I finally finished the Math review, a CD of Flash presentations provided by Fuqua to get students up to speed on what they consider ‘common knowledge’ needed prior to arriving.  The four modules cover algebra/basic math, calculus, statistics, and finance.  Here’s a sample screenshot from Module 2, explaining partial differentiation:

Overall, I’d estimate that I spent 10-15 hours reviewing the material, including doing the problem sets at the end of each chapter.  The biggest difficulty I had was knocking the rust off my ‘calculation hand’!  I work with math and statistics everyday, but rarely do I ever get back-to-basics and hand write a problem from start to finish.  So there were a lot of stupid calculator and general arithmetic errors, even though I understood how to do all of the problems.

Here’s some comments about each module:

• Module 1:  Algebra for Managers – Covers basic algebra, logarithms, exponents, and overall stuff that doesn’t get used everyday.  Sadly, this was one of my more difficult chapters, as the rules of logs and exponents are something I rarely think about.
• Module 2:  Calculus – This module handled differentiation of functions of one variable, as well as two or more variables.  This is a topic I haven’t dealt with since the last time I was in graduate school, but luckily the ideas came back very quickly.  Topic was presented as one long example relative to a company’s production, and marginal cost, avg. cost, etc. Thankfully, no integrals were covered as part of the review, just the concept of area under a curve.
• Module 3:  Dealing with data – The longest of the modules, topics such as mean/median/mode were covered, as well as probabilities, probability trees, Bayes theorem, and discrete/continuous/uniform distributions. Very taxing to move through the videos and problem sets, and I’ll need to review this again to make sure I remember all of the formulas.
• Module 4:  Math for Finance – By the time I got to this module, I was thankful that it was the shortest of the four.  Module covered the concepts of present/future value, annuities, NPV and IRR, and the formulas behind these different topics.  I found it easier to think about these problems if I could do them in Excel; this will be another topic that needs a second review.

I’m currently working through the Accounting review, which will hopefully not be too difficult.  Accounting is “the” core class of the first semester, so I’ll need to hit the ground running.

For additional insight into the Math Review (including several more screenshots), visit classmate Nate’s blog:

Math Review – Chapter 1

Math Review – Module III

Finished Math Review

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