Thursday, July 23, 2009

My Fall Class(es?)

I'm still registered for ECO 304L: Intro Macro (#33670), meeting in UTC 2.102A MWF 1-2, but the professor has changed. Apparently Dr. Gervais couldn't stand the heat so he got out of the kitchen. Er, Texas.

The class will now be taught by Michael Sadler, who, according to the Course-Instructor Survey (CIS), is the bee's knees. But more importantly, it looks like he's exclusively taught ECO 322: Money and Banking for the last several years, which could make his Macro class especially relevant to the current economic crisis. (See my last post for The Economist's take on how economics and finance should interrelate.)

I'm also on the waitlist for ECO 330T: Health Economics (#33830), which could be very interesting given the current debate about health care. The session meets in UTC 3.132 MWF 11-12 and is taught by Helen Schneider who also got high CIS marks from previous students.

As of today, I'm number six out of nine on the list. I have no idea what that says about my chances of adding the class, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

What Went Wrong with Economics

From What went wrong with economics in The Economist:

2909LD1.png
Economists need to reach out from their specialised silos: macroeconomists must understand finance, and finance professors need to think harder about the context within which markets work. And everybody needs to work harder on understanding asset bubbles and what happens when they burst. For in the end economists are social scientists, trying to understand the real world. And the financial crisis has changed that world.

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

UT Fall 2009 iCal/Google Calendar

ut-cal.png The Registrar has posted the Fall Semester 2009 academic calendar. But since it's in a format that's not terribly useful, I've created a public Google calendar with the same information.

If you have a Mac and use iCal, you can subscribe to it by clicking this link: If you use Google Calendar, just click here:
Classes begin August 26!