Williamson-Like Critique
I am choosing this post instead of the traditional first
post because I feel like the class was different from any other class I have
taken based on the two rules of attendance not being mandatory and have soft
deadlines. This was very interesting to me because the class is based on the economics
of organizations but usually, organizations require attendance from their
workers as well as more hard deadlines. It this class wanted to follow old
school traditional way of how organizations work I would have probably expected
required attendance as well as hard deadlines. As you see more and more jobs allow
workers to work remotely you would think that they require hard deadlines to
compensate. Usually, people that work remotely have to show their productively
and I feel based on the assignments and the way blogs are graded for this class
show that the class really focusses on our own personal growth, allowing us to
increase our productivity over time. Also utilizing technology combined with the
non-required attendance policy created more of a remote access learning
environment for me, with the ability for consultation by going to class.
Starting with the soft deadlines I feel like this really allowed
me to evaluate how my time was spent. Some weeks I would have a lot going on
like onsite interviews or midterms and a lot of homework for other classes due
that week. I would look at the blog posts and then decided if I should spend my
time doing them now before the deadline or if my time could be better utilized
getting other stuff done for other classes. It also depended on the topic of
the post and whether I felt like I would be able to complete it efficiently and
in a timely manner or spend hours thinking about it. That is why I would look at
the post the Monday of each week and that would give me time to think about
what I would write. Some of them I needed more time to think about them and
would usually submit those posts slightly past the deadline. Some weeks I knew
that I would have a lot to do, especially the weeks with onsite interviews, so
I would try to do the post pretty early, at least at the beginning. Then I
realized that I needed more info and the post and would show up to class more
to get a sense of why you were looking for In the posts. I would usually get
the excel sheets done way before the deadline because I wanted to get them out
of the way and if I was stuck I could go to class to get a better understanding
of how to get unstuck.
With the rule of attendance not being mandatory, I really
enjoyed this because it allowed me to not be pressured if I had to miss class.
Having most of the information online allowed me to learn on my own time and
when I was busying flying for onsite interviews I did not stress missing class.
This did make me do my homework more in advance most times when I did miss class
because If eared that if I got stuck I could always show up to class and try to
get unstuck. Also because I am in two other econ classes some of the information
overlapped and that also became a determining factor sometimes of missing class.
Because I could see what we were going to talk about online I was able to assess
whether going to class would be more beneficial than either getting more sleep
and being more productive later in the day or doing other tasks that would maximize
my utility if, I already learned the topic being discussed in another class. I
also felt like I was in control of my schedule for the day more than I would
have felt if there was mandatory attendance.
I think the impact of the rules as a class overall worked
for some people but not others. I think attendance was low throughout the whole
class and that is because many people might have not valued the in-class time
as much as others who always showed up to class. I think the soft deadline might
have made it harder for you as the professor since it took a lot of people to
get to the rhythm of things at the beginning. I feel like for those who were
able to get more into the rhythm of things faster it became an added bonus to potentially
submit work somewhat late once and a while. If I were to recommend any changes
they would be pretty minimal as I enjoyed the structure of the class a lot more
than other classes. I would say the one change I might make is maybe provide notification
emails of topics you thinks would be more relevant to people’s job experience.
Or make class more discussion base in class as well and allow more group discussions.
Overall, I feel like I learned a lot of applicable subject matter that I could
use in the workplace and dealing with my experiences in organizations.
Thanks for the great semester!
I will respond to this after the holiday. It's a bit early to have this now
ReplyDeleteI am aware of your heavy interview schedule during the semester. There is something of an inconsistency, with the companies you interview with wanting you to have done well in school, yet then taking you out of class to learn about you. Do you think that is inevitable? At a minimum, the university should probably make some policy on this so instructors have a clear signal from the institution about what it wants done here. My current understanding is that (a) the university does want you to get a good job after graduation, but (b) interviewing is not an excused absence, like being sick and getting a note from McKinley is. So the university also is inconsistent this way and the burden falls on the individual instructor to resolve the inconsistency in some manner.
ReplyDeleteOn the soft deadlines and the workplace, if you are on a work team and what you produce is input for the rest of the team, then you are under some pressure to produce your product in a timely manner. That said, quality of what you produce matters as well. So, I believe the ultimate responsibility is not to get a deliverable in at a pre-specified time, but rather to keep team members in the loop and ask them how to manage the quality/timeliness tradeoff. Those things should be negotiated, in my opinion.
On the soft deadlines and our class, this didn't happen to you but some students fall behind and then don't catch up. I don't know if hard deadlines would have helped them or if there would have been more drops than there were. It's interesting to speculate on that.
I think the inconsistency was somewhat inevitable more so for me than someone who have a good idea of what industry they want to get into. I feel that the major change was blessing and a curse in the fact that it opened up my opportunities of getting jobs in engineering but also trading and management jobs. This has broadened the industries and types of jobs I have applied to rather than limiting myself to one industry or type of job. Thus occupying more of my time. I think the university rule is unfair because if they are trying to maximize their utility wouldn't you think they would have a rule that prevents professors from not excusing job interviews. Since student who get jobs make the school look better and will be more likely to donate.
ReplyDeleteOn the topic of soft deadlines I think those who feel behind and didn't catch up should fail because it teaches them to manage their time better. In the real world if you continuously miss deadlines for a company you will most likely get fired.