DSO 599 - Special Topics

This is a very light course when it comes to course workload, and the professor is a titan of industry. It is a very valuable course if you are hoping to learn more about the way companies compete in the digital space (across Software, Hardware, AI, Infrastructure, Customers). Be prepared for long discussions, where your attention will definitely be rewarded with some great takeaways about the industry and your career as a whole

Brand new professor who makes it a point to embarrass students if they have to leave early or arrive late, After the entire class told him that we were not interested in programming, the course was supposed to be about AI topics. He insisted on making us learn advanced programming. This class is for people who know how to code only.

Mix of lectures on the history of tech platforms and class discussion about strategic decisions FAANG giants have made when competing with each other. Professor is intentionally a lenient grader, more interested in provoking interesting debate than having class "learn" anything. Professor is a working professional and I get the sense he does this for fun so class energy is positive and he's genuinely interested in getting to know everyone. Who is this class for? Great for big picture thinkers who are interested in how the tech business got to be where it's at today and what it might look like in the future. Final Thoughts: Strange that this is with DSO department as it's really a strategy class. There's NOTHING quantitative about it. Lots of MSBA students when I took it, fun to meet new people but first couple classes feel like a review of strategy classes that MBAs have taken but that aren't required for MSBA.

The class needs you to have basic coding knowledge to get the most out of it or you will need to spend at least 6-8 hours to keep up. You can, infact, not put in the hours because the assignments are mostly for participation points. The exam is online and open book without coding requirment. The hands on project work will help you add a talking point to resume. Tldr: needs effort, not an easy class; very useful if you are interested and ready to spend 4 hrs min every week outside class

The class content seems to be tempting for someone pursuing the tech industry, but this course requires a high understanding of coding, cloud computing, AI, and ML technology itself rather than a business-wise perspective. I don't think the professor's teaching style is very kind and instructive. The professor encourages helping each other between students, however, the problem is only a few students can help other people (maybe!), and there is no TA.

This class is pretty hands-on, perhaps too technical for most MBAs. It shows you the applications of AWS for ML and AI - a behind-the-scenes peek into what everyone's talking about. The coding (primarily python, with bits of YAML and JSON thrown in), can be sometimes confusing, especially getting AWS setup in the initial classes. Sign up only if you're prepared to put in the work to reseach and correct your code (Professor provides examples, but often you need to putter around to solve the take home problem), and spend $$ on AWS subscription (it cost me $35 halfway into the semester). After taking this course, you should be able to have the baseline knowledge to engage in decent conversations around machine learning, AI, LLMs and the whole gamut but you will by no means become a technical expert.

Nice guy -- I feel like this is probably his first time teaching. Weird open-ended class structure. Guest speakers are cool. Project is largely unrelated to anything we do in class.

This class was very unorganized and not super valuable. It was very repetitive (always talking about a case, pros and cons of the industry, pros and cons of how big data can be used to help the company).

This course was being taught for the first time and was disorganized and unfocused. Didn't meet my expectations for a DSO class, all big-ideas and soft-skills, don't feel I've learned much about data. Aside from final group project, very little work outside of class. Final project is for Sony Pictures, and while it's been useful to talk about in interviews, in practice it hasn't been a beneficial project at all.

Not bad for a 1.5 unit class. Course was a lot heavier on the financial side than expected, but Prof. Zhu was quite helpful and good to work with. It's easy to zone out of class and not pay attention, but he's actually really smart and has a lot of good insights + contacts in many industries. Not a lot of work, but some essays and cases have page length requirements. Final report and presentation is determined by your group, so you can decide on the scope as preferred.

This was a great class, more MBAs should take it. It's pretty much analyzing what operational levers you (as a manager) will be able to affect in order to influence financial measures (namely ROA). This is a great class, the professor is so enthusiastic about the subject matter, Marshall MBAs need to take classes like this. I believe this is where our weaknesses lie (as Marshall), take this 1.5 unit class, especially if Ops isn't your "thing".