Larry Smith Concluded
April 1, 2009Andrew No Comments »Last night I attended my final lecture with Larry Smith in Econ 102. Larry is a professor perhaps most famous for his advising of RIM and long tenture as an introductory economics professor at Waterloo. Our final lecture was an historical event because one of the students in attendance was Larry’s 27,000th. As a result, Larry called the lucky student down to the front and gave him a t-shirt which said “Larry’s 27000th student”.
Anyway, Larry Smith is awesome in almost every respect. He has a commanding presence and you will rarely be bored in his class, all though he does tend to repeat certain things too many times for my liking, but that’s part of his teaching style. I absolutely recommend Econ 102 with Larry Smith to all UW students. As a result of taking his course, I finally understand the international banking system, the central banks, and currency exchange. I also know why the economic stimulus in the US and abroad is necessary, and why Ron Paul is not only wrong, he’s really a major dumbass.
Larry also gave us advice about how to be successful in our careers.  He suggested with today’s tough international competition and software automation, we must focus on careers that required creativity or innovation. It is rather obvious, but that doesn’t make it less true. As software Engineers, we need to strive to be more than just a coders and hackers who understand the Waterfall Model. We need cross domain knowledge and communication skills to market ourselves as valuable. I think my friend Andrew Russell might be on to something. He’s going to attempt to get a dual degree in SE and bioinformatics.
Join the discussion