Lazy Man and Money

Are The Great Courses Really Great?

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I’ve always been a person who tried to continue learning about new things.  Over the years, those, this ended up being a piecemeal effort.  When I read books, it was mostly novels.  When I read non-fiction, it was often news articles.

Recently, I’ve been taking advantage of a lot of Audible deals.  (Editor’s Note: Kosmo admits to his e-content hoarding addiction, but it’s a good thing.) I’d get a couple months free, when a new deal to get a few months and half price, and then later, rinse, repeat.  During this time, I realized that I could use audio books to easily consume some non fiction books.  I set a goal of 50-75 hours of academic listening per year.

I could have used Ted Talks or even podcasts to achieve this, but I decided that I wanted a fairly deep dive into topics.  While poking around on Audible, I found the Great Courses series.    For the cost of one Audible credit ($14.95), I can get 12-25 hour lectures on a variety of topics.

Naturally, I started with the Big Bang, in the Big History course.  It’s a 24+ hour course that covers time from the Big Bang until modern day.  Obviously, this is at a very high level and is looking more at overarching trends than at the details.

With history out of the way, I turned to Genetics and spent 12 hours listening to discussions of things like short tandem repeats.  I’ve always had an interest in genetics and read articles on the subject, but I was surprised at how many concepts I was unaware of.

Currently, I’m in the middle of Economic History of the World Since 1400.  I’m just about at the point where the printing press has been invented.  They voyage to the present day should be interesting.

I’m not the only one who is learning from these lectures.  I have two kids, age nine and seven.  My nine year old, in particular, tends to listen to the audio books I’m playing in the car.  In the past several months, we’ve had discussions about the expansion of the universe, Gregor Mendel’s research on pea plants, Darwin’s theory of evolution, and the attempt of Europeans to find sea routes to Asia.  One of these days, I’m going to work with her on some Punnett squares.

Where will our next book take us? I don’t know. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter, it’s about the journey, right?

Editor’s Note: This article is very positive about The Great Courses. Neither me nor Kosmo (to the best of my knowledge) have received any compensation from the company. I have a few of the Audible books from The Great Courses myself, but I haven’t listened to them yet.

Personal Finance Hero: High School Student Zachary Taylor

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Every few years I come across a story of seemingly ordinary people doing something extraordinary. For example, I loved Abigail Martin’s $500 Dream Wedding.

I was at a pizza parlor when I saw an article in a local (Newport, Rhode Island) newspaper caught my eye. At the very bottom of the page was the title, “Education bill introduced on behalf of PHS student Zachary Taylor.” That was it, just a title and a page number. As a parent of a 2 and 3 year old, I’m extremely interested in anything with the word “education” in it.

I had minimal expectations for the article. Page 5 of the free local newspaper is where you get life advice from from Cleo the Cat. (That’s not a joke. It is a real thing, but unfortunately Cleo’s column was cancelled in 2013.)

Imagine my surprise when I turned to page 5 and found news that might change Rhode Island forever.

Zachary Taylor (with the help of his representative Daniel P. Reilly) introduced a bill that would require Rhode Island high school students to complete a course on financial literacy before graduating.

To me, this is just common sense, but as we covered yesterday, one of the reasons Why We Fail With Money is because most Americans are financially illiterate.

In fact, Rep. Reilly was quoted in the article:

“This is common sense legislation, which prepares students for the real world, such as a balancing a checkbook, securing a mortgage, and purchasing a vehicle.”

Beggars can’t be choosers, so I’ll take any and every attempt of financial literacy education that I can get. I don’t want to criticize a sound bite too much, but at age 40, I’ve never balanced a checkbook. I would rather see education focus on compound interest. At a young age I was inspired to save when I learned that my money could make more money by doing nothing.

Again, I shouldn’t criticize, but I’m an idealist. I think we should focus on financial education before high school.

If done well, it can be included in elementary school. More than 30 years ago, I learned the basics of running a business (such as supply and demand) by playing a Lemonade Stand computer game.

I don’t know if this legislation will pass, but I’m optimistic. The Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE) joined in to testify before the State House for the bill.

Zachary Taylor, I salute you… Bravo Zulu.

The Value of an MBA?

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I know that many in the US won’t cry for me when I say that my income is probably twice what the national average is. (I don’t know what the national average, so you can stop figuring now.) I’m a software engineer. However, living in the Boston area, that kind of income is more or less necessary.

I believe that there are times in every software engineer’s career where they have thought about the “business folks”, “Hey I could do that.” I really believe it to be true more than 80% of the time. In fact, in many cases, I just deal with the client and cut my manager out because his whole job is simply to be a buffer to keep the client from bothering me when I should be coding.

It seems my skill as a software engineer is “more valuable” to the company if I’m coding. However, when I do the job of a “business folk” who is paid twice as much as me, it’s “not a good use of my time.” For this reason, I’ve been thinking of going to get an MBA. I’ve taken a few sample GMAT tests and I’m close to getting the kind of the score that could get me into a top ten school. The starting salaries are pretty high with a degree from any of those schools. However, you have to go full-time for at least two years, and at that point your debt is sky high.

This Wharton Grad does the math to figure out the value of an MBA and he’s not overly convinced it’s worth it. Probably means the top online MBA program isn’t worth it either. In my study of it, it seems the value. In my study of it, it seems the value is largely in networking. I’m not big on networking and would rather have the piece of paper that says, “I’m smart. I have the skills. Pay me what I’m worth.”