Assignment Task
In 2003, I enrolled in the Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) program at Khulna University. The BBA program entailed two courses on economics: microeconomics and macroeconomics. Thus, for the first time ever, I opened a book on economics titled “Economics,” written by Paul A. Samuelson. These two courses were of 12 credit hours, and I obtained a letter grade of B+ in macroeconomics (i.e., belonging to the 75%–80% range, meaning “very good”) and a C+ in microeconomics (i.e., belonging to the 65%–70% range, meaning “satisfactory”).
Subsequently, I studied “Development Finance and Banking” while pursuing my MBA at the University of Dhaka. It was a 3-credit-hour course, and I obtained a letter grade of B+, which subsumes the 80%–84% mark bracket (i.e., a grade point of 3.33 on a scale of 4.0). After reading the book Economic Development, co-authored by Michael P. Todaro and Stephen C. Smith, I became interested in learning about development finance and economics because I discovered that contemporary development models such as the O-ring model, the big push model, and the Pareto improvement theory made pragmatic progress in the development landscapes of sub-Saharan Africa and East Asia.
Lastly, during 2016–2017, while pursuing the “certified expert in risk management” program at the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management, I studied several courses titled “Governance of Risk in Financial Institutions,” “Interest Rate Risk Management,” and “Foreign Exchange Rate Risk Management.” All of the aforementioned courses are based on the fundamentals of economic theories as well as on applied economic perspectives. Overall, I scored 86% out of 100% in the final exam.
So, previously, I have attended a considerable number of courses relevant to economics in my undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate level education that are substantive to my eligibility in fulfillment of the criteria for enrolling in the Master’s Program in Economics at the University of Helsinki. Up until the 12th grade, I had been a student of the science group when I studied arithmetic, geometry, and calculus.
In my BBA program, I studied several courses relating to mathematics and statistics: Fundamentals of Computations (BA 1109, 4 credit hours, grade: B+, mark range: 75% to 80%), Mathematics for Business (BA 1105, 4 credit hours, grade: C, mark range: 60% to 65%), Computer Application in Business (BA 2105, 3 credit hours, grade: C+, mark range: 65% to 70%%), Computer Programming (BA 2209, 4 credit hours, grade: C, mark range: 60% to 65%), Operation Research (BA 310, 3 credit hours, grade: B, mark-range: 70% to 75%), and Quantitative Business Analysis (BA 3109, 4 credit hours, grade: A, mark range: 80% – 100%).
The courses of the “certified expert in risk management” program at the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management were built upon the principles of economics. It also had a mandatory assignment section: “To investigate the severity and possible causes of any potential under-or over-provisioning of the SME portfolio as of October 31, 2016 at a Kenyan bank” and “Impacts of Exchange Rate Fluctuation in Bangladesh’s Economy.” These assignments warranted application of statistical and mathematical models. The analytical models and data management exercises included, among others, look-up formulas, pivot tables, if-statements, regression analysis, and the like. The functionalities of all these methods and tools are exceptionally well-documented, beaten paths in data science. And in the assignment section, I obtained 105% out of 100%, denoting “Excellent,” in the attainment of the objectives of the assignments, and I scored 86% out of 100% in the final exam