Tag: Professional Development

Learning Outside the Classroom

As the class comes to an end, all I have to say is that is had been an incredible experience. The city is ever changing and I love discovering new corners of the city that I have not been to before. At the same time, it is interesting to go back to some of my favorite places to see if anything has changed. However, my favorite part of this class was learning outside of the classroom.

Towards the end of Winter Term, I had felt incredibly stressed and burned out. Even now, I am unsure of the cause of said stress, but I knew that I could not have done another traditional class. I wanted to continue learning, but knew that I could not learn very effectively in a classroom again unless I had a break. This class was exactly what I needed, even if I did not know that when I first applied.

Instead of thinking about the class in terms of “class time” and “homework,” I thought about this project-based class as “work time” and “leisure time.” Cassidy, Cole, Emily and I had structured our time so that our days were similar to that of a full-time job: work from nine to sometime in the afternoon on weekdays and then have the rest of the day and weekends to ourselves (mostly). I enjoyed working intensely for part of the day and then being able to not think about the project until the next time we met, because it meant that I had a much-needed break. Back on campus during Fall and Winter Term, breaks from academic work were non-existent.

Other than the structure of the class, I also appreciated the opportunity to apply both the technical and soft-skills I had learned at W&L to an actual project. While I acknowledge the value of case studies or simulations, concepts feel more tangible when there is a real purpose behind them. At the same time, I learned a lot about specific subjects that I have not, and will not, take classes on. This was an opportunity to explore subjects that are relevant to the workforce and the world that may not be appropriately examined in a classroom setting. Some of the most valuable experiences came from us setting the scope or direction of our project and providing the justification behind each decision.

An Irish Goodbye

At our annual closing dinner tonight – our largest ever with all 27 #wlucsr students in BUS 180/391 – one of the students sitting with me mentioned her tendencies for an Irish goodbye. For those unfamiliar, an Irish goodbye is simply slipping out from a large gathering with no fanfare and no formal goodbyes. That is, I suppose, what this is . . . Almost.

I depart for Lexington tomorrow, a day earlier than the students and my colleague Elizabeth. #wlucsr 2017, our sixth installment, comes to a close on Friday. The students have a celebratory day tomorrow, complete with all-you-can-eat pizza and an afternoon/evening at historic Tivoli. They have made their final presentations, submitted their final projects, and have little formal work remaining. A last blog post or journal entry might be about it. I’m slipping out a side door, however, in order to get back to campus for a board meeting followed by the usual end-of-year festivities. But what a month it has been!

We arrived four weeks ago this morning with eight BUS 391 students. Three had been here before as part of the first-year only BUS 180 class. They have put in an enormous effort on behalf of their “clients” during that time. The two projects were very different from each other, and you may have read of some of the challenges in this blog over the last four weeks.

Their final presentations of their research to the clients this week went well. Of the recommendations made to his firm, one client noted, “I feel quite convinced that it’s something that we should do . . . I trust the work that you’ve done.” The other project sponsor told his group, “Thank you so much. It was really great, and I have enjoyed it all the way,” and presented each with a lovely Royal Copenhagen coffee cup as a memento.

They are tired. They should be, as they have worked hard. Several have noted that Copenhagen feels a bit like home now. I know how they feel. It is a sort of home away from home for me too. It’s hygge.

Half way through the BUS 391 students’ stay here, we returned with 19 first-year students enrolled in the BUS 180 class. Elizabeth and I have marveled at various times about their level of engagement. They’ve asked amazingly insightful questions. They’ve invested not just in their own research projects, but in the work undertaken by classmates. They’ve engaged our corporate and government hosts and the Danish professors we have visited with in ways that have really impressed.

Year after year when we bring the BUS 180 students to Copenhagen, one of the real pleasures is responding to questions from those unfamiliar with the quality of our students who ask, “What sort of graduate program are they in?”

“No,” we smile, “They are undergraduates in their first year of study.” And so it came to pass once again in 2017.

We’ll start work in earnest on the 2018 version soon enough. Elizabeth and I are constantly debating changes to the class. Should we go to Stockholm? Are the cultural visits ideal? How can we muffle the sound of the Euro-teens rampaging through Danhostel? These are the weighty questions with which we will grapple.

A few thank-yous are in order before I depart . . . After all, I’m only Irish on my mom’s side.

To Anders, Susanne, Ian, Zoé, Carsten, Suzanne, Malene, and all my friends at DIS, you are such a valuable part of this program. In the face of your own immense challenges of the last two weeks, you have shone!

To Anne Mette, thanks for the inspiration for these classes many years ago. Thanks for the many introductions that you have made that have opened the doors for our students. We wouldn’t be doing this without you.

To Camilla, Camilla, Christoffer, Claus, and Claus (anyone else notice a pattern here?), thanks for your hospitality and time. Thanks for your willingness to share with our students the challenges of your jobs. Please thank the many others at Coloplast, Gladsaxe, Norden, Novo Nordisk, and Pandora that contributed.

To Andrew, Andrew, Ben, Cassidy, Charlie, Cole, Daniel, Ellee, Emily, Eliot, Emma, Erin, Ethan, Hermione, Jesse, Julia, Katherine, Katherine, Kathryn, Maggie, Matt, Parker, Ramonah, Sarah, Sloan, Tate, and Señor Sassafras, thanks for a great term. Just as each of the companies that we have studied have had to come to their own understanding of sustainability and social responsibility, so must each of you. I hope, though, whatever life holds in store for you, that you will find a way to move the needle on this front. If so, then we will all be better for your efforts!

Fireworks are going off at Tivoli, so it seems appropriate to bring this to an end.

Med venlig hilsen,

Rob

p.s. I still love fresh peas!

Not playing dress up anymore

I grew up in a household with two working parents. Everyday I would watch my parents go off to work in their professional clothing, commute into the city, have business meetings all day, and be in my mind what I considered “true professionals”. Even from a young age, I watched them in admiration- I couldn’t wait for the day that I got to also be a real adult who earned a living and did fun adult things.

The older I got, there were increasingly more occasions where I got to actually wear real working clothes and act like an adult. But every time I put on a suit or a nice dress, I felt like I was simply dressing up; playing a role for a few hours before I changed back into normal clothes. I my mind, I was still a child, waiting for the day that I would get be real “working girl”.

And suddenly, here I am, in Copenhagen, taking the train home from work, tired from a long day of meetings, ready to kick up my feet and relax until more work tomorrow. The business clothes I’m wearing no longer feel like dress up clothing, but just my normal everyday attire. So I guess that means I’m an adult now, right?

Writing this blog almost makes me laugh- I can’t really be an adult, right? I’m only 20! In the US, I can’t even legally drink! But somehow here I am, working a real job, and although it is technically for a class and we are not getting paid, it is for a real company and it is international work experience.

I always imagined the transition between childhood and adulthood to be more gradual. Maybe it was and I just missed it. But I feel like just yesterday I was home with my parents, and today I’m at work in a foreign country.

I realize I still have a year left of college until I am thrown into the real world where I will truly be living on my own. Hopefully by then I will have a job and an apartment and will feel like I have a better grasp on what being an adult is like.

I think one of the main lessons I will take away from  my time in Copenhagen is that being an adult really isn’t all that different from being a child. Even adults still feel lost and confused, they still ask others for help and wonder when they’ll get their lives together. Maybe these feelings will eventually go away, but until then, I’ve learned that if you act confidently, work hard and don’t stress over the little things, everything will work out in the end.

Freedom on Steroids

One day before my freshman year, I was suddenly struck by the notion that I was going to almost complete freedom for the first time in my life once I stated at Washington and Lee. While I still had some obligations, such as class and swim practice, I could stay out as late as I wanted, eat whatever I felt like, or even just up and leave Lexington without anyone to tell me otherwise. *Disclaimer to all reading- I was and have been a very good student and never felt the need to really test the limits of my freedom, but knowing I could has always excited me! 

For the first three years of my college experience, I never thought that I could ever get or want more freedom than what Washington and Lee already gave me. Clearly I was wrong. Today, as my classmates and I were reflecting on our experience in Copenhagen so far, we came to realize that the freedom we have here is so much more than we ever expected- it is almost literally “freedom on steroids.”

While we work each day on our individual projects, our two professors are back on campus teaching another class. That means that we have no adults here to structure our days. We get to make our own work schedules, set our own hours and locations, and travel around the city or even the country as much as we want. Our only real task is to finish our projects by the deadline.

To almost any other college student, this sounds unreal. How can you possibly be trusted to do your work? Why don’t you just leave it for the last minute and go travel for four weeks? How is that even allowed?

My honest answer to all of these questions is that Washington and Lee and its honor system, have been preparing me for this moment since I first set foot on campus. While our class is all under the impression that we want to have fun this trip, our first and foremost goal is to produce the best projects we possible can.

Yes, we can travel as much as we want, but both groups decided on their own (with some advice from our professors) to only take this upcoming weekend off. My group decided to work every week day we are here, and even some weekends, starting at 9:30 a.m. and ending whenever we accomplish our tasks for the day.

Other students at other schools in the same situation might abuse this freedom, but my class seems to view this as the ultimate challenge. We get to prove to everyone that yes, you can leave a group of 8 unchaperoned students in a foreign county for four weeks and have them create and produce amazing projects by the end of it. Washington and Lee has taught us what we have to do to get a task done, so much so that we even when given the gift of freedom on steroids, we still chose to work until the job is done.