Today I had my first class in the second half-term: Judgment/Uncertainty and Decision Making. This course is a predecessor and pre-requisite for more advanced and, I assume, more quantitatively rigorous course Data Analysis and Decision.
I actually liked the professor’s approach quite a bit, because it was in stark contrast with my Financial Accounting classroom experience.
Professor did a ground breaking work, and laid conceptual foundation of the subject matter. The lecture consisted of two parts:
First was about general theories and commonly accepted models in the science of Decision Making. Some basic terms and concepts like biases, heuristic decision making, comparison of Classical, Administrative, Political models in making decision.
There were two ideas I took a notice of:
- Problem solving and Decision making is not the same thing
- To be constantly aware about your own personal biases in decision making
As a matter of fact, professor said about the second idea, that if we forget all specific formulas after finishing the course, this is the one idea he wanted us to take and remember from the course.
The first part was quite enlightening and somewhat entertaining. I even got fooled by it into thinking that this course will be all like that – kind of soft subject. I thought that may be the successive course would hit on the math, and this one would stay on a fuzzier side.
The second part, however, was moving into more quant, it was introducing Descriptive Statistics. Basically we were shown the very basics of statistics, and tools and methods we would have to use in the course, such as creating histograms, pivot tables, measures of central tendency and variability (median, mean, standard deviation – well rehearsed and practiced during preparation for GMAT, but vaguely remembered by now).
And even this mathematical stuff, including some formulas, was presented in non-threatening way even for a poet like myself.
All in all, I think I will like this course a lot. I have liked statistics ever since my middle school years. Not that I was using any statistical methods or tools, but I have always liked to look at statistical data, statistical diagrams, tried to make prognosis based on the trends etc. Of course, it has been very amateurish, but now I will learn something more substantial for statistical analysis.
By the way, the section of this blog My MBA stats had been planned before I even knew about the content of this class. Just an example of my inclination to statistics.
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