I am now a good quarter-old at the GSB. Having taken the following courses, here is what I thought of the professors.
Prof. Kevin Murphy (Advanced Microeconomics)
While this is a tough course to be ‘baptized’ with at the GSB, I highly recommend taking this course with Kevin. A totally no-nonsense professor, goes into real-world problems in his homework sets. Learning from him is like learning from an experienced consultant. He covers the basic micro stuff in about 6 weeks and then goes in to anti-trust, mergers, cartels justifying the course moniker. While its easy to spend eternity doing his homework sets, its absolutely essential attending the TA session. The sessions feel god-send when you have spent a lot of hours on the homework sets and/or badly need closure to your work on these sets. (I learnt a lot from the TA sessions and without hesitation give ‘two thumbs WAY up’ for the TA). Bottom line: Be prepared to spend a lot of time and do take this intensive course during your stint at the GSB. If you have something going on the side, you may not be able to devote a lot of time to it. If you are planning to have a baby: drop it ! (the course, not the baby).
I would not have taken this course had I not got the fraternity treatment from one of my seniors. This senior pretty much sold me to taking this course under Murphy saying he got an A being an arts major. Ah.. i fell into the trap. Though I did not get an A on this course, I felt it was a truly transforming experience.
Prof. Hoyt Bleakley (Basic Microeconomics)
Contrary to what my seniors told me about him, I found him a very professional and intelligent professor. He goes the textbook route and explains everything as per the text but what segregates him is his flawless diction. Newly inducted into the GSB, his impeccable technical translation lends him to be very succinct in what he says and may be the cause of why some students say what they say about him. Most of us are used to learning by rote and by examples (yours truly included), but Hoyt is very precise with his diction and unless you are not used to his style, you will find yourself asking him to repeat himself or solicit an example to drill in the concept.
Prof. Roman Weil (Accounting)
He is the Paris Hilton of the GSB. You either love him or you hate him. There is no fuzzy factor in warming up to him. He has been serving as a faculty for about 26 or so years, and was recalled from retirement to teach one more year (as per folklore). Although he too dabbles in consulting on the ’side’ (again as per folklore), his class is devoid of real world examples. The only examples he talks about are from his textbook which is a tome in itself. The textbook in itself has a very weird aspect ratio and is unnecessarily wordy . He is strictly focussed on just drilling the basic concepts of some oft-repeated terms by cold-calling on students. Unless you have had some accounting background in the past, be prepared to put in a lot of hours for this course. Do not worry you will get ample time to pick your choice of expletives going through the textbook or the solutions manual. If only he could provide the students with an electronic copy of the solutions manual instead of us lugging the 14+ Pt font manual.
