Katie Cartier
DAMNIT! I submitted this once, and then had to retract. That is the thing about class with tom. What starts as “ok, I’ll work to meet class expectations” turns into (if you let it) trying to meet your own expectations, which often end up being higher than expected. I have the distinct memory, in the midst of trying to put together the final draft of a paper on a leader, of quitting, tearing it up, and starting over, approximately nine hours before a semester’s worth of work was due. Could I have handed it in and met all class expectations? Yes. But the expectations that I began to set for myself based on what was happening in class got higher and higher and I ultimately could not submit something that did not meet those expectations. Here I am, years later, in the same situation. I submitted something, then realized that I just was not okay with what it was, then festered on it for days before I called it back.
My first introduction to tom was not in a formal classroom, so in some ways, it was probably easier for me to adapt to the role of colleague rather than student when I finally enrolled in one of his management seminars when I was a senior. Having been a student representative on a college technology committee, I had already spent considerable time sitting at a conference table with tom in an environment where I quickly learned that people wanted to hear what I had to say. But it required work. I couldn’t just show up and fake it. Hell, if I was going to represent the student body, I had to REPRESENT THE STUDENT BODY, I had to show up. Why give people any more reason to think that students are lazy and uninvested in the long term success of the college?
This is what tom’s classes are like – he wants to hear what you have to say. So:
- You have to be willing to say it.
- You have to be willing to do the work that will support your ability to state your opinion, to debate and argue and disagree with and to learn from the other folks in the class space with you. You can fake it to make it in a lot of places, in a lot of classes. This is not one of them. Do your reading, meet with your group, SHOW UP.
- Be curious. Ask questions. Those questions often lead to some of the most interesting discussions.
Outside of class, get to know your peers. Collaboration will be so much easier if you can see the person you are working with as the person you met for coffee and not just someone you see in class three times per week. I got to know some very different people this way, people who I would have never interacted with otherwise.
While college is apparently supposed to prep you for the “real world”, it is the experiences that make up the college years that are the ones that actually prepare you the most, not the lectures you may or may not listen to, not the tests that require rote memorization, not the random homework assignments that you do not understand the point of. Being in class with tom is one of those experiences. Think about a job where you get thrown into a workplace (okay, you get the job you have been SO excited for) full of strangers and need to build community so that you can successfully accomplish a task. That’s class. Think about working at a non-profit where there is a ton of passion for a project, but a really small budget…and people who have other responsibilities outside of the already long work hours – yep, all of the above applies to class projects that you will work to complete. Think about the work you have to do at a new job to earn the respect of those around you, through all levels of an organizational chart. While that chart in class is linear, it still applies. Class makes you think about your expectations for yourself and for those people that you work with and, for me, challenged me each day to decide if I was meeting the level of expectation I had for myself, even if other people’s expectations of me were different (i.e. less). Think about whether or not you meet your own expectations, and take a look at the expectations you have of other people. Do you communicate those? Are they fair? Do you think your expectations of yourself match those that other people have of you, or are they higher or lower? All of these pieces are still things that play around in my brain, even as I write this.
At the end of the day, class, and what you get out of class, is what you put into it. From my experience, it is well worth the effort.
And, finally, take Org Theory, okay? I never did and I still hear about it…16 years later.