In einem kurzen Interview spricht Prof. Dr. Nicos Scordis, der am Peter J. Tobin College of Business, St. John鈥檚 University, NYC, lehrt, 眉ber seine Lehrmethodik, Herausforderungen und Chancen von Online-Unterricht und was er an Hamburg und der HSBA sch盲tzt.
You live and lecture in NYC. What made you want to come over to Hamburg to teach here? Please describe your teaching style.
I engage with my students to create knowledge, and to develop their ability to apply that knowledge to resolve authentic risk challenges managers are likely to face both now, and in the near future. I engage with my students under the frameworks of Understanding by Design and of Differentiated Instruction. These frameworks call for first deciding the objective of learning and then designing a curriculum backwards from that objective. Then as the curriculum unfolds, I have to understand differences and similarities in how students learn so that I adjust my instruction to best fit the students. In my experience at the University level, this approach works especially well with smaller groups of students. Thus, given the small number of high quality students in each of HSBA鈥檚 cohorts, I had to accept this invitation to guest lecture. Plus, perhaps some of Europe鈥檚 most experimental craft beer is produced in Hamburg with much of it extremely well done! So, with every glass of beer in Hamburg, there is that anticipation of reward for risk, which is at the core of what I teach.
As many others you have recently been thrown into online teaching. How is it going? Does it have any advantages over on-site teaching?
I have attended several seminars over the years, and read many scientific articles, on best practices for online learning. I developed asynchronous online learning modules for corporations and taught synchronous on-line courses. My strong preference is for synchronous online courses like this one. In my experience, this generation of students are much better at truly interacting, meaningfully, in the online learning environment than students from earlier years. Also, the possibilities for parallel learning that the online environment allows, provides interesting applications of Differentiated Instruction.
What type of discussions with students do you most enjoy?
I genuinely enjoy class discussions at the point where students are able to apply their knowledge to interrogate different points of view with logically rigorous, and conceptually solid arguments. I especially enjoy discussions with students that make me reconsider my own view.
Do you see any difference between US and German students?
Both groups of students are bright, hard-working, among the best their countries have to offer. I have to admit, however, that I do not understand the German way of grading where the higher the points a student earns, the lower and the better the grade. But then as a comparison, my country still uses the Fahrenheit scale to measure temperature!
You have won a number of national (USA) awards for innovation in risk and insurance education and in your research you investigate how publicly-traded firms engage with risk and uncertainty in their evolving operations. How has Corona changed/ How is Corona changing the behaviour of companies?
Yes, I have won awards from the American Risk and Insurance Association, and I work at the intersection of risk, value and uncertainty. In the case of Corona, I will argue that we are still dealing with uncertainty, rather than risk. And to quote from a 1937 paper written by Keynes, 鈥渨e simply do not know鈥�.
If you were starting a company tomorrow, what would the top three core values for your company be?
1. Smarter business decisions follow from building smarter risk models.
2. Treat all as I would like to be treated.
3. Strive to maximize welfare.
If you had the chance to have dinner with anyone from history, who would it be?
Assuming we overcome all culture and language barriers so this dinner is convivial let鈥檚 have a small gathering instead. Let鈥檚 invite Brahmagupta from the 7th century al-Khowarizmi from the 9th and perhaps Robert of Chester from the 12th. The first two for 鈥渋nventing鈥� the concept of zero as a mathematical quantity, and Robert, for choosing to translate their work on zero into Latin.
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Der berufsbegleitende Master of Science-Studiengang Finance, der vollst盲ndig in englischer Sprache unterrichtet wird, ist ein konsekutiver Studiengang f眉r ambitionierte Absolventen wirtschaftswissenschaftlicher Bachelor-Studieng盲nge, die sich im Hinblick auf ihre berufliche Zukunft f眉r anspruchsvolle T盲tigkeiten im Finanzbereich qualifizieren wollen. Das Studium vermittelt umfassende Kompetenzen, die sowohl f眉r Finanzintermedi盲re im Besonderen als auch f眉r die gesamte Gesch盲ftswelt im Allgemeinen bedeutend sind.
Im Modul "Quantitative Risk Management" befassen sich die Studierenden mit der Messung und Absicherung von (finanziellen) Risiken. Dies umfasst in erster Linie Marktrisiken wie Preise und Zinss盲tze, Kreditrisiko, Liquidit盲tsrisiko und operationelles Risiko. Der Schwerpunkt liegt auf Kredit-, Liquidit盲ts- und Betriebsrisiken.
