BAEP 564 - Investing in Impact Ventures

If you're interested in impact investing then this is a good class. Prof Walske is really passionate about the topic and it shows

You can learn a lot about startups, especially in impact investing, from this class. There are guest speakers every class, which gives you great exposure to the material (cases) you read. Also, plenty of employment opportunities through Jennifer and the guest speakers. Really fascinating material and companies that you analyze, but it does get super dry sometimes. Jennifer doesn't let you out early, so you are there throughout the night and that can drag on.

Professor is smart and a current practitioner in the field, but there are moments you hope he can command the class better, but doesn't. He brings in really great guests and keeps the class engaging. But the content can be rudimentary and the pace slow. There are a number of assignments and skill builders. The skill builders are a great concept - we go through a due diligence memo, a business model canvas, and pro forma forecasts - but we never revisit those tools at all. Most of the students are also in the MSSE program, so you get a nice mix of students.

She is the real deal. HOWEVER this class is mainly attended by MSSE students, they are an odd bunch. Good to understand startup funding as well as basics of finance in addition to impact investing. She works full time in this field and very up to date about everything. She should be just giving lectures rather than make it a participatory class, oh well.

Great class. Many students from the Social Entrepreneurship Program take this class so be ready for some very basic finance explanation that may take half of the class time. This tends to get boring but overall the class is great.

Interesting course if you're passionate about the subject matter, professor tends to assign lots of reading but not all is necessary

The professor is brilliant and this is a great class. The class is an interesting mix of MBA students and MSSE and Price students. So MBAs who are not necessarily finance driven will easily be able to handle the finance portion of the class. Additionally since this is an MBA class the professor assumes that students don't know that much about the impact space and makes this portion of the material very approachable. Overall, a very enjoyable class and a great introduction to the impact space - which is growing in importance everyday.