It's nearing the end of this quarter, and I just turned in two of my research papers that were due at the end of this week. Now I have to finish up my assessment for Management 220 by 11 p.m. tomorrow. The format is different this time around, as this time we have essay questions that we have to answer, in addition to the multiple choice questions we have to answer. It'll be interesting to see what the essay questions entail. Also, some of the students have been having trouble submitting their papers through Blackboard. Fortunately I wasn't one of them, but the professor made arrangements for any students having trouble to submit their papers via email, so that was good.

In Finance this week, this discussion dealt with full-service vs. discount or online brokerage firms. Most of us felt that for first-time investors, full-service brokerages firms were the way to go, while some felt that there was no guarantee either way--and there really isn't. But the main point that came up was that first-time investors do the research before dealing with any company, and that if they felt comfortable enough in investing their funds with a particular company, they could do so comfortably with the knowledge that held at their fingertips.