The Life of a Graduate StudentHooray for being in school forever.
jacbert
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Birthday: 10/4/1981
Gender: Male


Interests: Being a dork (just so that I can fit in at school)
Expertise: Learning theories in Finance that don't work in practice, getting checked and knocked down by frat boys in intramural ice hockey, driving a Nova (though we got rid of that car)
Occupation: Student
Industry: Business


Message: message me
Website: visit my website


Member Since: 7/31/2002

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Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Time for my once in a very very long time Xanga update…

 

I’ve done the following since my last update:

-          Turned 24 and then 25.  That’s deterministic, so I guess not too interesting.

-          Attended a couple of weddings (one for my college roommate and another for an old friend whom I don’t see much anymore)

-          Visited my Grandma in Northern California (which I do almost every year) and some family in Taiwan back in January.

-          Played lots of intramural sports

-          Given a presentation of a co-authored paper two days after finding out that one of the programs that I used had made a huge mistake.  Needless to say, I ran a lot of data and didn’t get much sleep the two days before the presentation.

-          Sat in front of the computer for far too many hours, waiting for Stata to finish running.

-          Re-learned how to play the piano.  (No one should tell my Mom about this.)

-          Been a TA (or currently a TA) for six classes – and answered way too many e-mails.

-          Attempted (with my cousin Dennis) to entertain my cousin Sharon when she visited in June.  Basically, we just went out and ate food for a week.

 

Yeah, I think that’s pretty much it.  I basically have enough material for a Xanga post about once every 18 months.

 

Belated congratulations to some of my closest childhood friends for going back to school:

-          Jay for starting his Master’s degree at USC in Fall 2005

-          Derrick for starting Law School at St. John’s in Fall 2005

-          Brad for starting his Ph.D. at Virginia in Summer 2006


Wednesday, June 01, 2005

I’ve survived my General Exam.  I was actually really scared when the exam ended because I’d really screwed up one of the four sections and hadn’t necessarily done incredible on the other three.  I guess the fact that I actually got an A+ last year in the course that I screwed up during Generals today was my saving grace.  Now, I just need to spend the next couple of years writing a dissertation.

 

Thanks to everyone who wished me luck.  Derrick was pretty gutsy calling me at noon (an hour before my exam) and leaving a message to congratulate me on passing.  Everyone else told me that they were sure that I’d do fine – but to actually congratulate me before the fact was gutsy.


Saturday, April 30, 2005

Currently Reading
Neoclassical Finance (Princeton Lectures in Finance)
By Stephen A. Ross
see related

I have my general exam (a.k.a. qualifiers) in a month (May 31).  For anyone I haven’t told, it’s a two-hour exam in which I stand in front of a four faculty members and answer questions about the four core classes in my program (Static Asset Pricing, Dynamic Asset Pricing, Corporate Finance, and Empirical Asset Pricing).  Passing is a requirement to continue the Ph.D. program, so I’ve been pretty stressed out about it.  (Typically, if you fail the first time, you’re given a second opportunity, but who wants to have the additional stress of that?)  I’ve spent most of my time studying for this exam, so that’s why I’m (sadly) in my room on a Saturday night.  (All the cool kids are studying for their qualifiers.  Ok, maybe not – cool kids don’t usually decide to go get a Ph.D.)

 

For the people in Edison, there’s about a 95% chance that I’ll be home on the weekend of May 21 to attend the Rutgers Pharmacy graduation.  I’ll probably be heading home on the afternoon of May 19 and heading back on May 22.


Wednesday, March 16, 2005

I’m headed home to Edison in a couple of days because I have a week off for Spring Break.  As usual, I don’t have anything special planned.  At least I have an excuse this year.  I’ll be studying for my General Exam (which is in June) because that’s the next hurdle that I need to pass in my Ph.D. program.  It’s quite an intimidating exam – it involves sitting in a room with 4 professors (two of whom are already legends in Finance) for two hours as they ask you questions.  I started preparing at the beginning of February and I still don’t feel nearly prepared.

 

On a non-academic note, I’m playing in MIT’s Intramural Octathon.  Octathon involves a team of 15 people playing one game each in eight different sports (Hockey, Softball, Basketball, Football, Soccer, Volleyball, Ultimate Frisbee, and Water Polo).  Points are given for scoring and wins.  The season started yesterday and we had a resounding 6-2 win in Ice Hockey.  I actually scored a hat-trick.  You can read the match report at http://mit.edu/tang/www/sports/octathon04/.  (Note that I didn’t pick the nickname that they gave me on that webpage.)


Wednesday, February 09, 2005

Happy New Year!  It’s the year of the Rooster.  If you don’t understand the preceding two sentences, this message isn’t directed towards you.



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