Geo Han / Student at Waseda University
[Profile] I am a third-year undergraduate student majoring in Global Political Economy at the School of Political Science and Economics in Waseda University. As my interest lies in computational social science, I participated in Professor Yunkyu Sohn’s intermediate seminar and currently participating in Professor Ueda Michiko’s advanced seminar. During my time at Waseda, I want to prove to other SPSE students that programming is not limited to science majors and that programming is a necessary skill for modern social scientists. My hobbies include swimming, running, and searching for good cafes & restaurants around the world. My favorite quote is, “It’s what you do in the dark that puts you in the light”.
Disruption is both destructive and constructive. While COVID-19 crisis has brought major changes to our lifestyles, it also created opportunities for us to gain new insights that we might not have discovered as we might have been stuck in the monotony of pre-COVID routines or cycles. The Waseda-EDGE MicroMBA program does so by helping students discover or rediscover the subject of business by approaching it as an interdisciplinary subject.
Before the program, I viewed the subjects of business and finance as one. However, I realized there was more to business after approaching the subject from different perspectives (Neuroscience, Accounting, Design, Strategy, and Experimentation). Although studying these perspectives in isolation was insightful on their own, I found it more intuitive when I started
making connections between different perspectives on my own. For example, I was unconsciously aware that I was being taught on a major discovery when professor Uma R. Karmarkar (UCSD Rady School of Management) introduced us the relationship between consumer psychology and neuroscience. Yet, I couldn’t quite figure out its significance until I attended professor Sally Sadoff’s (UCSD Rady School of Management) lecture about experiments. After combining both lecture contents, I realized that neuroscience helps social scientists conduct social experiments by giving them concrete measures of unit for quantifying certain psychological factor. It was essentially a fusion between behavioral economics and technology. By making such personal connections, I was able to engage in the program more and get in the habit of active learning.
I believe that the value of the program depends on the participants. To make full use of the program, I highly recommend being prepared for the lectures by doing the assignments and, most importantly, recording personal connections or opinions. The program was purposely conducted in live Zoom calls so that participants can engage in active learning by sharing each others’ opinions and asking questions to the professors. If participants are approaching the MicroMBA program in a passive manner, the return is minimal for all participants since the experience will be no different from that of an on-demand program.
The Waseda-EDGE MicroMBA program provides an invaluable experience especially amidst the COVID-19 crisis and I truly hope others can get the same wonderful experience in the next year’s program!
次回の更新は5月7日(金)に行います。
