How are you, world? I haven’t checked in for a while. I have been trekking everywhere–last week alone I learnt about a whole new space of methods for determining model specification, about the stories behind South Edmonton’s real estate scene, all the wonderful things in class, and so much more.
I cannot put together a good post before final exam ends, but since I am a hardworking blogger, here delivers another nutrition-less jokes post. As they say: when the going gets tough, the tough goes joking.
I find economics professors a strange, funny breed. You can tell a professor is from economics, if he/she constantly wears this resigned look of “you won’t understand”—even more so when they encounter an especially realistic question. It can be intimidating to approach an economics prof at first, but once you learn to normalize an annoyed expression as the default, it is much easier. Then, it becomes difficult to stop discovering humour. I am very fond of my professors, but I wish I do not react to their unintended humour with such glee.
When you have funny professors, there is never a shortage of funny moments in class. I’ll focus on those that were not planned:
My first intermediate microeconomics professor teaches well, but has a strange social sense. After 11 weeks of class, he still had not cracked a single joke, and I was quite concerned. During one of the last few lectures, fortunately, he introduced the Total Production Factor (TPF, denoted \(A \) ) in the standard CobbDouglas production function of
\[F(K, L) = AK^\alpha L^\beta\]He decided to explain this concept with a real life example: how he is better than the rest of us. “We are all humans and take the same input. Food, air, water, everything. Why do you think I am better than you and learn faster than you? ” he asked the class. (He meant no harm, but seemed to sincerely think it’d be the best way to provide intuition to A. )
“Age, ” Someone said. The class laughed, the first time in the term.
Being German, he did not get the joke. He immediately explained how age cannot be the TPF because it’s an endogenous factor, that some of his students are older than him, etc. But Someone had already seen the notation, and knew that the Total Production Factor is denoted with an \(A\). Indeed, he jumped right into the trap when he turned around and wrote down the function on the whiteboard,
\[F(K, L) = AK^\alpha L^\beta\], then the whole class + himself got confused together. That was precious! You don’t often see a PhD economist getting confused by a barebones CobbDouglas function.
My econometrics class starts at 11AM, and I always wondered if my econometrics professor ever had breakfast, because he looks sorrowful all the time. He writes at the same speed as he talks, and one can find Fourier series from his handwriting. He also seems to think everyone is Medusa, and addresses the cosmos when he teaches. Once in class, he accidentally asked a question. Not only that he asked a question, but he asked one that allowed for opinions. Like an alarmed squirrel, my professor quickly corrected himself, as if he made a grave mistake.
During reading week, I made an appointment to consult him for the upcoming midterm exam. I knocked, and he opened the door while scrunching his face together as if in pain. I did not understand why. Later, when I tried to recall if I had stepped on his foot, I realised that he was trying to smile.
……Guess who needs practice…
My professor gives long, challenging exams and assignments on top of a term paper, and he grades them himself. That means a 2 x 30-person class, not fun. By the end of the term, he was withering like an autumn leaf. Us? Also dishevelled. I respect him and hope that he is recovering very well this spring.
this one is not economics but still gold
My math professor is an English gentleman who has a hard time making too much sense. He teaches a 125-person class, but he is anxious to help anyone who approaches to learn the material better. Realising that it is important for students to understand ideas before doing implementation, if any student struggles with a concept, he tries his best to express it with a few more concepts to help you understand.
Someone: lost … these two matrix thing look the same, what are we doing
Someone: “What is the difference between a change-of-basis matrix and a linear transformation matrix? “
Prof: excited
Prof: thinks this is a brilliant teachable moment
Prof: “Right! Yeah, so the change-of-basis matrix is special case of the linear transformation matrix, where the transformation operation is simply the identity matrix. The linear transformation matrix may transform a vector to another in the same basis, in which case there is no change of basis. In that case we subscript the transformation T with only one base denoted the name of the subspace for which it spans, for example, B. Are you clear now? “
I am not quoting word for word, but yes, that’s the prof. Try to understand what he says. He gets visibly sad if you don’t understand, probably because he doesn’t understand why people don’t understand.
There was a havoc in the last class before reading week, when he asks the class about a fundamental thing he spent the previous 2 weeks teaching. No-one could decipher his question, so the class and him spent almost one full awkward minute staring back and forth, trying to understand one another. Meanwhile, Someone realised that it was not supposed to be funny, so had to choke herself to near coma in the seat.
We paid the price. When a student later raised hand to ask him about a method covered in the prerequisite class, he finally erupted. Putting down his teaching tablet, he politely barked at us to get our things together. It was a memorable class.
“Can someone name an example of perfectly competitive market? Recall that it’s where every firm sells identical product, and there is no barrier to entry. I ask this every term, and there is never an answer for this, ” Smirking to himself, my Firm Behaviour professor asked the class in his first lecture.
“Tinder, ” Someone said.
My professor turned into a tomato. “Right…there wasn’t a dating website category back in my days (he’s barely 30). I-I-I-I’ll write down this on the board for now, but it-it-it-it is not really. I-I-I-I will get back to this topic afterwards, ” he stammered.
Someone knew what he was doing. Classic debate tactic: promise to respond to a POI, and make sure to never do. Deploy this when a point or a question bites you. True enough, to this day, he still hasn’t provided his promised counter argument.
….Actually, if you go beyond asymmetry to require the assumption of perfect information, then Tinder wouldn’t be a perfectly competitive market, but I won this one nevertheless.
Student 1 : Professor 0
My macroeconomics professor is the one who taught me how to normalize expressions. I had to learn–because he looked perpetually annoyed.
He teaches from presentation slides. Once, he was a bit late to a class, so Someone set the lecture hall computer to a fake update screen. However, time ran out before she could set the effects to fullscreen, so she thought the trick would fail.
But do not underestimate how little profs can know about computer, even though they can work a statistical software like wizards. When my professor came in and saw the computer, he looked even more annoyed. He grunted loudly and showed us the screen via the projector. The class tried to help him get out of it, while he hung onto his computer knowledge (that he probably heard from tech support n years ago) and refused to “interrupt operating system update”. But, ladies and gentlemen, the screen looked like this:
fake windows update
He said it is not good to mess with a computer when it updates.
It took a few minutes before the class finally convinced him that it’s not updating.
hahaha
He gave me an amusedly accusing look afterwards.
Written by Natasha. Last edited:2019-04-01 12:45:01