Teacher Enthusiasm

An unfortunate (but not unforeseen) effect of arriving at UNC has been the transition back to having class. UNC is extremely oriented towards group-work, so I find myself having groups in each of my classes, as well as the constant flow of group meetings and assignment. The lectures, on the other hand, are short and sweet, but often jam-packed with information. So if you haven't read, don't bother showing up. Nowhere is this more true than in my derivatives and securities class, but thankfully my professor in that class is one of the best I have ever had!

Classes are a brutal 8:00 to 9:15 AM, the readings are plentiful and condense, each lecture has a case which needs to be solved at home, as well as deliverable homework each week. The topic is counter-intuitive at times, murderously boring the rest. For any teacher this is bad odds. I have taken plenty dull courses, and had even more poor teachers. So what makes this guy stand out?

He is Spanish, always wearing a 3-buttoned suit and tie, well-polished shoes, and is impeccably clean-shaven. He is a vivid Barcelona football fan and former competitive chess player, he always has a large cup of Starbucks coffee when he teaches, and always has classical music playing before the class commences. But most importantly, he has a great sense of humour. Examples:

1) Each case is named after somebody famous, but not always obviously. Rocinante, Iniesta, Topalov, Bachelier, and Shostakovic are definitely not common names to the average American undergraduate, but Don Quixote's horse, the Barcelona midfielder, the Bulgarian chess player, the great French mathematician, and the acclaimed 20th century Russian composer reveal the professor's personal traits and his peculiar sophistication.

2) He loves Open-source, and views Microsoft as the devil. He therefore always points out his clean and custom-designed slides, and how it could never be done as well by standard PowerPoint. He naturally dislikes the school intranet, so he has his own website where he uploads our materials. I'll refrain from posting the password, but the username is "greatchess". Naturally.

3) He over-emphasizes the stories in the cases with witty puns and biased opinions. There are 3 questions, which really don't need that much information, but he makes an art out of writing interesting reads (quite an accomplishment - we are talking about derivatives here). For example Bachelier had a brownie company, which sold brownies to Europe and wanted to hedge against FX risk (Bachelier created the stochastic process known as Brownian motion). Iniesta gives up on "kicking a ball around on weekends" to utilize arbitrage opportunities in trading Barcelona stock. His troubles are on whether he thinks Barcelona will win the Double, thus increasing the stock price, or simply win one trophy, which will not have any effect, since the market has factored this victory into the price. He also tussles with Ronaldo, a "fierce, albeit weak, football competitor". Finally, Topalov Inc wants you to price a call option from Grünfeld Defence Corp. (Grünfeld Defence is a chess opening).

I am not sure if this information has befallen everyone in the class. I only realized it after initially noticing Topalov, Iniesta and Botvinnik, and then googling the rest. I guess I am almost as nerdy as he is - but I think it is awesome that I can learn something as nerdy as derivatives AND Russian composers in the space of an hour. Shostakovich' string quartet no. 7 was playing as I wrote this blog - it is recommended.

UPDATE: A favourite game he likes to pay with his kids (aged 11 and 9) is who can first count the prime numbers between 1 and 100. He is undefeated, and proudly boasts a record of just over 15 seconds. Awesome.