V D Shah
Explaining the process,
not just outcomes!
Explaining the process,
not just outcomes!
One of two things tends to happen when visitors are done reading this blog.
The feedback/reaction after reading this is, 'undoubtedly; this is exactly what I was looking for in my Prof.'
or it is 'definitely this ain't what I was looking for in my coaching!'
With my honest, to-the-point write-up on this one-page website, I make sure you remain in no double mind. I'm quite a straightforward person, clear as to what I seek to ensure. These are solely two things:
1. Theory should meet practice. The application is key.
2. Explain and derive the formulas intuitively; a deep dive.
Just above two objectives. No pass guarantees, no placement promises. Only a promising teaching quality, guaranteed ;)
Human touch is the heart of the teaching-learning process. Cutting it out hampers learning effectiveness.
Be it on my dining table at my apartment or over the ConCalls, I will make your weekend learning as personal as it could ever get. After all, these would be the same ConCall participants who I would be prioritising for face to face sessions at Dadar, Mumbai, India.
The lecture shall start early evening (say 3pm) I like to teach even a small topic in the full detail, for which I go on till 9’ish in the night! (needless to say, with more breaks than you would ask)
An advantage of capping my group size at seven pupils is it lets me haunt if you doze off at class. Just ribbing, forget yawning, you wouldn't even blink once you are in the world of finance and related discussions. On a more reliable note, I ask every learner, after every explanation, if the understanding was crystal clear. No one must feel lost or left out in class.
Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn!
In a class of thirty pupils, the mass tends to forget
In a size of twenty, you might try hard remembering
In my super seven student batch, I involve you to learn!
You need nothing more. A dozen elements will make your education complicated. For those who can dedicate time, the official institute’s curriculum is the gold standard. Nonetheless, stick to what you use, whatever you use, do it well! Simply put, have that faith in the books you read (no matter which) and in the guru under whom study (no matter whom) Your life shall get simpler. Making the simple complicated has become commonplace; rather make the complicated simple, awesomely simple. Thus, from my side, I provide you accurately whatever is a must, only the must.
The preliminary prep work for students involves watching some clips, tutorials/ slides to get acquainted with the matter.
I enter after this. Having said that, I enter with the foundation level explanations before starting the level one. This foundation course that I teach, its demonstrations will be inbuilt, before the inception of every subject. I won’t be surprised if you have not heard of the foundation level course, not your fault. The teaching industry has a modus-operandi to pick up only on what is testable and they know, this material will not show up on your exams.
In my opinion on academics, this course that I teach, ensures learning from the scratch.
In my experience of life, those who miss the beginning and basics, they shall be forced to go back, in a harsh way.
Thus, even if you are taking the level two, I recap all the applicable points from level one. Back to basics is my mantra, to simplify books and simplify life in general :)
Step two is drilling through questions. Practice makes you avoid making the same blunders. I will be frank in stating that major of your practising won't happen during class hours. I think my time can be put to better use: me re-explaining the notion in a reverse fashion is more valuable than standing to supervise while you solve. Thus, weekly, I have these dedicated office hours one evening, where we have a one to one resolution to your minutest academic doubts and difficulties. I do not delegate these responsibilities.
The final stage entails revision of topics, remembering the formulas, attempting mock exams and revisiting the theorems from the test.
To remember the equations, you have a comprehensive formula sheet prepared by us in-house, for all levels. The booklet is handwritten. You might have seen that google drive link floating around; it has been six years since in-house publishing has begun at V D Shah and I have never patented any material that could be useful for the masses.
Coaching institutes have, and may feel free to request if you wish to circulate among your students. Anyway, the recall memory for the handwritten fonts is excellent, more effective than a MS-word typed PDF, hence ‘handwritten notes’. I relish taking care of these minute details. I just do not fancy making testimonial ads of the offerings. Always believed in organic ad-free growth, never put up an ad!
Come, experience all of it in your time here at V D Shah! Hopefully soon, because the trouble is, you think you have time ;)
Fee, Pedagogy:
PPTs are no match for the smell of the chalk running against the blackboard. Traditional teaching in small-sized batches is the school I belong!
The fee is subject-wise, in fact a fair session-wise charge. You pay for what you attend, nothing more nothing less.
I will not reason to compare, my business is to create. If some professor is proud charging a cheaper tariff and serving the masses, it is his Dharma.
I am content in charging a premium price for a niche personalised learning, it fulfils my purpose.
You should know, the cost of getting a bespoke suit stitched and a ready-made suit bought off the shelf will be different, and no matter which one you get, as long as you have gotten the confidence within you, you should be good :)
In those early years of my profession, I had a tough task convincing parents on conducting classes via conference calls.
I shall be frank in stating, the ConCall concept was not an initial commercial success; although there was something that kept me going, you know - the belief in the method, the satisfaction among my students - that kept ConCalls going.
Seven years of me teaching in classroom, I witness the battle against the virus making e-learning transition involuntary, globally.
In such times, it took scientific studies (refer to Harvard Health publication, Musical Memory dt. feb, 2021) and neuroscience experiments by other universities in the states to buy into the beauty of meditation-music-memorising. Our ancient culture has mastered this art, even before west approved.
The idea is to participate in these mentoring sessions through age old audio phone calls. For the major time, your eyes remain closed for enhanced visualisation, and the instrumental music/ alpha waves in the background aids the process. Having said that, there is frequent student participation via speaking out your thoughts, asking for clarifications and resolving doubts! More on this later.
The Miller’s Music experiment was conducted at the university of Iowa. Students, when taken back to that so-called live webinar, that passive watching of a day long video based speech, remained no match to the joy and effectiveness of participating in the ConCalls for those engaging thought provoking panel discussions. The WhatsApp feature of group call limiting seven members makes the experience with me personalised.
I do not believe in leaving students with one-sided videotaped recording, evermore prefer interaction for greater clarification. You may join missed topics in my next cycle. My fee, (on which you shall be notified on filling the below inquiry), shall not only cover the e-books and all of that, but more importantly, will contain my invaluable 'time', say that one to one mentoring request in the month of your exam. That is when you require those pieces of advice - what to skip, what to study, a customised exam day plan, your order of attempting the exam paper and so on. Devoting even a few mins with each and every student would not have been plausible if I ran multiple branches with hundred students. Studying with a ‘teacher’ as against a ‘classes’ will have it’s own benefits.
to me on 9969637888. WhatsApp me your
-name
-academic background (course) [e.g. BAF + MBA]
-college (the last college attended). [BAF from NM & MBA from NMIMS]
Above three details are a must. Along with these, do specify your availability for a meet on weekday evenings, i.e. post what time you will be available?
I'll invite you for a familiarisation session so we can meet in person, if it permits. I love discussing cases related to equity research and valuations.
Click on the WhatsApp icon at the bottom right of this screen for an appointment. Apart from adding you to a disciplined forum, I do not spam with promotional communications; my batches run full anyway.
Returning classroom students who have sat in my three digit batch size, with a multi center multi faculty venture - they might be astounded on this post pandemic change in approach, but now I am content with the scale I operate. One now gets to study all those topics, directly under me (your class representative’s eternal request, right?;)
Those members on the ‘waitlist one’ shall be prioritised in next cycle and accordingly for ‘waitlist two.’
These cycles keep happening.
There is so much perspective that a youth can experience. Youth is not the stage to kill time in pleasure – youth is the time for exploration. Explore along; bridge those gaps, and make theory meet practice.
I help engineers and graduate freshers with research assignments.
I moderate the Analyst’s forum where members engage in business talks. Your participation and networking will benefit you. Make the most use of your access to my members-only-club. You connect with my alumni, which is spread across investment banks and research houses centred in the financial capital of India.
The cases we discuss, built into my lecture content, would take you from the dot-com crash to global financial meltdown; from determination of the risk free rate with dollar denominated bonds to credit default swaps; Venezuela’s geopolitical mess to the never-ending brainstorming and discussions on top fortune five hundred companies. Coming to me, sticking around won’t be easy, but it will be worth it!
Somewhere, someone is planning a night out, someone is planning on building an empire. Genuinely, if you really look closely, most overnight successes took a long time. You are a portfolio manager in making.
KhanAcademy Finance: http://bit.ly/khanFinance
MoneyWeek Tutorials: http://bit.ly/moneyWeek
These simplified explanations have been instrumental in tuning my teaching style as against professing complications to impress the lot. Say for e.g. this rule that has kept most of my student pondering since school days, it is something as basic as the multiplication rule. Why a negative into negative turns out to be positive?
(I would typically make a box, draw four compartments and write the following):
+ve : Create
-ve : destroy
+ve : Cash
-ve : Bill
+ve x +ve = creating cash. A good thing, hence +ve.
+ve x -ve = creating bad :( , hence -ve.
-ve x +ve = destroying cash :( , hence -ve
-ve x -ve = destroying a bill :) , hence +ve
We teachers are rather good at magic, you know ;)
They say, if anything is worth doing, do it with all your heart; for me, the medication-music-memorisation is surely magical <3
Magic of the three M’s shall work for you, just as it did, to the others.
Meditation makes you gain concentration;
Music shall bring you in spirit - that spirit is instrumental in taking the explanation from your ears into your mind; and as they say,
Each memory has a soundtrack of its own. I like those melodies that pump us up by calming us down.
Nobody:
Absolutely Nobody:
Me:
Learning is not meant to be fun/ humorous, but deep and profound;
not loud and exciting, but calm and serene.
Leave those desires for the immature, but you, you look for meaning and purpose!
So close your eyes while you listen to my talk and I do the same while I listen to yours; shutting our eyes shall be a route to opening our minds.
Focus on your breath while you dissect the explanations, you will no way be disconnected or sleepy. Meditating and concentrating is to connect and become alive in the fullest possible way, so you are not just memorising on the surface, you are diving and deriving the core.
Don’t let the muggles get you down; those short-cut memorising techniques to varied mug up approaches - do not let those exam oriented shortcuts kill the ‘inquisitive you’ , the ‘real you!’
I look forth on seeing you on the panel for some real discussions - Be it over ConCalls or in the Classroom, either of the two should be okay. Trust me, they won’t be as divergent as you would imagine.
To the well-organized mind, taking a leap of faith and involving your mind into a fresh process of learning is but the next great adventure.
No story lives unless someone wants to listen. The stories we love best do live in us forever, just as topics of financial analysis and spirituality have been rooted in me. So whether you come back by ConCall discussions or by the classroom interactions, we, at V D Shah will always be there to welcome you :)