In a competition organized by Wesleyan’s chapter of the economics honor society Omicron Delta Epsilon (ODE), University students contended against representatives of chapters from the University of Connecticut (UConn) and Fairfield University.
Racking up 25 points, Wesleyan lost the event to Fairfield, who took home the trophy cup after earning 30 points in the game-show like competition. UConn came in second with 26 points.
The Wesleyan team was comprised of students Razvan Ceapa ’04, Taka Nagatomo ’04 and Sara Shahdad ’05. Students from all teams were either juniors or seniors.
Despite the loss, students remained in high spirits.
“Sara, I’m going to have to go back and give you a zero on that last problem set,” Tom Steenburg ’04 jokingly called out to Shahdad when the team was unable to answer a question about bank reserves. Steenburg is a Teaching Assistant for the macroeconomics course Shahdad is enrolled in.
All left smiling after the light-hearted competition, which moderator Economics Professor Gil Skillman dubbed, “The First Annual All-Connecticut ODE Pro-College Bowl.”
Students were quizzed on questions of varying difficulty on basic economic fact from microeconomics, macroeconomics, and economic history throughout the competition.
“That’s so 101,” joked Economics Chair Joyce Jacobsen when Wesleyan missed a question about elasticity.
Other teachers were equally affected.
“This is hard,” said Fairfield Economics Professor Kathy Nantz. “It’s like watching your children play a sport.”
Jacobsen and Nantz served as judges with Skillman for the hour-and-a-half event, which had fifteen students in attendance.
The competition was divided into three parts. For the first part, the teams were asked a factual question, and in order to gain points they had to be the first to raise their hand and give the correct answer. In the second part, a written problem was given to the teams dealing with a theoretical CD pirating industry. The final section of the competition gave each team a question about international or national policy, and asked them to prepare and give a brief presentation on their position of the issue.
Wesleyan fell behind in the first part of the competition. At the breaks, the teams were 9-9-1, but Wesleyan made the score closer by improving in the latter two parts. Despite being tied to Fairfield, UConn initially seemed the likely victor due to its ability to answer questions particularly quickly and completely. As Wesleyan improved, UConn fell and Fairfield won due to its more consistent performance.
“I thought it was a fun and interesting way to go over what we had learned,” said Megan Gauvey-Kern ’05, an economics major who attended the event.
“I thought the event was really well-organized being in its first year,” Fairfield competitor Jennifer Malcom ’04 said after the event.
The event was organized by ODE chapter president Stephen Yuen ’04, Joyce Park ’04 and John Taveras ’04.
Yuen said that he plans to hold a similar competition again in the spring semester.
“I will study next time,” said Nagatomo.
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