PHDBA279S (Spring 2012)

• This page is in the BPP category
• The previous version of this page is available here: The 2011 Spring BPP Student Seminar (PHDBA279S) - Student Version
• The future version of this page is available here: The 2012 Spring BPP Student Seminar (PHDBA279S) - Student Version

PHDBA279S is the PhD in BPP Research Seminar, generally known as the BPP Student Seminar. It is a weekly seminar where students present their research to other students in the group. This is a required seminar for BPP students in the 2nd year and above. For Fall 2011 Noam Yuchtman will be the supervising faculty member.

There is an "official version" of this page, that the faculty can access. It is not important to keep the two syncronized. We can post the "final" results of the exploration that will take place on this page to that page once we are done.

New Institutions

Following a BPP student group meeting with Steve Tadelis last term, we collectively (and with the faculty) agreed a new institution for the presentation order at the Student Seminar. This is detailed here:

• PHDBA279S Presentation Institutions
• BPP Student Institutions

Class Details

The class is as follows:

• Thursdays from 12:30pm to 2pm.
• In C132
• With Noam Yuchtman
• Starting 1st September (Instruction formally begins Thursday 25th August) and ending December 8th (classes formally end Friday December 9th)
• Thurs 24th November is listed in the Official Academic Calendar as an Adminitrative Holiday
• By tradition/convention the presenter brings "classy" chocolate for all to share

Who is Presenting

A list of all BPP students is here. We have 14 students presenting (assuming Bryan wants to present), and 13 slots left. Generally, 2nd years pair up to share a slot in the fall. With 3 second years, we should see if we can organize a possibly extended slot, or if one wants to take a full slot.

Schedule of Classes

• Thurs 25th August - No Class (Requested by Noam)
• Thurs 1st September - Tarek
• Thurs 8th September - Vito (Cancelled - No Seminar)
• Thurs 15th September - Sharat
• Thurs 22nd September - Amy (Steve attended)
• Thurs 29th September - No Seminar (per Noam)
• Thurs 6th October - Bo (Cancelled - No Seminar)
• Thurs 13th October - Lucy
• Thurs 20th October - No Seminar
• Thurs 27th October - Pablo
• Thurs 3rd November - Neil
• Thurs 10th November - Ed
• Thurs 17th November - Parham, Moshe & Yu Jin
• Thurs 24th November - No Class (Administrative Holiday)
• Thurs 1st December - Bryan
• Thurs 8th December - Orie

Yet More Changes to Student Seminar

Noam, on behalf of the faculty is currently proposing changes to Student Seminar. If you would like to discuss them, please use the Discussion Page - faculty do not have access to these pages.

The changes proposed are:

1. Presentations be generally limited to 40 minutes (45 was originally suggested, but by the end of class it was determined that only 40 minutes would be available). There would be exceptions to this for Job Market candidates and for other people who wanted full slots and could get approval for them from the faculty.
2. More faculty will (sic) start attending student seminar.

It was envisaged that (1) would allow for the presentation of raw ideas, rather than 'polished work', and would limit 'unconstructive criticism'. (2) would apparently get more faculty involvement with students and afford presenters feedback from faculty.

Feelings posted on the Discussion Page include:

• This is our seminar, and we should have a strong voice in how it is run.
• The additional faculty that will attend would likely be limited to Ernesto on a regular basis, with possible occasional attendance from Rui and Steve. One suggestion fielded was that faculty create an additional institution to help us with our 'raw' work - perhaps a lunch (and even if they didn't offer to pay for our lunches, this seems likely to get a good attendance). A more cyncial comment would be that if you want feedback from Ernesto he is usually in his office (F556).
• At least one student liked the incentive of having to produce work that covered a 90 minute presentation.