classroom musings
I am sitting in one of my "good" classes right now...the 30 or 45 minutes I have before class to just chill are probably the only 30 or 45 minutes of that I'll have in this day. Forced relaxation is a good thing.
It's amazing that I like this class so much, because not only is it a requirement (required classes are almost always a drag), it's topic is something I am absolutely terrible at practicing: organizational management and behavior. See, I am perhaps the
worst employee ever when it comes to working in a corporate setting. Luckily, I no longer work in such a setting. Instead, I have a wonderfully unique job atmosphere which is sort of the antithesis of corporate America but with the same result (good paycheck, good benefits). In fact, it was sort of a joke with my workmates, when the first mid-term rolled around in this class...we all figured if it was a test of the practical applications of organizational management, that I would fail it miserably and be sent to remedial management school. Luckily, it was mostly multiple choice, with an essay thrown in for good measure. :)
This class is probably one of the most important/relevant classes I'll take in this major (Management), and its content is something that everyone in the class should take to heart and try to apply and/or recognize. After all, these people (think they) are going to be managers one day. Unfortunately, the class seems to be filled with some of the poorer students I've been around. About half of the class scores below average or fails the exams. They're difficult exams, but not so difficult that B+s and As aren't achievable (hell, I've gotten them!) with a little bit of effort. I was very proud of the little frat boy normal guy next to me who bombed the first exam terribly but sucked it up, studied a better way and got a B on the next exam. That's the kind of person you'd want to hire -- the kind that shows effort and the ability to adjust. However, I fear that the the ones who will actually get are the loud, boisterous, obnoxious boys who complain that the test takes too long (because they have no time management skills) and is too hard (because apparantly they don't pay attention and/or study).
Had another disheartening experience the other day, in my International Business class. We have a group project to do, and we've been in our groups and had our topic and roles within the group delineated since the semester began. I nominated myself as the point person/PPT presentation maker, because I figured if my grade depends on 4 other people, I want to do as much as I can to make us look good. Over the sememster we've met a few times and I created a written outline of our discussions; everyone knew what they had to do. We all agreed that the group members would turn in their outlines (or something remotely close to text that I could turn into a PPT slide) last weekend. I got one document, the majority of which was a paragraph lifted from a web site and unattributed, of course. I also received several documents which were articles on the topic. Two people didn't send me a thing. Since there's no way in hell I'm doing their work for them, I had to be the bad guy and try to explain to them that they had to actually think about content on their own and provide me with bullet points to use on slides. They looked at me like I was from Mars. This is an upper-level class!
Then again, I shouldn't have been all that surprised...when I suggested we all meet in the library (a brand spanking new, $100M+ joint venture between the university and the city) they all said "where is it?" WHERE IS IT? It's the freaking library. It's huge and shiny and....
it's the library.
