A favourite academic area formally studied
As I graduated with an MBA degree, I studied 16 subjects on how to run a business company successfully. However, my most favorite subject is financial management. I have to say that I am not good at math, and the subject doesn’t require intensive knowledge on math. I was lucky that the professor of the course could make the complicated subject into simple one. I still remembered the first question that he asked his students at the first class—why does a corporation exit? My first answer to that question was that it exits to produce and offer goods and services that benefit to customers. Surprisingly, I was wrong and most of my classmates was wrong too. He said the correct answer is that a corporation exits to maximize shareholders’ equity. After I knew that correct answer, I was unhappy, because when I watched advertising on TV or listened to radio, all of companies said that they offered good products and services to customers. By the way, I had to memorize the correct answer to do the examination. However, since I started my career in the banking industry, I have to say that the professor is right. A corporation does exit to maximize revenue for its shareholders. 8 years ago, I worked in commercial credit department and I had many chances to talk with CFOs. So I knew that when a firm make decisions on their business, they consider the benefits of shareholders as the number one priority. By the way, I never feel disappointed with my favorite subject, because it allows me to discover and understand the world around me better.
A favourite academic area not formally studied
Although I studied business administration at university, I enjoy learning on earth science in my free times. I think the subject is fascinating because it opens my world. My interests on the subject began when I started planting some flowers 26 years ago. It was the first time when I deeply cared about soil, water, sunlight, and air to grow my plants. While I was doing gardening, I noticed on these small matters—liquid, solid, gas, and energy. In some ways, it reminded me about the Big Bang theory that my science teacher taught me. After I finished the gardening, I came to my mother and told her about my new discovery. She listened to me and said that I was very imaginative person, and she bought some Nation Geography magazine and subscribed Discovery Chanel for me to learn more about the topic. Since then, I has been a big fan of the two magazines, and I am considering about visiting the north pole and the south pole in someday.
Emma's account of her introduction to science reminds me of my own. I didn't really know about science when I was in primary school, but was fascinated by growing plants, especially challenging things. I think when I was around ten years old (it was a long time ago), I began growing trees from seeds in pots around our home. Fortunately, family home was a farm with areas of native bush still left untouched, so there was no problem getting the seeds I needed. And we had paddocks full of dirt. My favourites were fig trees. In addition to reading about it in my mum's weekly magazines for the modern woman (a bit more interesting than my dad's magazines and journals about agricultural science and technology), I had watched gardening shows on TV and learned about the Japanese art of bonsai. I was keen to try, and spend many hours wiring my little trees into interesting shapes.
ReplyDeleteWhen I got to high school, I was introduced to science, and I loved it. My first love was botany, which expanded naturally to biology. And like my love of mathematics, I was keen to get to the basic principles, and in the case of biology, that was cells and DNA, which in turn led to chemistry, and thence to physics. I loved physics, although I wasn't so keen on actually doing experiments: what really excited me was how mathematics could express the insights of physics and suggest new ideas.
I'm afraid that financial management, in contrast, does not excite me. I would like to have money and know it was being well managed, but I don't think I'm the best person to manage it. I did, however, like one sentence in Emma's comments about financial management, the one, while relating an early experience in class, she says that "Surprisingly, I was wrong and most of my classmates was wrong too." I've related a similar experience of my own in my comments about behavioural economics, where my first response to a question that Dan Ariely asks readers, knowing that we were almost all going to guess wrong, is convincingly proved wrong. Emma's sentence also reminds me of something that reliably happens in my EAP classes: when I ask, "What is a vocabulary?" the response is very consistently that "A vocabulary is a word with a meaning," which is wrong. (I'm likely to ask this in our class next Monday, so you might like to check if you are in the large majority group that gives the wrong answer I quoted above.)
That was fun. Thank you Emma.
Honestly, I'm not surprised by your teacher answer anymore. The cause might be I grow up in the environment where was surrounded by business people. I didn't study in this area directly but I feel a sense of it. However, do you think that the answer may be changing? I had joined the Heartful marketing class, Chula online course. They mention the new way of business which is trending in Japan. Some concepts are modified such as from money-making to value creation in term of aim, and selling to value proposition & communication in term of marketing. In my opinion, nowadays, customers are more observant and smarter. They may be looking for an honest company more than the famous options. Although I finished the class, I still think about Is it possible to run business with heartful marketing.
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