"If I can explain finance to students
in a real way, that's my grounding."
- Jennifer
Koski
At Goldman Sachs, Jennifer
Koski learned
to price a bond with a "little black box" (a
financial calculator) and a written crib sheet.
But when she got to Harvard Business School, Jennifer "looked
inside the little black box" and discovered
finance. Her future in teaching opened before her.
The Dynamism of Teaching and Research
Judging from the number of teaching awards she's
received, the abundance of research she's
published and her involvement in the world of finance
and business, this professor clearly found her
niche. She chose the UW Business School for its "collegiality
and the noncompetitive environment," and
loves the mix of research and teaching. One informs
the other in a dynamic process — an intense
quarter in the classroom followed by a quiet quarter
researching and writing.
The Relevance of the Real World
Jennifer is never far from the real world of finance
that she encountered at Goldman Sachs. Take the
case of her current research interest in reverse
stock splits. Opening her mail one evening, she
learned that a high-flying tech stock she owned
was plummeting and the company was seeking a proxy
vote to split the stock. Undecided how to vote,
she spent the next week immersed in studying reserve
stock splits. Now she takes the story to her MBA
core finance class; it intrigues students, and
she finds that "if I can explain finance
to students in a real way, that's my grounding."
Personal Scenarios Enhance Learning
The creative projects that Jennifer assigns captivate
her classes. One of these is a personal financial
scenario. Students must take a real-life problem
such as refinancing a mortgage or funding a college
savings plan or deciding whether to lease or buy
a car, and find a real person facing this decision.
Her finance class changes if a significant topic
dominates the news. When the mutual fund scandals
broke, Jennifer spent a weekend reading everything
she could get her hands on and took the topic to
class on Monday for a lively, relevant discussion. "If
you get too theoretical, you lose sight of reality.
I want students grounded in the real world feedback
loop. I want them to understand what's state
of the art, not what's perfect." |
