A Day in the Classroom

Pranik Chainani ’26: “Innovator is one of my favorite classes of the year. I used to think you were either born with a knack for innovation or not, but now I see there’s a lot of methodology and study that goes into it. Today, we talked about Amazon’s expansion into grocery delivery and how companies can launch sub-ventures without compromising their core business. Tristan, who gave the lecture, has a lot of practical experience consulting with companies on innovation strategy—and so do my classmates. I really appreciate being surrounded by people with different work experiences.”

Spencer Burget ’27: “This is a discussion-based lecture class taught by an influential energy economist, where we look at critical questions around energy security, affordability, and reliability. Today, we studied the road network funding challenge that comes with the transition to electric vehicles. My background is in supporting transportation electrification policy, and I had a summer internship at Rivian. Ken’s economics-based approach has helped me gain an understanding of what the actual market failures are and how policy can maximize social welfare.”

Julia Borges Notarangeli ’26: “In each session, we discuss a case related to the day’s topic—today, it was employee fraud. This course is so important to asset management, especially in the public investing space, where I want to work. When you’re literally managing people’s money, every decision you make is so important: How much transparency will you provide? How will you report to clients on your own performance? How do you make sure personal interest doesn’t sway your investment decisions? For the final exam, we each build a code of ethics tailored to our own careers and aspirations.”

Spencer: “This summer, I’m interning at a commercial real estate company that’s one of the largest owners of rooftop solar in the U.S. Although I’ll be part of the energy development team, I want to be comfortable talking about the core real estate business. This class covers the different models that investors use to value commercial properties and involves a lot of hands-on modeling work. Today, we learned about a Moody’s platform we’ll be using to craft an investment pitch for a real property. I’m planning to look for properties that are undervalued given their climate resilience, energy access, or electrification opportunities. It’s a cool way to think about how energy trends influence this market.”

Pranik: “Through faculty at SOM, I landed a really exciting full-time position at the investing firm Point72 for next year. Down the line, I want to launch a fintech startup, which is why I decided to take this class—it’s one thing to build a great product, but you also have to be able to sell it. This quant-heavy marketing course teaches you how to design surveys that can effectively inform your marketing strategy. In this session, we presented our final group projects. Mine was a survey exploring whether people prefer speaking with AI or human therapists. Shane pointed out some wording choices that seemed really minor, but could end up corrupting the study.”

Julia: “People say that behavioral finance was born at Yale with Bob Shiller, and Nick has continued that work; it’s great to study with such an important figure in the field. In this class, we explore how irrational thinking affects financial markets. Today, we focused on corporate finance—how companies react when their stock is overvalued or undervalued. This class has given me a new understanding of some strange market fluctuations I encountered in my previous work doing equity research. Nick is 
very well-connected to other academics in this field, and he likes to talk through the emerging questions people are beginning to explore.”

Spencer: “This class explores how you develop new climate technologies from an idea to a commercialized technology. It’s cross-listed with the School of the Environment, so students from both schools get to learn from each other’s perspectives. In this session, we talked about how climate technology companies must navigate a diverse landscape of financing structures. Richard has a wealth of experience in this space and an incredible network of climate entrepreneurs who come to class to speak about their experiences. He’s one of the professors who drew me to SOM, and now I get to TA the class and continue to build the pathway from SOM to the climate finance world.”