Since, I am Management major Principles of Microeconomics is a must-take class. It is not terribly difficult, but harder harder than Principles of Macroeconomics. But I am not really talk here about what we study in Microeconomics, but more the difference between the Management and Economics major. I was an Economics major, then I declared a Management major with an Economics minor, and now I am only Management major.

For the Economics and Management majors you take about 70% of the same classes. Then Management gets more practical and business-oriented, whereas Economics gets more theoretical. Also, Management is the only “business” degree in Hope. Economics is not “business” degree. So if you are student who is interested in pursuing a career in business, then Management major is much better option.

I have a lot of friends and relatives, who if I say, I am Management major, they think I am studying to be a “boss” or “executive”. It is not true. Firstly, there is not such as school that makes you a CEO, other than time, experience, and long length of right decisions. So in the Management major still get to learn the core of economics, which is very important in business, but then you focus more on real life related work.

My second class is Spanish V class because Spanish is my minor. Interestingly enough, Spanish V is my first Spanish class at Hope, but I did study abroad in Chile for a semester. In Spanish V we basically go over all tenses, subjunctives and conditionals, so by then we should theoretically have no more grammar to learn.

If you are interested in Spanish minor, then you need 16 credits, but it starts to count with Spanish V. So when you come to Hope, you have to take a language placement test designed by Hope College. Based on that, you go to Spanish I or a higher level. Or you can go to Spanish V and get credit for Spanish I, II, III, IV, and V, or 20 credits towards graduation. Nevertheless, from Spanish minor you need Spanish V, Spanish VI and two more classes.

The whole getting credit for Spanish I and Spanish II if you are Spanish III can be in any language department at Hope.

The first class I am taking this semester is Russian II. As you know, Hope College is a liberal arts school, so you will have to take a second or for some people, a third or fourth language. It does not have to be a Russian. You can take Spanish, French, Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, and German as well. But as you might guess Spanish is the most popular one because most U.S. students take Spanish in high school.

Nevertheless, if you are interested in completely different and unique language and you are not big fan of Mandarin Chinese, then Russian is the way to go. If you do decide to Russian, it is a sort of one year course. Let me explain. If you want to take Spanish I or French II, you can do so any semester. And you can even pick different time blocks. But if you want to take Russian I than you can take it only in the fall and in order to get to Russian II, you must take Russian I beforehand. Logically, Russian II is taught only in the spring, since Russian I is only taught in the fall.

The advantage of taking Russian is the fact people it is not the most popular language between students, and actually many students even do not know that one can study Russian at Hope, so my class is only 7 students. It is basically like having a personal tutor. Also, you may know Russians use different alphabet called Azbuka, and you get to learn how to read it, which very cool and unique skill to have.

On February 20, Dr. Arthur Brooks gave a lecture called “Let’s Work Together: Restoring Optimism, Unity, and Opportunity.” The goal of the lecture was sharing of what he thinks are three secrets to successful entrepreneurship.

Dr. Arthur Brooks is well respected social scientist and musician, who is currently the president of the American Enterprise Institute or as other people would call, a conservative think tank.

He started of his speech by saying that there are multiple ways to achieve a success and two big problems that of looking the truly successful entrepreneurs like Bill Gates or Steve Jobs. Firstly, this group is only 2% and out of those 2% only ¾ (75%) are capable running a successful enterprise. This means that out of 1,000,000 people only 2,000 are successful entrepreneurs. And out of those 2,000 people only 1,500 people are capable of running actually company. So the group was really small. Also, he found out that these guys are “nuts” – hypomania.

Secondly, what is the definition of success? Is it money, family life, happiness or property. For everybody the formula is very different.

Then he continued, to the first secret of success which is lifting someone up, not making someone richer. He referred to the prison entrepreneurship program in Houston that its purpose is to form enterprisers out of convicted felons, which does not really happen. But what happens is their return rate is much lower because it helps to get back on their feet and transfer to real life.

The second secret was serve others. He did a study where the people who donated money, they become richer. He taught that his numbers were wrong, so he asked his friend, who told him that it is well known for 30 years. It is because more one donates the happier one, which results in higher productivity therefore more making more money.

The third and last secret to success cultivate your weakness. In other words, one weakness is different and a good way to connect with someone else in the community. He gave an example of college bar. There is a weakness which is a lack of true college bar in the campus area. Use the weakness to connect with the community and start a bar.

Lastly, he also encouraged to take more risks and to say “yes” to a lot of big life decisions to be more entrepreneurial minded.