This fall semester I'm taking two half-semester classes at Wash U: FIN 532 Investment Theory, then FIN 532B Data Analytics for Investments. I don't have any particular love for either class, nor for the topic, but I wanted to take a more analytical class after taking softer classes (negotiation, change management, power and politics) all year. So I'll hang out with the quantitative kids this semester, especially since I picked one of the sections with the MS Finance students, who are predominantly plugging in from China. Maybe I'll learn some topic-specific Chinese as well.

The topic-disinterest is itself a form of interest. It's like a negative light shone on the things that I don't know much about because I would typically only learn something about the things I'm interested in. It's a kind of interest in filling in the gaps. I don't want to spend too much of my time forcing myself to learn things I don't care about, but as a general rule it's useful to do it sometimes.

I'm down to 16.5 credit hours remaining, and this will cover 3 of them. At this point in the year, I'm just trying to grind through—Mule Time, maybe you've heard of it—so 3 credit hours is enough. Also it's the limit of what the home office will sponsor for the year, so why not shuffle the remaining hours to next year.