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Preparing for MBA
Being a Student Again
MBA Assignments
Dos and Don'ts
Thesis & Dissertations
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by
Donald E. Simanek
An ex-president of
an institution, when it was a college with an enrollment of
several thousand, was asked how many students the school had. He
quipped "Oh, perhaps a dozen." He was making a joke
which is as old as the hills. The president of a large corporation
used it when he was asked by a reporter (during a strike) how many
workers there were in his plant. One of my junior-high teachers
used to remind us that to be a student meant more than
merely being a pupil.
So what
distinguishes a student? What makes the student stand out from the
rest of the class? The four As: attitude, academic skills,
awareness, and accomplishment, certainly are a large part of it,
and a student who has them will be very likely to earn As:
- Attitude
is primarily a genuine desire to learn, and the willingness to
do hard intellectual work to achieve understanding. It is also
shown by how well you apply yourself even to subjects in which
you have little interest, and how much you can achieve even
when a professor's style isn't to your liking.
- Academic
skills
include ability to read with comprehension, intelligent use of
resources (including library resources), logical and
mathematical skills, efficient study habits, and the ability
to communicate clearly and fluently in speaking and writing.
- Awareness
of what's going on in the world around you, and the habit of
intelligently relating it to your academic courses. For
example, when taking a course in political science, you should
relate what you are learning in class to what's happening on
the national and world political scene. When taking a science
course, you should relate scientific principles to phenomena
you observe in everyday life, and go out of your way to find
applications and examples of science in the real world.
- Accomplishment
is demonstrated by successful application of understanding.
The evidence of that is:
"Correct
and confident application of what you've learned to new
problems and challenges, clear and effective communication of
your understanding through speaking and writing, and possession
of a base of information, skills and understanding sufficient
to allow you to continue your education outside of the
classroom, throughout your life."
All of these add up
to a fifth A: ability, a word frequently used above. The
goal of education is to achieve the ability to apply one's
knowledge in new, creative, and correct ways. Abilities are not
entirely innate; some are achievable through dedicated and focused
effort.
Other symptoms and
qualities of a good student include:
- Self-discipline.
The successful student has learned to budget time, and use it
efficiently, and will do the things that need to be done, when
they must be done, whether or not one feels like it at the
time.
- Initiative.
In short: doing things without being told. The student doesn't
wait for assignments to read ahead in the textbook, or to seek
out and study related books to gain understanding. The good
student does more problems or exercises than assigned, and
does them even when none are assigned. The good student
working in the laboratory does not merely follow instructions
(though that is an important skill) but looks for
opportunities to discover new things, try new things, or find
better methods. When an opportunity arises to do a project
outside of class, the good student jumps at the chance and
doesn't even ask whether it will earn extra credit.
- Breadth of
interests.
College provides a great opportunity to broaden your interests
and explore new things. You may never again have available to
you such a convenient and comprehensive library, such diverse
and inexpensive cultural events and academic activities. Much
education can occur outside of class, if you seek it. But if
you confine yourself to the things you've always done,
avoiding anything new and unfamiliar, you will have squandered
a valuable opportunity.
- An open mind
is a mind receptive to examination of new ideas and facts.
Having an open mind does not mean that one jumps on the
bandwagon of every new fad. A better characterization of an
open mind is one which is willing to dispassionately and
rationally analyze new ideas, weighing them objectively
against established knowledge and the facts at hand.
- A critical
habit of mind.
Education is more than the acquisition of information. It
includes the ability to acquire new information, to critically
evaluate that information, and to correctly and effectively
use it. With so many information sources at our disposal in
this computer age we are awash in information, and in danger
of information overload. But much of that information is
fraudulent, worthless, incomplete, or just plain wrong. It has
always been so. Probably 95% of the books in any library could
be lost with no harm to human knowledge. But it's not easy to
determine just which books are worth keeping. We are
assaulted through every medium by folks trying to sell us
something (with impressive claims of its value), to persuade
us to accept some political or social idea, to convert us to
some religion or philosophy, or to convince us of the value of
some medical panacea. Most of this is humbug. One of the
values of a good education is the ability to see through false
and unfounded claims and outright deceptions. By this
criterion, education has largely been a failure, for many
people who have college degrees are still suckers for the
snake-oil and perpetual-motion-machine peddlers.
- Perceptiveness.
The more you learn, the more perceptive you become. You can,
as necessary, "read between the lines." You no
longer need everything spelled out; you can fill in missing
details. You aren't dependent on being shown; you can puzzle
things out for yourself. You perceive quickly what a writer or
speaker means, without misinterpreting. You learn to seek the
intended meaning of what you read or hear rather than trying
to impose your own preconceived meaning. You can see through
complexity to the heart of a matter. You are able to
distinguish the important from the trivial in a serious
discussion.
- Objectivity.
Most of us begin our education with an "egocentric"
view, expecting everything to have some relevance to our needs
or desires. We even impose such interpretations on things we
learn, and avoid learning some things because they don't seem
important at the time. Education can broaden that view,
encouraging us to set our egos aside and objectively evaluate
facts and interpretations. We find out that mere unsupported
personal opinions have no value in an academic discussion. We
learn to recognize the validity of facts and ideas which we
may not like. We learn that other people and other cultures
interpret things differently, and that fact is not a-priori
evidence that they are wrong. We learn that the world does not
revolve around us, and the universe cares not one bit whether
we exist, or what we do. Education can give us humility.
- Humility.
However much one knows, one must realize there's a lot more to
be learned, and that some of what one `knows' may turn out to
be wrong. For this reason intellectual arrogance is unbecoming
an educated person. Knowing lots of things is good, but
knowing the limitations of one's knowledge is essential to
using it properly. Many of the classic errors of history were
made by people over-confidently going beyond what they knew
and understood.
Work
to be educated, not merely trained.
This
article is by Donald
E. Simanek, April 15, 1997
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