Max Dunn’s Quantitative Assessment

Presidio School of Management, Sustainable MBA
November 2008

Courses

Math

• Advanced Placement Math - 5/5
• Calculus - B+
• Differential Equations - C
• Linear Algebra - C
• Self-Paced Calculus - A-
• Multivariable Calculus - B
• Analytical Applied Math 1 - B+
• Analytical Applied Math 2 - B
• Discrete Math - P

Other

• Intro to Economics - B+

Assessment

For the first three years of my undergraduate work, I attended UC Berkeley and took many math and science classes. While I never took a class exclusively about statistics, I learned many statistics principles in my other classes. Lately, I have been looking at the advanced statistical method of principal component analysis to better understand climate change.

I still fondly remember my Intro to Economics class at Berkeley (which covered both micro and macro economics). In particular, I remember discussing how free-market pricing was always lower than monopoly pricing, but how free-markets could be gamed if each player independently set their prices as if they were each a monopoly. I have continued learning more about economics, especially lately when reading about the financial crisis in The Economist magazine.

For accounting, I independently learned the principles of double-entry accounting and reading financial statements. This enabled me to do all my own bookkeeping at first for my businesses before turning it over to my office managers.

In regards to finance, I raised $365,000 from friends, family and angels for my last business and witnessed a B and C venture capital round at Xythos. I also gained much operational experience starting and running four small businesses for 14 years, including one in the Czech Republic.

In summary, I have a taken extensive math and science classes which also covered some statistics. While I have not had formal training in the other quantitative skills, I  have learned a lot independently and used this knowledge extensively in running a series of small businesses.