These are few of my favorite SY classes

First Years are about to bid for their SY courses and they must be wondering which ones to consider. Also, admitted or prospective students would might like to know more about the Darden curriculum. So I thought I would write about some of favor tie Second Year classes. Just so you are aware, at Darden, the entire SY is elective and you are required to take 30 credits i.e. about 20 courses. There are some restrictions so that students try to get a General management perspective and don't just take entirely finance etc based classes. Other restrictions relate to choice on credits from alternate programs such as research, business projects and case writings.

Here are my favorite classes

Thoroughly enjoyed and found very useful

Management Decision Models: The most difficult class at Darden. Its also known as the supercharged DA. It has some interesting concepts, cases and analytics that you can use both at work and in your life decisions. 

Small Enterprise Finance: Finance course about managing issue of a small business taken by a very witty professor. Very cool to do back of the hand calculations to figure out issues and remedies

Entrepreneurial Finance & Private Equity: Very well designed class on private equity and venture capital valuation and investment strategies. The cases are very interesting and speakers add great value. 

Global Business Experience - Barcelona "Strategy as design": The only GBE I participated in but honestly loved it. Barcelona is an amazing place to visit from every dimension i.e. cultural experience, visual beauty, architecture and night life. You see most of the architectural sights on class time. The course provides a very different view of looking at strategy. This GBE is both enjoyable and educative.

Operations Strategy: Though the topic may sound boring this course is not. In fact is a very strategy view at operations with very interesting cases. The professor is ex consulting firm partner and is great at makes this practical and tangible

Interesting and useful

Managing International Trade & Investments: A very well designed course that teaches important concepts related to trade and trade policies. Its a great way to understand the issues that are currently making headlines and very useful if you are working for multinational or will be involved in international business.

Leadership & Diversity through Literature: Learning about leadership through stories and epics. Makes for very interesting and insightful class discussions.

Bargaining and Negotiating: A different experience where you spend every class negotiating the deal. Great to get hands on experience and put some theories to test.

Managing Turnarounds and Workouts: This all about rescuing companies in distress and I would think very well in the current context. Its a a great course for managing smaller companies or entrepreneur as it gives good insights into what you need to do to run a business.

Pretty Good

Advanced Managerial  Communication

Valuation in Financial markets

Marketing Intelligence

General Management & Ops Consulting