go outside of the Emory campus and understand some of the most complex problems in the world.