An exciting time of the year

Students are arriving back in town. The band is practicing. (I love hearing the band play off in the distance or driving by Elbel Field and watching them work on the tiniest details so that they can provide part of the Michigan experience on game days.) Faculty, including me, are gearing up for class. There's a buzz in the air throughout Ann Arbor as students start to arrive on campus.

We've also been busy in the BBA Program Office over the summer. Incredibly busy, as a matter of fact. We admitted three entering classes this last year, two of them over the summer. We read applications from November through July. I’ll have more detail later on this, but we were incredibly successful in our goal of admitting high quality, well rounded, analytically prepared students who have an interest in business.

Other summer activities that I will be discussing in future posts:

• The Washington Campus program in our nation's capital
• The new study abroad partnerships that we have developed
• Our advising program (including our new advisor who came to us from LS&A)
• Our outreach program so that we can communicate with students in ways that are predictable and easy for students
• Our new admissions director and clarified admissions process
• Our high school outreach efforts
• The Mastery Project, a joint effort by the Ross School, the math department, and the economics department directed towards preparing at-risk students to succeed in analytical classes and in their careers
• The Ann Arbor version of “The Big Dig” and how it will affect BBA classes

And then there’s my on-going work on revamping BIT200 “Personal Productivity with Information Technology”. It's been something like 5 years since I have taught in the BBA Program (that’s horrible!) and I am very much looking forward to doing this again. I would bet that I will have plenty more to say on that topic as the semester progresses.

A difficult time of the year

Late last week a student dropped by the BBA Program Office and she was not doing too well. Crying, upset. Too much work; not enough play; too much time at Ross; too many assignments; too much groupwork — you get the idea. Since Rob was at a conference and Katie was in a meeting, I talked with her for a while and was reminded that this is a very difficult time of the year, especially for juniors. I had some advice for her that I thought I might pass along.

• You're not in this alone. Every other BBA graduate since I've been here has gone through this exact same situation. Others survived this process; you will, too.
• Don't compare yourself with other students. The Ross student population leans toward the anal retentive/obsessive compulsive end of the scale. These students have done well in school by 1) being smart, and 2) working harder than other students. Well, put 350 of these students together, and the results are fairly predictable. But, the question remains, how to deal with it? You shouldn't compare your work habits with other students. You can't work harder than all of them, and you shouldn't try. You should know that you are not the hardest working student in all of your classes. You should work toward getting good grades, but you shouldn't expect to get them. You should realize that you will have to work hard but that there is some point after which working will no longer be productive and may actually be counter-productive. Each person is different and you must determine when that point comes for you.
• This is not the time of year for a BBA to think about partying, having fun, or working out for hours on end. It's not going to happen — or, at least, it shouldn't if you want to make it through unscathed. There's a time to work and a time to play. This is the time to work. Look forward to taking some time off in May. However, if you came to Ross thinking that you would be able to continue a life of leisure approach to your college studies the whole year round, then it turns out you're sadly mistaken. It's not like we work like dogs all year 'round &mdashp; we certainly don't. But there definitely are times when you need to work for extended hours on multiple assignments. No doubts about that.
• Have a plan. If you don't have a daily planner, get one and use it. There's no way that you can keep all that's going on in your head. Determine what you need to do when and write it down in your calendar.
• Work the plan, day by day. The next thing to do is to work the plan — but focus on the day's activities, not the whole plan. If you look at all that needs to be done, you'll quickly become overwhelmed. If you need to, make another sheet of paper that contains just the day's schedule and to-do list, and keep this separate from the rest of your calendar so that you don't spend all of your time obsessing about the mass of upcoming tasks.
• Know that there is an end to the push. This level of stress and activity will not go on forever. Junior year at Ross is a highly stressful time, and it culminates with a very hectic April. But April ends and so do the demands of the school year. Next year will be better for many reasons, especially in that you will have a year's experience under your belt of how to deal with the ebb and flow of the school year.

Finally, and a point not of much comfort to this particular student, this is one of the primary reasons why Ross is moving to a 3-year program. While we want to maintain a competitive environment with the best possible students, we also think that at some point too much is really too much. The 3-year program spreads out the current junior year requirements over the sophomore and junior years while, at the same time, also putting them in an order that makes a lot more sense. I'm sure that we'll need to tweak things over the next couple of years, but I do expect that the number of students who drop into my office on the verge of tears should go down significantly.

BBA core course requirements

This post was inspired by a comment posted by student in response to my posting "Grades, college, & life":

i agree entirely with what you say, but how representational is that attitude with the current BBA program? We are required to take 13 courses in the business school, and truly only allowed to elect around 5 or 6 of our own. if we are being required to study material that we are not interested in because of these CORE requirements...doesn't grades become the only motivation?

What an amazingly interesting and useful comment! I happen to completely disagree with it but it's something that I can respond to and recognize as coming from a BBA.

Here's an (extended) excerpt from an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education titled "Has Harvard lost its way?" (by Harry R. Lewis, March 24, 2006). Professor Lewis is a professor at Harvard and previously served as dean of Harvard College. In this piece he is speaking of Harvard but he could just as easily (for my purposes) be speaking of Michigan:

[Harvard] headed toward the conclusion that its students are free agents and for the most part should study what they wish. ... Undergraduate education defined [as Harvard currently defines it] allows professors to do as they wish as well. In an effort to persuade me that I should back the newly proposed, requirement-light curriculum, one professor offered that it meant we faculty members would no longer have to teach students who did not want to take our courses. But the courses from which students learn the most are often the ones they would be disinclined to take without being pressed to do so. The general-education courses I took on Western philosophy stretched and rewarded me, and the core course I teach on information technology and society plays that role for my students. If professors can define their job as teaching what they wish to those who wish to be taught it, Harvard will not carry the centuries-old ideal of a liberal education forward into the next generation. It will instead indulge students' inclinations to learn more of what they know already, while avoiding unpleasant but enlightening disagreements among professors about the relative importance of different studies. Liberal education will be reduced to an easy compromise among academics rather than a long-term commitment to the welfare of students and the society they will serve.

This states my worries about the direction that undergraduate education is going quite well. But here's the essence of it for me: A great university in its undergraduate liberal arts education 1) should help students to (as Dr. Lewis states) "understand the complexities of the human condition" and 2) "challenges its students to ask questions that are both disturbing and deeply important." An undergraduate business education should provide its students with a broad understanding of business in the context of providing a liberal arts education.

When I taught my database and Web site development class (BIT320), it was actually a philosophy class operating under the disguise of a technology class. I wanted to help students think about the world in an entirely different way, one that was not accessible to them before they took the class. I certainly enjoyed teaching this to students electing to take the class. However, the class I most enjoyed teaching was BIT301 — a required introduction to computing for the whole BBA class. This class required me (and my students) to get our heads around a vast array of topics, and required me to figure out how to present these topics in a manner that was accessible though still challenging to students with a wide set of differing backgrounds. In turn, it required students to confront topics that did not immediately appeal to them but that would, to a great extent, be extremely helpful to them as they began their independent lives and careers.

Let me now react more directly to Steve's comments.

First, as he correctly states, the current BBA curriculum requires that you take many courses, leaving little room for electives. Yes, and we consider this a feature, not a bug, of the current curriculum (to borrow a phrase from my IT background). The "we" in the previous sentence refers to the faculty, alumni, the School's boards, and recruiters. The Ross School is not a school of finance, or a school of marketing — it is a school of business. We provide a general business education in the context of a liberal arts education. If a student wants a specialized education in some facet of business, then he or she should get an MBA with a specialization in that particular area of study; that's what a masters is for.

Second, implicit in this comment is the belief that studying something that is required cannot be (or, at least, frequently is not) enjoyed. Well, that's too bad. It does not have to be that way. This is something that is entirely under your control. Do what you can to make every course a positive learning experience. Learn to enjoy the analysis done in business economics, the detailed specifications created in a BIT course, the complexity of the human condition in M&O. These are all completely different, but each are enjoyable in their own way. Try to figure out how to mine each class for its particular gold.

The purpose of action-based learning

I'm currently supervising, in one way or another, eight different MAP projects. MAP is the 7-week program that almost all MBAs go through at the end of their first year. It is a project in which 4-6 MBAs work on a single problem defined by a single company. It's a difficult but highly engaging process.

It's hard to say exactly what students get out of this process, but they clearly (to me, anyway) do get a lot out of it. I've been thinking a bit about this recently. I alluded to it in an email I sent to a member of one of the teams that I supervise:

You need to focus on developing an actionable plan for [the company] based on data. Keep picturing yourself giving the final presentation and having them ask you "why should we believe you?" — what you're doing now is essentially writing the answer to that question, the question that broadly determines the success of your project.

If the students take this lesson to heart, then — to me, anyway — they have learned what they're supposed to learn from MAP. When you're in business, it's no longer about being smart. It's no longer about doing the best analysis. It's about making your company successful. And this involves doing things and not simply ordering more analysis to be completed. These things usually involve making stuff (faster, more efficiently, more effectively, or just better stuff) or selling stuff (more of it, for a higher price). And, generally, doing MAP drives this point home in a most effective way.

There's nothing like standing in front of a CEO and having him or her, at the end of your presentation, say something like "Yes, I hear you, but why should I believe you? Other smart people have told me to do the exact opposite thing." And you realize that you haven't collected enough (or the right) data in order to back up your conclusions. Or, even worse, "Uh, that's all nice, but what are we supposed to do about all this?" And you realize that you've analyzed the situation but you haven't gotten down to the bare details of what specific people are supposed to do at specific times and what the payoff will be for those tasks.

Business is about doing the right things well. MAP drives this point home for the MBAs.

Handling job fly-backs and multiple job offers

Sometimes a BBA is in the enviable position of receiving a job offer while at the same time being involved in the recruiting process for one or more other companies. This can sometimes lead to a difficult situation of having a scheduled fly-back (or other significant recruiting event) when the student is close to accepting an offer from another company. Students need to realize that this is a good thing, not a bad thing — but it can quickly become a very bad thing if the student does not handle the situation correctly. In a recent situation, a student accepted a job offer and then cancelled on a non-refundable ticket for a fly-back at the last minute without following up with staff at the School who had worked to build the Ross relationship with that company. This left the recruiting company with a very bad feeling about the level of maturity of our students and left staff at the School with egg on their faces for standing behind the maturity level and integrity of the student. This is what's known as a Very Bad Thing.

There are many facets of this situation that the student needs to be aware of when they consider what to do in this situation. (From here on down, I'll assume the student is a female for the ease of explication.)

• The student is a representative of the Ross School and the University of Michigan. The student needs to remember that she is not out interviewing on her own; she is an ambassador of the School and the University and needs to conduct herself as such.
• The student is the beneficiary of the relationships that the School and the University have maintained over many years, or that we hope to build in the future. Companies do not come to Ross to interview specific students. They come because we have built up these relationships and because they have had good experience with our students in the past. Current students should be aware of this good will that has been built up over many years and do their best to build it up rather than simply to draw on it or to use it up.
• Staff in OCD, the BBA Program Office, the Women's Initiative, Student Life, and elsewhere throughout the School sometimes draw on the relationships built up over time and put themselves on the line for students.
• Industries are small worlds unto themselves and word travels fast about a person's integrity. People never really know what the future will hold. Even if the student is turning down a position right now being offered by person A at company B, the student might later want a job in the future 1) at company B, or 2) at company C (where person A might have moved to). You just never know when you might cross paths with the person sitting across the table from you. Further, people do not quickly forget being treated poorly or with a lack of respect. Being put in a difficult position is one thing — but not handling it with delicacy, tact, and respect is quite another.

For all of the above reasons, when a difficult situation comes up, a student should work with OCD (or with other staff throughout the School whom she might have been working with) to attempt to resolve the difficulty. Believe me, these people have seen these situations many, many times. The wrong approach is to back out at the last minute and hope that no one will notice. People will notice and the School will hear about it — and the relationship might be irreparably damaged. This may not hurt the student right now, but future students will lose an option. If this happens too many times, then future students will be in a real bind and the School's reputation will be badly hurt.

So, for everyone's sake, think about the bigger picture and work with the School's staff. In the long run, you and the School will be better off.

Preparing in high school for college math and science

Margaret Spellings, the U.S. Education secretary recently told a U.S. Senate committee that students need to be better prepared for college-level math and science classes.

One of the big pushes in the plan to enact this is to expand the Advanced Placement program so that more high school students have access to it. I generally support such an idea but I have a couple personal reactions to it. Note these are based on my experiences and don't necessarily reflect official UM or Ross School policy or even some recent research.

First, if a student is at a school that offers tons of AP classes (I'm talking 6, 20, or even more classes), she shouldn't feel compelled to take a huge number of them. Take three or maybe four of them; there's no need for the student to swamp herself with work that keeps her from participating in extra-curricular activities. The student does want to demonstrate to readers of her college application that she was interested in taking a difficult and diverse set of college preparatory courses. She doesn't necessarily want to place out of too many freshman-level classes during her freshman year and start taking lots of classes with "seasoned" sophomores. Doing this a few times in the first year might work out, but do this too many times and her performance can suffer.

Second, but on a related point, a student shouldn't necessarily let an AP class and test be a substitute for college math. College math courses can be quite difficult. Placing out of the initial Calculus class and starting the college math curriculum with the second Calculus class can make the jump to college math quite daunting. I'm not saying that it shouldn't be done; I'm just saying that the student should consider simply taking the college math class even though she took the AP class.

This is what I did when I went to Furman University many moons ago. I took Calculus when I went to Dunwoody High School and actually did fairly well. I went to Furman on a math scholarship but I still took calculus from John Poole as a freshman. I thought it would help solidify my knowledge of calculus, would introduce me to math at the college level, and would (hopefully) provide me with an easy A. The first two held true — though, while I did get an A in the class, the grade didn't come easily.

In any case, I encourage high school students to take as many demanding math and science classes as they can fit into their schedule. It will pay off in college.

What to do in high school to ensure you get a degree

A new report issued by the U.S. Department of Education studies thousands of students over an eight year period to determine what factors are positively correlated with getting a college degree. According to the press release:

The study ... found that the academic intensity of a high school curriculum is the strongest indicator of postsecondary degree completion, regardless of a student's major course of study.

Specifically, (and this quote is from the article about the study in the Chronicle of Higher Education:

[T]aking math beyond Algebra 2 and three classes in laboratory science (biology, chemistry, and physics) in high school provided greater "academic momentum" than taking three classes in foreign languages and any Advanced Placement courses.

This report also pointed out the positive correlation between getting credit in non-traditional times --- e.g., before college actually begins, or during the summer. According to the Chronicle article, "[e]arning some college credits while still in high school is positively associated with degree completion." Finally, "[e]arning more than four credits during summer terms correlated positively to degree completion, particularly for black students."

How to fairly test and grade a multiple section course

A student recently asked me about a test she had taken. This course has multiple sections and she had questions about how the test was administered. When a course has multiple sections, the School is generally supportive of the professor's efforts to give the exam in one large sitting. However, sometimes this isn't possible (for any of a number of reasons). So, in this case, when the exam is given at several times, the professor has to take steps to minimize the sharing of information between sessions.

The next step is to figure out how to assign grades on the exam: Should letter grades be assigned within a section or across sections?. This question is pertinent in both core and elective courses because there is a grading curve that applies to each.

Across

A student is compared with students in all the sections. The student's grade is affected by how students perform in other sections; this should allow a more accurate measure of how each student performs relative to all the students in the course. On the other hand, if the student is in a section that does not perform as well on the exam, then he or she would receive a lower grade than he or she would receive if the grades were not determined this way.

Within

A student is compared with other students in his or her own section. If the student is in a section that performs better on the test than other sections (for whatever reason), then that student would receive the same or a lower grade than he or she would have received when in another section. On the other hand, the student would not be receive a lower grade simply because students in another section scored higher on the test.

The across sections method is more appropriate when multiple sections are taught by the same professor or when the professors work hard to coordinate the content presented across sections. This method also has the feature that it discourages students from sharing information about the exam. However, in any case, the professor (or professors) have complete discretion to assign grades in whichever method he (or they) see fit.

Being tough and working hard

I'm in the middle of reading an article by Bill Simmons on ESPN.com that is transcript of an email exchange with Malcolm Gladwell, a writer at the New Yorker and the author of Blink and The Tipping Point. (Here's a review of Gladwell's work.) In any case, Gladwell wrote this wonderful little passage about believing in yourself and working hard:

Why don't people work hard when it's in their best interest to do so? ... The (short) answer is that it's really risky to work hard, because then if you fail you can no longer say that you failed because you didn't work hard. It's a form of self-protection. I swear that's why Mickelson has that almost absurdly calm demeanor. If he loses, he can always say: Well, I could have practiced more, and maybe next year I will and I'll win then. When Tiger loses, what does he tell himself? He worked as hard as he possibly could. He prepared like no one else in the game and he still lost. That has to be devastating, and dealing with that kind of conclusion takes a very special and rare kind of resilience. Most of the psychological research on this is focused on why some kids don't study for tests — which is a much more serious version of the same problem. If you get drunk the night before an exam instead of studying and you fail, then the problem is that you got drunk. If you do study and you fail, the problem is that you're stupid — and stupid, for a student, is a death sentence. The point is that it is far more psychologically dangerous and difficult to prepare for a task than not to prepare. People think that Tiger is tougher than Mickelson because he works harder. Wrong: Tiger is tougher than Mickelson and because of that he works harder.

Which type are you? Are you putting yourself on the line every day? Or are you giving yourself excuses so that, when you fail, you don't have to doubt yourself?

One good reason to visit me

Yesterday, a student came to the BBA Program Office because she had a concern about a class. Specifically, she was upset about one section of MO300 getting to take their mid-term as a take-home exam while the rest of the sections took their mid-terms in-class. She didn't think that this was right and, at the same time, didn't feel comfortable discussing it with her professor but didn't know where else to turn.

Well, that's where I come in. She dropped by our office and spoke with Rob Koonce (who advises students). He realized that I shouuld know what's going on, so he directed her into my office where we had a quick chat. I took this student's concerns to the MO chair and then the core course coordinator. We discussed the issue and we now both understand the other's thinking on this topic. I don't know what's going to happen today, but the MO professors are at least better informed as to the concerns of the students and will be able to address them before and after the exam.

Building next year's classes

Admissions and the BBA Program Office are busy building next year's classes; the deadline for this set of students has already passed. We are currently in the midst of reading applications for next year's freshman class of preferred admits. They are really, really strong. Any concerns that some might have had that we would not be able to attract a group of smart and active freshman have been completely washed away. High SATs, high GPAs, strong analytic grades and scores, tons of activities, several have been running their own business for multiple years, good mix of in-state and out-of-state — good, good, good. We won't know until mid-summer how many of them are going to show up in September but I'm certain we'll be happy with the result.

The application deadline for current sophomores (rising juniors) is tomorrow (Feb 15). This will be our last 2-year program but it will be as strong as ever. Our third deadline, for current freshmen (rising sophomores), is the end of March. This will be our first 3-year program. We are looking forward to continuing our tradition of attracting a group of smart, highly motivated students to Ross. This has been, and will continue to be, the basis of our success.

Overall, adding our senior class to our three entering classes and next year we'll have around 800 students. We are eagerly awaiting the time when they arrive on campus. We are planning several activities for each group of students to help begin (or continue) to build a connection to Ross.

Good teachers and good classes

I like to consider myself a good teacher. (I'm not talking about how well I fulfill the whole job of professor; I'm simply commenting on my ability to teach a quality class.) I've won awards from students and from other professors that indicate that other people think so, too. That's all well and good.

Now that doesn't mean that I can't get better. It doesn't mean that the next class that I teach is going to be a rousing success. Of course, I hope that it will and expect that it might — but hope and expect are a long way from actually delivering such a course.

Lots of things have contributed to my teaching methods and style. Of course, I've worked with other professors whose work in the classroom I highly respect (Mike Gordon being a prime example). I've observed many great teachers over the years as a student (e.g., Fred Allvine and Eugene Comiskey at Georgia Tech) and as a professor (e.g., Dennis Severance and Judy Olson here at Michigan). I've also built up quite the library of books on teaching; here's a sample of my favorites:

• Making the most of college by Light
• What the best college teachers do by Bain
• Teaching at its best by Nilson
• Strategies for energizing large classes, edited by MacGregor et al.
• Leaving the lectern by McManus
• Classroom instruction that works by Marzano et al.
• Engaging large classes by Stanley & Porter
• Simulations and the future of learning by Aldrich
• E-learning and the science of instruction by Clark & Mayer
• Lessons from the cyberspace classroom by Palloff & Pratt

And that's a sample of the books; there are, of course, many other journal articles that I've read over the years that I've found valuable. These are books by researchers and practitioners (that is, researchers who study teaching and teachers) that tell me their take on what they found of interest when looking at the art and practice of teaching. All of these give me strategies that I might use in my future classes.

What does this have to do with you? Well, I would like to hear from students about their best experience in a classroom, and why it was so great. It can be about a full-semester experience and how it all came together on a specific day in just the right way; it can be about a specific day in one particular class that had a great impact on you — whatever. What I'm looking for are stories, especially from Michigan and Ross students, about their favorite experiences in specific classes. Go ahead and name names if you are going to do so in a positive light. I don't know of any professor that wouldn't love to hear that he/she did a great job.

And why do I care? Two reasons. First, in my current job as BBA Program Director I get to hear about all of the problems. What I'd like to do is have a series of positive examples that I can relay both to prospective students and to current faculty who are looking for inspiration. Second, I am currently working through the process of designing a couple of new classes. I want to hear about the approaches used by professors that students find interesting and not just those approaches that other academics find intriguing.

So, if you would take a few minutes, what I'd like you to do is leave a comment for this post that describes the project, in-class activity, assignment, or other aspect related to a class that you really enjoyed or found valuable. There's no deadline — so even if you're reading this years from now, please go ahead and post — but, on the other hand, the sooner you post your comment, the sooner I can take advantage of this information. Thanks!

Grades, college & life

I just had a chat with a student that reminded me of where many of you are mentally and emotionally in your journey through this school and through your life. And I thought I'd just pass on a few of the main points of this conversation to you.

Grades are important. They are a major component of the decision of admissions committees if you should ever decide to go to graduate school. They are also a major component of the weeding-out process for initial interviews for certain careers. Getting good grades is certainly better than getting bad grades. I got good grades and they certainly helped me in my academic career.

Grades are not important in many ways. They should not determine your self-worth. They are not who you are. They also should not be the reason that you try hard in school. You should possibly end up with good grades as a by-product of working hard in a class that you enjoy and that is important to you for some reason. Not the other way around.

You shouldn't work hard so that you get good grades; you should work hard (because you like something) and then possibly get good grades. This is a real important point. This is one of those "If I had only known then what I know now" things that adults say. Very few college kids understand this. Some of you never will. Some of you will get it during your mid-life crisis. And a few lucky ones get it while you're in college. I didn't get it until sometime in my late 30s.

Another point to be taken out of this: think of how "enjoyment" or "fun" or "goodness" fits into this whole equation. It should be related to the content of the class and how well the class is taught; it should not have anything to do with your grade. I've heard someone say "I didn't get a good grade in that class. I shouldn't have taken it." What?!? If you're taking a class because of a grade, or if a grade has something to do with how you value a class, then you're messed up.

You should take a class because you're interested in the topic. You work hard and try to learn the material. Note that I didn't say "You work hard and try to do well in the class." Wrong-o! You work hard to try to learn the material; as a result of learning the material, you then have a better chance of performing well on projects (and assignments and exams) and, thus, have a better chance of getting a good grade.

This isn't just a semantic trick or some philosophical mumbo-jumbo. It has to do with success. Take a moment to understand this chain of relationships: like topic —> try harder —> learn material better —> perform better —> better chance at good grade. If this doesn't seem right, apply the same concepts to playing a sport: like sport —> try harder —> learn skills better —> perform better —> better chance of winning. Now that makes sense, doesn't it? I'm just applying the same process to school work, that's all.

Still, when applied to school, this may sound hopelessly naive to you. You're probably thinking something like this:

"You don't take classes because you like them. Who likes their classes? You take them just to get through them. You take them to get good grades. And, at the end, if you're lucky, you get a good job because of them."

Well, I'm telling you right now that you might think this, but you would be wrong. The grade should not be the focus of your efforts; the process (the class and the material) should be the focus. Everything else will then flow naturally from that — including good grades on classes that you like and jobs that are related to this material that you like. Again, this is just like sports. Winning should not be the focus of your efforts; performing up to your capabilities should be your focus. If you do so, then winning will come. You can't (or, at least, shouldn't) measure your performance by whether you won or you lost — you should look at whether you prepared correctly to give yourself the best chance to perform well. If you did that, then you have to accept the outcome. As Bill Parcells says, "You are what you are."

Again, the process — in this case, the class and the assignments — should be the focus of your efforts. This statement might not make any sense to you but it's been a guiding statement in my life (since my life started making some sense, anyway). Don't focus on the end; focus on the journey. Focus on the process of learning. Focus on enjoying the class as you sit in it. Focus on the new topics that you encounter. Focus on the challenges that you come across. Focus on how you can apply what you learn to your life. And so on. In our life, all we have is what we do and who we come in contact with. You should focus on getting the most out of both of these.

If you're focusing on the process, you will become more engaged with the material. Having become more engaged, you will learn it better ... and off you go (as we discussed above).

I'm not encouraging you to not get good grades. I'm saying that I think you should focus on the learning process and let the grades take care of themself. I'm encouraging you to think about who you are, how you choose classes, how you think about your classes, and why you're in school. You'll be better for it because you'll learn more and enjoy your time in school more. And as a side effect, you'll also end up enjoying your life after school more. And I think that we can all agree that's a good thing.

Our BBA Program Office staff, and coming changes

The BBA Program Office is going to be hiring another BBA Student Advisor (like Katie's position that we hired for last year). This is the last piece of the BBA Program Office puzzle that Dean Bob Dolan and I agreed to two years ago when I started in my role as BBA Program Director. This person will allow us to add more outreach and more activities that involve the BBAs; however, it is also a necessary hire given that we will have about 1100 BBAs to advise next year instead of 720. This is a fantastic commitment by the Dean to the BBAs, and every future student will benefit from it.

This person will report to Rob Koonce (as Katie McCartney does) in his role as coordinator of all things related to a BBA's academic life once he or she is here — though, of course, not the stuff related to enforcement and interpretation of rules that Academic Services does (under Evonne Plantinga's steadying hand) — as opposed to their extra-curricular life stuff that Student Life (the group under Amy Cell's direction) handles. Erika Busch will continue to report to me, continuing in her role as liaison to the rest of the school, coordinator of BBA projects and events, and coordinator of communications and outreach for our department.

So, what does this mean to you?

• You should go to Student Life if you have any questions related to extracurricular activities.
• You should go to Academic Services if you have questions related to your degree audit, class credit issues, etc.
• You should come to Student Advisors in the BBA Program Office if you have questions about what classes to take or your program of study. You should also come to us if you don't know where else to go. We're real good at pointing you in the proper direction, in referring you to other departments in the Business School and in other parts of the University.

College students are still maturing

As described in a news release from Darthmouth University:

Two Dartmouth researchers are one step closer to defining exactly when human maturity sets in. In a study aimed at identifying how and when a person's brain reaches adulthood, the scientists have learned that, anatomically, significant changes in brain structure continue after age 18. ... The results indicate that significant changes took place in the brains of these individuals. The changes were localized to regions of the brain known to integrate emotion and cognition. Specifically, these are areas that take information from our current body state and apply it for use in navigating the world. ... "The brain of an 18-year-old college freshman is still far from resembling the brain of someone in their mid-twenties," says Bennett. "When do we reach adulthood? It might be much later than we traditionally think."

I'm bringing this to your attention because I sense a reluctance among students to come forward and ask for help from people who should be able to help them. Students should realize that asking for help from people who are there to help them is perceived as a sign of particular maturity and confidence and not as a sign of weakness and ignorance.

I fit into the pattern identified by the researchers. I know that I wasn't even an approximation of who I am now until I was in my early 30s. While I am still nowhere close to being able to keep my emotions close to the vest, I am now much better at being able to control my emotions and not allow them to rule my minute-to-minute activities. Even now, as a 43-year-old, I know that I think about relationships and situations much differently than I did when I was 30, let alone 20.

So, this is an admonishment to college students based not on the fact that I'm an old fart — though I'm getting there — but on actual science: Your professors, your parents, your advisors — all these people might actually be able to help you. Many of them actually think about things in a more advanced and sophisticated way than you do. We're not just dense; we see things and think about things in a different way, as being more interconnected and complicated. Going to your peers some times, many times, will not be enough because they are at the same stage of development. It's not that we're smarter than you; it's that we've had experiences that have shaped our brain (and, thus, our thinking) in a way that will happen to you but hasn't happened yet. It's not that you won't be able to think as an adult; you simply might not be physiologically able to do so at this stage of your development. We won't always give the right advice — we're not perfect — but we should at least be able to give you a different, and valuable, point of view.

Summer internships

It's that time of year — internship season. Looking over possible companies, bidding for interviews, preparing for the interviews, hoping for callbacks, preparing for a callback, the torture of that process, waiting for an offer, and — you can only hope — the strain of choosing among several good offers. This essay is, generally, not applicable to students who have to — get to! — go through this last step. I'm addressing this essay primarily to those students who are worried about their internship.

Let me get this out of the way right now: If you work this summer in any capacity, you have the opportunity to impress a future employer. Suppose that you want to work for some random industry (let's call it "Investment Banking") but you only get an internship in another industry (let's call it "not Investment Banking"). Your life is not over. Your career path is not set. You have not been proven a loser. You do not have to change your life and career goals. This is a wonderful opportunity; it is not punishment.

Let's look at the positives that might come from getting an internship — any internship. You will gain lots of transferrable skills. These are actually the skills that future employers are most interested in. You will gain experience working with a variety of people, not just other Ross Business School students. They might have, heaven forbid, grey hair, but they might actually treat you like a real human being after working with you for a while.

You will also gain experience getting things done in an organization. This is different than getting things done at school. You will have incomplete information and a less clear path to the information you do need. You will learn when to ask for help, when to ask for information, and when to just buckle down and get it done.

You will learn about organizational life. This is very different from academic life. You will learn to work with many bosses and many more co-workers, all with very different experiences and expectations than what you've come in contact with at school. You will learn to socialize, enough so that you have a network of friends but not so much that it gets in the way of getting your work accomplished. You won't have homework, but you might be expected to work until late at night. But other nights you will not have any work to do. No homework at all. You will just be able to explore a city, read a book that you actually want to read, go to a movie, rent a DVD — whatever! It's a very different feeling than always having homework hovering over your head.

You will learn about how a big company (or a small company) works. Either one would be useful. And they are quite different than each other, and quite different than how a university works.

You also might learn what you do not like to do — even if you actually did think you would like it going into the internship. This is a very valuable lesson. This will help you eliminate a bunch of companies that you might otherwise want to interview with. And do not forget that what you do not like now is not necessarily what you will not like in the future. Surprisingly enough, when you are 30 you will be different than you are now. (At least I hope so.)

You will make contacts that you will be able to use in the future. These contacts might be for future job recommendations. This person might be someone whom you hope will hire you at some point. And do not forget that these people can change jobs, too. Just because you wouldn't want to work in this particular company in the future, this does not mean that you would not have the opportunity to work for this person at another company. Every day that you are at your internship is an interview for some future position. You'll never know when you're meeting a person for the first time that might end up hiring you, or having the possibility of hiring you, in the future.

Finally, it is actually often easier to convert a "non-big-company" experience in which you get real responsibility into great talking points for companies in the fall (during your interviews for full-time jobs) than it is to convert the experiences you might get as an intern at a large company. Remember that it's not the company that counts, and it's not the position that counts, it's what you do in that position at that company — no matter what the position or company. (Thank to Al Cotrone for bringing this last point to my attention.)

So, take that internship. Keep a positive attitude. Work hard. Set goals. Get things done. Make yourself valuable. And have a good time.

Extracurricular participation for BBAs

The Ross School of Business BBA student certainly has a lot of clubs that he or she (I'll say "she" from now on) might participate in. The questions are:

• Why participate in the clubs?
• What clubs to participate in?
• How to participate in those clubs?

A student might have many reasons for participating in clubs — giving back to the community, strengthening connections with a culture, finding social activities, playing sports, or what not — but companies make important implications from looking at a student's set of extracurricular activities.

With this set of activities, a student sends a strong signal about her ability to manage her time, her ability to work in a group, and her ability and willingness to lead a group. A student should generally not have a long list of extracurriculars at any one time because that indicates that she is not able to make choices and she is probably limiting her ability to make significant contributions to those clubs. Even if the company isn't hiring in a position that seems like a leadership position, with most every hire it is looking for a person who might soon be able to handle small, informal leadership positions (running a subcommittee or group) and then, one day, be able to take on more significant, formal leadership positions (manager, director).

So, to answer the above questions: Participate in clubs for any of the above reasons; participate in the clubs that you are interested the most in; and work to accomplish things within the context and structure of the club. (I've written on this topic in a previous post.)

BBA Program Office goings-on

There is a lot going on in the BBA Program Office that you might not be aware of so I thought I'd give you a quick update.

Staff

I now have three people on my staff:

• Erika Busch: in charge of communications, coordination with the rest of the School and University, and on-going projects, among other things,
• Rob Koonce: in charge of academic advising, the Mastery Project, community outreach, among other things, and
• Katie McCartney: advisor to BBAs on academic and undergraduate life.

Workshops

Since the most recent workshops on going to law school (that the Law School put on for us) and living in New York City (that Katie and Tony Tsai put on) were so successful, we're looking into related workshops: living in Chicago, pursuing an MBA, pursuing a PhD, etc. Let us know — by coming by and chatting with Rob, Katie, or myself — if you have any particular requests that you think a good number of students might be interested in.

Visiting classes

Rob & and Katie are continuing to visit classes so that they might be in a better position to talk about them.

Career Guides

We are nearing completion on our career guides. These will provide students with a recommended list of classes for particular careers. We will publish these on our Web site for easy reference.

BBA Newsletter

Erika has been, and will continue to, publish the BBA Newsletter every two weeks. If you've been missing it, this email attempts to highlight events and resources that are, or should be, of particular interest to BBAs.

Orientation

We're working on BBA Orientation for next year. We've taken a long, hard look at the suggestions you made at the most recent Orientation and have incorporated many changes into our planning for next year's programming. Just FYI, we weren't too surprised by most of your comments. We saw the same problems that you saw. More on this in a later post.

Problem resolution

I've been working with students to help them resolve issues they had with professors last semester.

Washington Campus

We've been working with Professor Siedel to put on the Washington Campus program that will have its inaugural session this May.

Study Breaks

We're arranging to have a BBA Study Break again this semester. It was quite a success last semester in its first offering.

Printing problems

We've been talking with the Dean's office about the printing problems students have been having. We're getting close to resolution, I believe.

I just wanted to make sure that you know that we've been working hard for you this year — even if you haven't been aware of it! I have a fantastic staff, and and they make up a fantastic resource for you. I hope you can make the time to get to know them.

Changing businesses

A company does business long enough, and it probably thinks it's safe. Well, let's see:

• As of January 27, 2006, Western Union is no longer delivering telegrams.
• No matter how good it actually is (and no matter how many times I read it as a kid — yes, read it!), the Encyclopedia Britannica isn't exactly raking in the money any more, is it?
• GM, Ford. That's all I'm going to say.
• Sears and/or K-Mart.

I'm sure that there are a lot more, but these came immediately to mind.

To anyone who is of a certain age, the above list is shocking. If I had been told that those companies would be in trouble in their "core" businesses, I would have had trouble believing it.

The lesson: Don't ever be satisfied. Don't get comfortable. Keep working. Keep improving.

Having trouble with a professor

Periodically, students come to me describing some level of difficulty they are having with a professor (for whatever reason). Usually, by the time it gets to me, it's late in the term, it's difficult to address, and the solution is (frequently) not going to benefit the student much. So, let's now examine the process you might follow if you have trouble with a professor:

1. Talk to the professor directly. Be constructive. Have a conversation; don't accuse. Speak, listen, respond, and repeat. Work on determining if there has been a misunderstanding and clarify it. Figure out in this conversation what you can actively do to help the situation improve. Be clear about what you would like the professor to do to help the situation improve.
2. If the above process didn't seem to help, and follow-up meetings with the professor don't seem to be helping, then you should — early in this communication process — talk with a BBA Student Advisor (Rob or Katie). They should be able to provide an experienced viewpoint and will be able to give you advice on what next steps you should take.
3. Generally, if the above process fails to lead to a satisfactory conclusion, you should contact the professor's area chair. I would recommend that you stay in contact with an advisor leading up to this meeting. The advisor might also recommend that you come talk with me to get my take on things.

Why do I recommend that you talk with an area chair instead of with me when you're looking for further resolution? Because the professor's area chair is the person in charge both of setting the professor's teaching responsibilities and reviewing the professor's performance each year. In my role, I am not involved in supervising the professor in any way. I certainly can provide one professor's view of a situation (after all, I am a professor), but I am more like a liaison among students, faculty, area chair, and the rest of the Dean's Office than someone who has some power to yield in this situation.

Generally, I don't like to worry about these issues too much, and I generally don't have to. We have a very good faculty here at the Ross School and, on the whole, the faculty wants classes to go well for all concerned. Given the large population that we have, this isn't always going to be the case; however, following the above process should generally lead students and faculty to better conclusions than otherwise would be available.