Here’s why I really don’t like my macroeconomics class. Or the discipline. Take your pick, they both stink.
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I took my second macoreconomics test in class last night, and even having "skipped" the last class (along with the rest of my classmates) I don't think I did too badly. At least, I didn't require the help that most of the other people in class did.
Last week, we all showed up for class around 7pm. Because that is when our class is scheduled to start. Nevermind that we were all waiting outside a room that isn't our scheduled classroom, and nevermind that we haven't been in the same classroom more than twice since we started class. Each week is a new adventure to see if we can actually find our class. It's like one of those high school nightmares I have occasionally coming to life in brilliant Technicolor. Our teacher (an adjunct, basically someone without a master's degree that they hired because too many people signed up for this class) on the previous week had said that we would change our class time to 7:15. So we waited. I actually arrived quite earlier than 7 for class because I wanted to find a good parking space (which I didn't, incidentally). So at 7:25, 25 minutes after our class is scheduled by the university to begin, other members of my class staged a coup and walked out. Well, I wasn't feeling too good that evening anyway, and my original inclination was to stick around only long enough to get handouts and homework, but this seemed like a reasonable out. After all, this guy was technically 25 minutes late for class.
So that's the one aspect of it. I suppose now after looking back on it, we might have waited until 7:30 for him to show up. Honestly, I think my time is far too valuable to stand in a hallway waiting for a teacher to arrive. You know what I did instead of class last week? I spend three solid hours playing alone with Abby. This alone has me seriously considering whether I ever want to take another class.
Besides that, I have other issues with this particular teacher. First off, he assigns homework that requires typed pages of work. At the same time, he complains that there is a lot of work to read and he can never get to it all. So as a result, anything that we've done for homework and handed in is never returned to us with comments before we are tested on it.
Here is a prime example: At class last week we were supposed to have received a magazine article. We were to have read the article and apparently written an essay on it. Since we all skipped class, there was no assignment, however, we were still expecte to have read the essay. Assume that we had attended class last week. We would have written the essay, handed it in last night, then immediately taken the test. The idea that we might have reviewed the article/essay is a crock. And there was a 5 point question on the test concerning that article. Forget about the other assignments that we have done that we are not able to review at home because he made us turn them all back in because his grading spreadsheet got corrupted. Make a backup!
Anyway, in spite of all of the problems that this teacher is going to hear about in his teacher evaluation (including that we're not getting our full credit hours worth of actual teaching, and that he doesn't actually teach much, but shows insipid videos and tells us to read the book while at the same time saying that the book is valueless), I must say that I hate macroeconomics, and will from this point forward look oddly at anyone who confesses that they are involved in the field.
Why? Well, since macroeconomics deals with the overall picture of the market, there really isn't any using it to predict where the market is heading. There are so many variables that even if you are Alan Greenspan and are abel to control one of them, you're still guessing as to what the change might accomplish.
Microeconomics seems more predictable. You can make an adjustment and see the results immediately. You can even forecast them with a bit of certainty. Sure, nothing is certain, but I am certain that any prediction you make onthe macro side is a shot in the dark.
Therefore, macroeconomics is useless except for getting an idea of the state of things, and creating a frenzied panic when the state of things isn't so good. And the people that do macroeconomics strike me as mostly pencil-pushing, spreadsheet-filling, data entry personnel with calculators and statistics backgrounds. I mean, if the science were concrete, would you have all of these different indicators and ways to calculate things?
Anyway, I can't digest it. I understand it, but it gives me gas. I won't be taking anything on the macro scale again if I can help it.
