JHS it’s interesting that you use language metaphor for a Chicago course because for a long period of time the most popular introductory financial accounting course book out there was one with the title, “Accounting, the Language of Business”, co-written by longtime Booth accounting professor (and dean for a while) Sidney Davidson. It was the text book used in my first accounting class. Prof. Davidson passed away in 2007 but if it were possible it would be interesting to get his views on the topic of this thread.
Just to add to the discussion…
100+ years ago, around 1898 - around the same time that LSE (University of London’s London School of Economics and Political Science) was founded, there was an undergrad college of commerce and politics at the University of Chicago where students earned undergraduate credit in lots of business and political science classes. These students and alums a century ago would have thought that this major is normal. It would have been considered consistent with a liberal arts education.
It’s too easy to knock accountants. Some of my best friends are accountants! I have in a fumbling way learned to read financial statements myself. As you and JHS describe it, you make me wish I had taken the courses that would have illuminated the history and underlying gestalt behind those martialled numbers in their columns. Too late. A life of learning fluctuates between excluding things that seem tangential or even anathema to one’s talents - and then, after a time, admitting there’s a place for them. Perhaps the point I am making here is that there’s generally a best time for learning things - and that the College years should focus on the fundamental things, the big things, as against the smaller, useful ones. In those precious years you need to lay foundations. You need them for the long battle of a life. In a professional school it is different - you get the chance to be really serious about the granular things. That too is exhilarating. You get even more serious and more granular in an actual occupation out of school. Not to mention the many other kinds of experience that crowd thickly when school is done. The world has its way with you and you are pushed and perhaps battered and even warped, but you learn from all of it. The learning never stops if the foundation is solid. It only morphs and changes emphasis and direction. With that kind of foundation - a U of C education - everything that comes afterward, both in school and out of it, can find its place and be incorporated in one’s overarching idea of self and world.
It’s not every young person who appreciates the merits of Machiavelli. I sat at Machiavelli’s desk once, outside Florence, looking over his vineyards, preserved pretty much today as they were in his day. As I sipped a glass of the vintage I remembered my old professor at Chicago, C.W. Mackauer (Karl Weintraub’s mentor) describing Machiavelli’s life in retirement and how he wrote “The Prince” at that very desk, donning academic robes and having a glass after a sweaty day of inspecting his lands and instructing his servants. That was thrilling. I applaud your daughter. At her age most of us were humming “Imagine” to ourselves as the ultimate truth of the political life. After Machiavelli, however, there’s no turning back. You are entering the dangerous world of thought. Can “The Leviathan” be near at hand?
@marlowe1 Leviathan is next quarter! Along with Locke (of course). And in Hum she’s reading stuff by Mary Shelley’s mother. Although I believe she’s actually known by another name (which escapes me at the moment - suffice it to say I’ve never read anything by Mary Shelley’s mother). My D knows all these weird little tidbits about Mary Shelley herself. Obviously UChicago is a good fit.
The discipline of accounting has changed over the last several decades in ways that make it a better topic for coursework in the College. Before 1970 papers in accounting journals mainly focused on how best to practice accounting, what technical procedures should be followed. Since around 1970, in considerable part due to research done at UChicago, the field of accounting has focused on much more intellectually stimulating issues. Theoretical work from economics, psychology, and sociology is currently the basis of accounting research. Even before the recent transformation of the accounting field, the economist Joseph Schumpeter advised economists to study accounting.
^^Oops make that Sosc. - not Hum - for Shelley’s mom! What was I thinking?
For Hum she’s reading Aeschylus, Oresteia, Herodotus, Livy, Tacitus, Seneca, and Shakespeare. I think they are covering tragedies (?).
(Re: Post #43)
Here’s a quip that makes me believe that “practice” is as just analytical/philosophical/cross-functional as “theory” at UChicago.
"George [Stigler] said to me one day, in contrasting himself to Milton [Friedman], ‘Milton wants to change the world, I only want to understand it.’ " - Sam Peltzman
Given Stigler’s work on regulation, he made an impact as well.
You win the Nobel for changing the conversation, but that change usually happens because your theory not only fits reality better than someone else’s, but the application of your theory is the solution to the problem. It’s not about theory vs. practice. It’s about relevant theory.
Coming back around to this, and responding to @JHS in post #38 (why taking financial accounting is more a violation than a course in german), for at least the past 30-40 years -
I think the test for the past Chicago principle is two-pronged:
1.) Is this a course taught at a professional school?
2.) Does the course relate quite directly (in title and/or content) to a certain profession?
If the answer to both questions is NO, you’re safe. If the answers to both questions is YES, well, in the 90s, you’d better be ready for some protests.
Taking a financial accounting class at the Business school means YES to both of the above questions. 20 years ago (maybe even 10 years ago) this would’ve been a no-no.
Taking German, on the other hand, means NO to both questions. (You can quibble with this a bit, but I don’t know of a professional school that offers German as a stand-alone, not cross-listed, course, and it might inform work in other professions, but it doesn’t relate quite directly to a certain profession.)
Heck, if undergrads were allowed to take a queer theory in the marketing industry course at Booth, people STILL would’ve protested - the very idea of a Chicago college student taking something at Booth (then called the GSB) was verboten.
The administration surreptitiously allowing undergrads to take Booth classes for the credits was when the shift occurred. Disregarding what the course is, having undergrads sit alongside MBA students for an educational purpose was a foreign (and disallowed) ideas as recently (I’m guessing) as 10-15 years ago.
“Taking a financial accounting class at the Business school means YES to both of the above questions. 20 years ago (maybe even 10 years ago) this would’ve been a no-no.”
“Heck, if undergrads were allowed to take a queer theory in the marketing industry course at Booth, people STILL would’ve protested - the very idea of a Chicago college student taking something at Booth (then called the GSB) was verboten.”
Not sure what the course “being in a professional school” has - or ever had - to do with anything. You are interested in the course, not the degree-granting division of the university. And I thought I posted upstream that undergrads taking a few courses here and there from the various other part of the university was something that went on 30 or so years ago. It certainly was not “verboten”.
So my feeling was, @JBStillFlying - that for a long time the college was essentially an incubator for future PhDs. Undergrads seemed to turned their noses up toward MBA or med students. Not saying it was right, but the feeling was the college was very much separate from the professional schools - not a bridge to them.
I can’t think of how I would’ve even been able to navigate taking a professional school class. Advisors and professors could guide me to graduate school classes, but when you posted up stream that undergrads took classes at other parts of the university, how did that work? They got credit for these classes?
I remember the college being a fairly delineated place. I enjoyed reading the course catalog and considering what to take, but I remember no guidance on taking professional school classes - certainly nothing like the info and support out there today.
Maybe I’m misremembering college - but does anyone else remember the collective sneer that emerged when talking about mbas or med students or accountants? Not saying it was right, just saying it seemed to happen.
Well, the people I recall were seniors who were doing advanced enough work to merit grad school courses. But yeah, it WAS a delineated place - at least in my little world. IIRC Econ made fun of GSB MBA’s - who didn’t even know Econ existed. But the PhD’s from both divisions all knew one another and socialized together. They also cross-registered and worked with faculty in both locations (could be misremembering but Econ PhD’s who took workshops and courses over at the B-school - or who worked with faculty over there - never thought they were taking “professional school” classes. They didn’t seem to give it much thought one way or the other. The only difference definitely discussed was that you were treated slightly better over at the GSB).
I don’t think anyone in the College who took grad school courses was planning on an MBA for their terminal degree so you are 100% correct there. I think we tend to forget - because the MBA’s kind of run the place (they are good looking, tall, articulate, and have great leadership skills so what do you expect?) - that there is this other, far more academic aspect to Booth and that those students might have had (and still have?) a lot more in common with other PhD departments than with the MBA’s.
IIRC, there used to be a way for undergrads to either do an integrated MBA, or transition smoothly from the BA to the MBA program upon graduation. If you flip through the alumni directory, you’ll see lots of people with BA 'XX, MBA 'XX+1 or 'XX+2, without the standard time between undergrad and b-school.
I totally forgot about this point: how good would a “Business Economics” major be for recruiting first-gen or under represented minorities?!
As I recall, Wharton, other top biz school feeders can be marketable to groups where the financial strain is felt even more strongly. Having something like “Business Economics” could help Chicago in their efforts here - it’s a much easier sell than classics or anthro.
(And it’ll probably pay real dividends down the line.)
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I can’t think of how I would’ve even been able to navigate taking a professional school class. Advisors and professors could guide me to graduate school classes, but when you posted up stream that undergrads took classes at other parts of the university, how did that work? They got credit for these classes?
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It’s a little weird because the b-school works off a course bidding system, so you can’t get into most of the classes the “normal way.” IIRC I just went to the first class, asked for the professor to sign a pink slip, and turned it in to course registration. Otherwise, counted like normal course credit.
I took MBA investments and MBA competitive strategy, and enjoyed both (met my undergrad thesis advisor in the latter). Back when John Cochrane was at Booth, I know his advanced investments class was very popular for people interested in finance research or quantitative finance. So there’s some track record.
@hftarete did Cochrane teach MBA or PhD level?
The kids I met who took grad courses tended to stick to PhD-level. Did Booth PhD courses have a bidding system as well? I honestly can’t recall. Pretty much all the PhD courses I took had mostly MBA’s in them. There is a pretty significant numbers difference between MBA and PhD enrollment.
Cochrane taught MBA Advanced Investments and PhD Asset Pricing. The MBA course is pretty quantitative, actually. See here for the content (https://faculty.chicagobooth.edu/john.cochrane/teaching/35150_advanced_investments/).
I don’t think Booth PhD courses had a bidding system. I’m surprised that MBAs were dominating the PhD courses; which courses did you notice that phenomenon in?
@hftrate: this was all in the early 90’s but:
Fama’s (301/302? at the time - they have re-numbered their courses so not sure what the equivalent is now). I wouldn’t say the MBA’s dominated but there was a number of us in there. My study group was all MBA’s but sometimes we met with the PhD students too. There was a decent spirit of cooperation, since the biggest goal was simply learning the material!
I also took asset pricing from Schenkman and Constantinedes (one from each) and those seemed to have a sizable majority MBA but I knew PhD’s from Econ. and Bus who were there as well. Highly quantitiatve.
Finally I took a PhD (business) economics course from Milton Harris which I thoroughly enjoyed. TBH I don’t recall whether it was dominated by MBA’s.
In those days - at least from my perspective - there seemed to be less delineation of MBA vs. PhD and more about which courses did you want to take for your major (assuming that you had the prereqs). Obviously if the material was going to be on a prelim you’d see a cluster of PhD’s in the class.
Just to clarify about the Fama sequence - I do believe it was majority MBA - just not “dominated” by MBA’s. Hope that’s clear. That course had a good number of PhD’s as well, obviously.
@JBStillFlying: Wow, that’s a stellar lineup! I was there about 20 years after you (sadly missed Sheinkman leaving for Columbia), and definitely felt like MBAs were a small minority in the Booth PhD Econ and Finance classes. There were more students from the other Booth PhD programs, e.g. accounting, econometrics, etc.
I wonder if the Booth population has evolved, or if they’re doing more segmentation of courses than they used to. Anyhow, I’m excited to see what UChicago does with undergraduate business instruction.