COMM 3720

very nice, approachable guy! Lectures are dry , but the tests are very fair and representative of the homework.

Definitely my hardest class this semester. With Chen, there's no HW, but you almost wish there was, because there's not many practice problem/application before the exams come around. He allows double-sided cheat sheets on the exams and a blank excel workbook. In my opinion, the first midterm was the hardest, the second midterm was the easiest, and the final was hard, but not as bad as the first midterm. Chen values participation, so make a good impression if possible and go to his office hours to try to win back partial credit exam points. The only grades are participation (10%) the midterms (20% each or pick one to be 40%) and the final (50%).

Nice, enthusiastic guy. Not very good at explaining concepts.

This class was deceptively easy. Chen can be a little all over the place when he lectures and the topics can seem difficult on the surface, but most of the class was doing problems with Excel Solver and plugging in numbers into CAPM formulas. There really isn't any reading but DO THE HOMEWORK! It's very similar to how he structures the test and it'll give you insight into pretty much everything you should be comfortable with doing on the exams (which are the vast majority of your grade). Chen is a very laid back guy though and really values student input, which makes the class a lot better.

Great guy, who genuinely cares about his students. Pay attention and take the in-class TopHat problems seriously - those are very helpful. There's no real preparation, aside from occasional pre-exam homework sets which aren't graded. Do those multiple times - exams are based on them. There are 3 exams: midterm 1 which was hard, midterm 2 which was easy and final exam (worth 50% of your grade) which was ok (mixed feedback from other students). Overall, grading is very, very generous so as long as you attempt each question intelligently, you will get a very good grade.

Chen is a really great guy, although he can be really theoretical. The class is structured so that your main grades are TopHat questions and the exams. The TopHat piece is really easy, as Chen walks around helping everyone until they get the right answer. The exams were challenging but you do get to make a cheat sheet. The biggest problem I had with this class is that Chen does not round, so I ended up 0.2 away from a higher letter grade.

Professor Chen is awesome. Take 3720 with Chen if his class is open. He is a great teacher and a great guy. He genuinely cares about your development as a student. He held office hours six days in a row leading up to the final exam to make sure we were all comfortable with the content. He does an excellent job answering questions and his lectures almost always made sense. I was not a 'finance person' going into this class. The only finance knowledge I had coming into the class was from ICE the semester before, and I was able to handle the content perfectly fine. I also feel like I learned a lot, and Chen got a lot of things to "click" for me. Do the homeworks, and then do them again before the exams, and you will do fine. The two midterm exams were very similar to the homeworks, but the final exam was definitely more of a challenge. The grade breakdown for the class is kind of ridiculous, though. The two midterms are 40% of your grade (but he drops the lowest score), participation is 10%, and the final (which is only partially cumulative) is 50%. If you are a finance person/going into banking, consider taking it with Parham- he might give you more of a challenge and cover slightly more content.

If you're not a IB type finance person but concentrating in finance, I would go for Smith instead of Chen. Chen thinks everyone in the class wants to go into quant or IB. I had a great ICE finance professor, but first thing Chen says in the semester is that basically everything we learned in ICE finance is wrong, so you can see how that's discouraging. My entire base of knowledge wasn't something I could refer to. I would stay alert in class, but the way he barely explained concepts was not helpful for someone who doesn't know much about stocks and options. I think if you already know finance, Smith or Chen make no difference to how you perform in the class, but if you don't, Smith is probably more engaging. Chen also has a flexible schedule, so we were often behind schedule. This isn't to say Chen was a bad professor, he just doesn't understand that not everyone there did IB recruiting and knows this information. I did pretty well on both exams (final tbd...), but that's simply because I put effort into the homework and simplifying the material so I could understand.

I will say he offers office hours at normal and odd hours, so I probably could've gone to them. I would definitely give that a try if you get him and are having a hard time in the class.

Our grade was based on 2 exams, 1 final, and hw/participation. He doesn't curve the exams, but hws are essentially completion and he might curve the overall grade (tbd). If you get Chen and aren't a finance person, I truly think you can succeed in the class, but it may take more effort than you anticipated.