Procrastination!
This final would be much easier to study for if I had any clue what it would look like. The midterm was clear: she gave us a case the week before, we got to read it and write all over it, she gave us questions to answer. 90 minutes, all standard. Hard, but also exactly what she told us to expect when she talked us through the format. The final, on the other hand, is a mystery. The syllabus says this: "During finals week, there will be an in-class closed book 3 hour exam consisting of case-like questions. Questions will mainly, but not exclusively, cover the 3rd part of the course. You are allowed to bring up to one single sided page (8 1/2 x 11) of notes".
To supplement that she sent an email on Monday: "As it says in the syllabus, you are allowed one (single sided) page of notes for the final. Good luck, Marianne".

I envision a few basic scenarios:
option 1) we are given a medium length case and told to spend 60 minutes (or whatever) reading and taking notes on it. We then are given questions to answer about that case (this was the structure of a final for a class I took last year).
option 2) we are asked several short format questions, I can imagine the following: "identify some key strategy a firm can adopt to inhibit entry by new firms"; "what, in the context of this course, is a war of attrition?"; "When should a firm decide to "make" instead of "buy"?"; "What is difference between a Cournot model and a Bertrand model game?"etc. These would then be followed by a medium length case to analyze
option 3) a couple short answers, a couple mini cases
option 4) a couple short answers, a mini case, some questions about cases we analyzed in class or for homework.
option 5) several mini-cases.

Clearly there is a big difference between option #1 and #2 (the others are just minor variations). I suspect (with no basis for believing this except the nature of exam as test of mastery of material) it will be like option 2. In which case my notes need to outline the basic takeaways of every week (leaning toward the 3rd part of the course, which was all game theory). But notes for an option #1 test would be different, focusing more on the lessons we learned from our various case analyses than on the underlying theories.

Frankly my dear, this is not going to be easy. I can BS with the best, but if I make comments that are "devoid of economic theory", I'm hosed. And if I'm supposed to reference the cases we studied in class, I'm double hosed. We did 13 cases. I can remember the basic problem from each of them, and can probably recall all the major lessons, but there's no way I'll remember the details.

The real question is what she means by "case-like" questions. For such a stickler for exactness, that's awfully vague.

Ok, much as I'm stressed about this, writing it all out here actually makes it seem much less intimidating. I'll stop whining. I'll just make a page of notes with 1 major lesson from each lecture and one from each case, and if I have space left over I'll go into details about game theory. Or something. At any rate, in 22 hours I'll be 1/2 way through b-school. How's that for scary?

Shit, redid the math. I'll be just 9/20ths through b-school. Close enough.

On another note, sadly, the Jenni cam is going dark. While I never visited the site, and find the whole concept a little voyeuristic, it is clearly the precursor to what I am doing right now. And I remember reading about the jennicam when it first started, back in the days when my email address was ridiculously long and we would sit in the computer lab emailing each other back and forth while going into chat rooms to see what would happen. ah, yesterday.
- posted by Heidi @ 11:34 PM