Brian's World

Development

This semester at RPI they have me taking 2 of these Professional Development classes.  By “they” I am referring to the people who decided that I need to take them to graduate.  So far I’ve found them mildly junky.  One of the classes is about leadership theories and so far I don’t think I’ve learned much of anything.  Part of the class involved reading about a box and how to get out of it, but the book spent 50% of the time describing the box, 35% of the time describing how we all end up in the box, and only a meager 25% percent on how to get out of the box (more specifically, 3/4 of that 25% focused on how not to get out of the box).  If I had written the book, which I would probably never do in the first place, I would have been like this:

Ok, so nobody is perfect.  Secretly most of your co-workers dislike you, but its nothing new.  Here is how to make them like you by liking yourself and not being a moron.

Maybe someone will publish that.

The other class is a little bit different.  It appears the instructor plans to call on us and ask us questions.  It also appears she plans to teach us some sort of interview skills/techniques, or so she said.  I’m not a fan of going into situations like an interview knowing how to form my responses; its like those students who always spit the question back at the start of their answer, while the technique works its not unique or a presentation of yourself.  I understand that certain interview situations may be advantageous to those who say what the interviewer is looking for, but I’d rather just tell them what I’m thinking.  If the interviewer doesn’t find it fitting into their model of correct answers than maybe I am not a fit for what they are looking for, who knows.

This was the same instructor who started off a class by asking how many of us didn’t have jobs yet.  I don’t know about my peers, but I don’t know what I’m eating for lunch the next day… never mind what I’m doing after I graduate.

I think I need to bring out the sheep herder’s manual again.  I could be a bit rusty at it or the sheep could have grown a bit since last time.