COMM 4720

If you want a capstone that is easier than the others, take this one. This will probably be the easiest of the capstones you can take. HOWEVER, the cases are so confusing and graded arbitrarily. There is no set rubric so everything is assumptions, but then you get docked if your assumptions don't line up with what the TA's have. They also take FOREVER to grade your cases and it's ridiculous. They are also biased in terms of what groups they help. They are supposed to have office hours and texting office hours but if you're friends with them they'll help you outside of the allotted time which is unfair. Professor Smith, idk where to even begin. If you have him for a regular semester (not online), then he's fine. But I think his true colors showed since we had online class. He took over 2 months to grade our midterm negotiation, and then sent incredibly rude emails about us asking for our grades. He literally forgot to meet with our group and then didn't apologize when we had a final project due in 2 days. He also didn't seem to care at all about the pass/fail date given. Our midterm was cancelled which was great, but then he reweighted everything else. The good thing is that we had a lot of guest speakers who were interesting. The key thing for this class is to get a great group who are willing to put in the work for cases. Your grade is heavily weighted toward group grades so make sure you are working with people actually care about school. The material is somewhat interesting but sometimes you go super into the weeds. Overall, it's an okay class. Take it for your grade. Idk what final grades will be but I think most people end up with an A-.

It is unfortunate how big of a reputation hit Smith took this semester. Not only did he not grade anything until after the C/NC deadline, he sent a super passive aggressive email about asking him about grades. He said he couldn't grade the midterms (which were due before spring break) in time. Honestly wonder what he spent the past two months doing, especially since 75% of the lectures were guest speakers. Clearly it wasn't stuff related to this course. What a shame.

Smith is the man, and this class is generally great. It isn't terribly hard to get an A/A-, but the assignments will certainly take you quite a few hours every weekend. Half of the classes were guest lecturers which was really cool. I will say, though, that if you have absolutely no interest in distressed investing/restructuring, I can see how this class could be very cumbersome and/or boring. All the consulting kids should definitely avoid as the technicality of restructuring will just annoy the shit out of you and provide limited value for your career.