John H Richards

Looks like Im the first to review Richards. So you people must be thinkingis he easy? Well...just read on and find out. Richards is a new teacher at SF State (Fall 2001). He is a relatively young guy who displays humor in his lectures, and gives his insight about the business world of finance. He lectures from the PDF lecture notes from the textbooks website. You dont really need to print out the lecture notes because partially, it wont appear on the exam, so save your ink and paper. =) During his lectures, he often jumps to current event news that relates to his lecture. However; he sometimes lectures too much on current events issues that pops into his mind, but thats okay because he usually let us out early each week. Also, current events will not be on the exams (as I will explain later). Okay, enough chit-chat, let me explain about his class and the grading system.

Here is the syllabus as follows: Participation/Homework 20% Cases 20% Exams (2) 30% EACH

Sounds scary? Yeah.., thats what I thought at first. But keep in mind that this is for the whole semester, not all in one month. =P

Participation means attending class; Richards take roll call each week. Homework is questions from the book in each chapter. Answers can be obtain from the textbooks website. So if you dont have time to do the homework, just simply cut and paste the answer. Just make it look like you worked hard on it, and youll receive full credit. Note: You dont really need to buy the textbook because it really wont be on the exam (again, Ill explain about the testing stuff later). Instead, you should simply scan the homework problems and the case study problems at the end of each chapter and return the useless book.

The case studies are probably the most difficult part of his course. It takes a lot of time to find the answers for your corporate company on the internet. Youll get to pick any 4 case studies from the textbook. Like the homework, just make it look like you put a lot of effort into it, and receive full credit. I recommend working on Chapter 2, 3, 7, and 10, which are the easiest.

Now, for the most important subject matter, the exams!! Richards will give you multiple-choice question and answer reviews for each chapter. Out of the total of 150 questions from the review that he will give to you, hell pick 50 questions that will appear EXACTLY on the midterm. Yes, its that simple. The questions will appear exactly like the review sheet. Ive never had a teacher (or HS school teacher for that matter) that has ever done that. I think its good because you do learn even more on the materials and all you have to do is memorize the answer for each question on the review. The Final is cumulative, but same format as the midterm: 25 questions from the midterm and 50 questions from the second half of the semester.

Drawbacks? If any, it might be that the class average is about 85-90%. So if you average 90%, it might end up as a B grade. So it may or may not work against you. But other than that, I dont think he failed anyone. So you have to be a total idiot to fail his class. His class is interesting, you might learn a lot in this class, and youll easily pass this class.