Fall 2024 Senior

ENERES C176: Climate Change Economics by David Anthoff (Fall 2024)

We all know that the more CO2 is in the atmosphere, the warmer the Earth becomes. I did models in this class and ran simulations in Excel using a bunch of variables.

An important lesson is that earlier is better.

For example, to reduce global rising temperature by 1.0 Celsius, you have to cut carbon emissions in 2025 by 10%. However, if you delay it till 2040, to reduce the rising temperature by 1.0 Celsius, you have to reduce emissions by 30-50%/.

Sometimes, it’s even worse. CO2 emissions accumulate in the atmosphere. With each passing year, global warming gets worse and worse.

Worst case example: everyone on Earth continue business as usual until 2055(random year). Even at 2055 and after, we cut carbon emissions by 100%, the global temperature would keep rising because too much CO2 has accumulated in the atmosphere. It will take decades to stabilize and decades more for the temperature to drop.

LS C160V: Human Happiness by Dacher Keltner (Fall 2024)

How much is social connection worth? Example: You make $100k in California (family & friends). $30k raise to work in New York? $50k ?

Why do Negative Events harm poor people more than rich people? Example: Divorces, loneliness, ill health.

=If you are going through a divorce or suffer from loneliness, you can go to therapy or take a trip to Japan if you are rich enough. If you are poor, you are fucked.

How much is one day of happiness worth? Example: Drug to make you feel sad and down the whole day. How much to take the drug?

After certain income threshold, making more money HAS NO CORRELATION WITH HAPPINESS.

Aside from questions that help you measure the value of your happiness, there are some general lessons on how to be happy.

Go outside more, have more social activity than being alone, work out, meditate, don’t be poor.

Psych 133: Psychology of Sleep by Matthew Walker (Fall 2024)

I took this class because the professor is the author of one of my favorite books “Why We Sleep”. However, I only attended a few lectures because I am lazy. However, I went to all of my discussions because of my GSI who was a cute Japanese girl. Gillian Hinako Ozawa. This class was 90% a recap with more details of his book.

The class teaches you about everything regarding sleep, how sleep changes based on age, different phases, positives of sleep, negatives of sleep deprivation, sleep disorders and insomnia.

Big takeaways: deep sleep restores memory and health, and REM sleep (dreaming) is largely responsible for emotional maturity. If you go through a breakup and feel slightly better and less sad the next day after some sleep, that’s due to REM sleep.

When you are sleep-deprived, your ability to remember past information and remember new information is hindered. That’s why all-nighters for exam don’t work because you just forget sometimes.

Alcohol and Sleep:

First, while alcohol is still in your system, it disrupts REM sleep leading to reduced or delayed onset of dreams

Second, when alcohol is first consumed, it makes you drowsy and tired. Alcohol is a sedative like sleeping pills or anesthesia. It makes you drowsy and near unconscious. However, unconsciousness and being asleep are different things. When you are unconscious, your body isn’t fully operating. However, when your body is asleep, your body and mind are still working to consolidate information, boost your immune system, heal muscle tissue from physical activity.

Some people prefer to take alcohol right before bed. However, after a few hours, it is finished digesting and your body goes back to being alert. That’s why some people can fall asleep with alcohol only to find themselves awake at 3 am.

UGBA 135: HAAS Personal Finance by Terrance Odean and Robert Shaye (Fall 2024)

Lesson on credit cards:

Poor People:

-banks make money off poor people by charging them fees and high interest rates. The poor people are the ones paying for overdraft fees or the interest in their debt.

Rich People:

-banks make money off rich people through service fees. Everytime a credit card is used in a shop or somewhere, the bank takes a small percentage of the transaction as a service fee. We credit card users don’t pay it, the shops and business owners do. (usually 1.5% to 3.5% fee). When rich people are spending millions on their credit cards, banks make thousands of money from each rich customer.

Perks:

That’s why a lot of credit cards with high yearly membership fees have a lot of good exclusive perks to attract rich people. Perks such as free airline miles, free credit for hotels or restaurants, etc. The perks of rich people’s credit cards are funded by the fees and charges of poor people’s credit cards.

-the credit card fees charged on poor people are used to fund the perks and benefits of rich people’s credit cards

Fiduciary:

Always get a fiduciary with a flat fee (not a percentage fee unless it’s cheaper) to manage your finances. Fiduciary are required by law to manage your assets in your best interests and not theirs (maximize commissions).

Lowering Costs:

It’s not easy to find stocks with higher percentage returns than others because there is no guarantee. However, there is a way to save thousands of money in the long-term. Even for SP500 or index funds, each service provider charges a percentage fee. If the vanguard costs 1% fee versus fidelity .1% fee, you are saving thousands of dollars over the course of your life.

There is a limit to how much money you can save (you can only save so much money on food or rent). However, there is no limit on the money you can earn. Rather than focusing on saving $4 on your daily latte, focus more on negotiating a salary increase that can be worth $10k+.

MCELLBI 198: Music and Medicine by Kenzy Mohamed and Lamis Yassin (Fall 2024)

Overall, music helps reduce stress and makes us more relaxed.

Some lessons I took away.

Nostalgia:

Whenever I listen to an old song like “Hopes and Dreams” from Undertale, it sends me goosebumps and shivers. I am not just remembering it, I am reliving the past and experiencing the same emotions from my childhood once more.

Therapy:

Music therapy is a creative outlet for expression. If I feel sad or angry or happy, I can vent out those emotions on a piano or a guitar. Even singing has a similar effect. A lot of people including myself have trouble expressing ourselves so music can be an alternative outlet compared to speaking or writing.

Chinese 98: Introductory Cantonese by Bianca Chiu and Jonathan Ngai (Fall 2024)

-Bianca looked very similar to my HK secondary school biology homeroom teacher who I had a huge crush on (big eyes and red hair chinese)

I have always wanted to learn Cantonese because I used to live in Hong Kong. However Cantonese has 6 tones. 4 tones in Mandarin is already too hard for me. A tactic with tonal language is using context to determine which word they are saying. Even with the lessons and everything, Chinese/Cantonese is too difficult for me. However, my teacher Bianca looked a cuter version of my HK secondary school biology homeroom teacher who I had a huge crush on (big eyes and red hair Chinese) which made me stay in the class.

Some fun things I remember.

End your sentences with a ~la at the end for attitude.

For example “fai ti” means hurry up. “Fai Ti La” means hurry the hell up.

Pok Gai = Fall on the street/Fuck You

Diu Nei Lo Mo = Fuck your mother

Pok Gai, Diu Nei Lo Mo, Ham Gaa Caan = Fuck You, Fuck your mother, and Fuck your whole family

There are differences between mandarin and cantonese. Written is the same but pronunciation is different.

For hello, it’s written the same way. In Mandarin it’s “Ni Hao” but in Cantonese it’s “Nei Hou / Lei Hou”.