COMM 4741

First of all, Maillet has changed this course a ton. It used to be very finance focused when it was called "Global Finance," which is the course that all of the other reviews below are referencing. Now, he has made it a more general introductory course called "Foundations of Global Commerce," which barely touched on finance except for one lecture (which he made us watch a pre-recorded video of).

This course is a complete waste of time. Maillet believes that his course is the most important one his students will ever take, and as such he makes the requirements as absurd as ICE. He puts everyone in teams of 6 and requires the teams to meet 2-3 times a week to complete a bunch of a busy work assignments. He assigns an inordinate amount of reading that he never actually talks about in class. He takes class participation very seriously, which leads to students fighting to say something in class. On top of this, he requires students to attend his office hours and optional Friday morning discussion sections as part of the participation grade. He also requires students to post articles on a Microsoft Teams discussion board, which turned into students writing ridiculous paragraphs trying to tie the first article they saw on the Financial Times website to whatever topic we were discussing that week. All in all, if you want to take a course that mirrors ICE (including the subjective, blackbox grading), then this is the course for you.

How does Maillet get away with teaching a course as worthless as this? He has somehow set up a system at McIntire where he controls access to various global programs or "elite" courses. Some students take it because it is required for the Global Commerce track. Other students take this course because it's an "unofficial" prerequisite to Chris Shumway's global macro class (which he told us after the drop deadline wasn't even going to be offered this year) or the new impact investing class. Either way, Maillet requires students to get on his good side to get into these other programs, which is why students play his game and go above and beyond to get on his good side. If you're one of these students, consider alternative paths and realize that your 4th year will be a whole lot better if you don't have to deal with this class.

I was a little skeptical when taking this class, but it turned out to be one of my favourite classes at UVA! Every second of your time is worthwhile spending on this class. Every reading is very useful and instructive. Professor Maillet is very knowledgeable and makes hard concepts easy and intriguing. The skills you learned from this class will have a much larger and longer impact. Please don't get out of COMM without taking this class.

Maillet knows this is an important class and that it's highly reviewed on course forum. He goes in expecting high levels of sophisticated engagement and participation as the class discussions are skewed towards world events and markets. If you have a S/T background it'll be helpful.

Best class I have ever taken at UVA. Prof. Maillet is an amazing professor, very approachable in class and during office hours. Every single class is very interesting and you learn a lot, mainly because the material is very related to real life. In the beginning of every class we discussed about what was going on in the markets and in the world, and how that shapes the dynamics of global finance. 100% recommend this class.

By far the best class I've taken at UVa. Maillet is incredibly qualified and has had an incredible career. He teaches about the global financial market in an easy-to-understand method and helps give you tools to understand the marketplace better moving forward. Even though the homework can be a pain, I highly recommend this class.

Maillet makes this class one of the best I've taken at UVa. You will have to do a lot of reading, but the relevance of it is enormous. Definitely take this class.