Course Selection Update with some Risk Assessment and Zammcom

                Hello everyone. As course selection is fast-approaching, I am finding myself drawn back again and again to the course list page to see if upperclassmen are filling up the classes I want. Class selection starts with seniors, followed by juniors, sophomores, and finally freshmen. So far I’m safe, but it’s definitely more and more stressful every day. As a slight change in my course list, my first choices are Psychology 101, Economics 010, and Managerial Communications. Obviously I will need a fourth course, but I’m trying to be flexible depending on how quickly courses fill up. I’m looking at multiple English, sociology, and philosophy courses. Next week should be awesome.

                The slight change is Economics 010 which is a requirement if I want to get an accelerated master’s degree in management. Clark University offers several programs in which you can get your master’s degree and bachelor’s degree all in five years. Accelerated master’s students will begin taking their master’s classes in their senior year of undergrad. Another cool perk is that at Clark, the fifth year is free tuition. It doesn’t get much better than that. To learn more, you should check out Dylan’s blog. He is a senior here who is currently working on his accelerated master’s.

Reproduced chart from Chapter 4 of my Environmental Science book

                Aside from that, this week has been generally uneventful. My classes haven’t been doing anything out of the ordinary. What I thought was interesting, however, was the discussion we had in environmental science today. We discussed the risks of certain behaviors. For example, there is a risk factor of one in a million from consuming forty tablespoons of peanut butter. This is because there is a natural pesticide that in given amounts, can be harmful to humans. Another interesting fact from class today is that it is more risky to be a farmer than to drive a car. To the right of this blog is a table with a few risk factors you may find interesting. The table is from my textbook and then are several others, but I thought this was the coolest one.

                At last, I am finally going to talk about the management project. I have been promising this for two weeks now and I am ready to tell you the details. In my group of five people, we have created an imaginary company in an online simulation in which we are creating and selling computers. The multiple groups in our class are in competition to see which company can be most successful. My group decided to name our company Zammcom. It’s a pretty awesome name and we thought it would be taken seriously by the computer industry.

                There were several decisions which needed to be made in our first week. The main decision was what kinds of computers to produce. Our options are “workhorse, traveler, and mercedes.” These, respectively, are computers for the average worker, a consumer on the go, and a consumer who wants high-end technology. Our group decided to appeal to the traveler and mercedes groups. We named our computers Zammportable and Zammpremium. Other decisions which were made consisted of how many computers to make each day, what features to have in each computer, where to market, and many other specifics. It’s a really cool project because it allows us to conceptualize and make decisions from a company perspective. We’ve been learning different methods all year, but now we actually have the opportunity to apply them. So far, our group is in second place out of five. Wish us luck and I’ll update you on our progress next time!