Business Students

 When I was teaching business students in college, on the first day of class, I would ask them to write an essay (homework) and answer two questions:

• Who are you?
• What do you know?

Before the student left the class, they wanted me to tell them what they should include in their essays, 

whether the essays needed to be typed, and how long they should be.

My response to those questions were always the same:  YOU MUST DECIDED THESE ANSWERS ON YOUR OWN

When the student returned to class the following week, most of the essays were less than a half page long and most were untyped, all of them lacked an in-depth analysis of the two questions, and all of them wrote as if they were still in high school.

My students were always JUNIORS and SENIORS in college.

The last three years of my 45-year career in the workforce was spent teaching business classes full time.

Needless to say, I was utterly amazed and extremely disappointed with the results I had uncovered.

What does this tell you?

First - these college students did not know how to write

Second - these college students lacked the self-confidence to be self-directed

Third - these college students lacked the ability to problem solve or dig down on a problem

Fourth - these college students were nowhere near becoming business professionals

I recall one of my students handing in an essay with two sentences.

• I am who I am
• I don't know what I don't know

Plus, the paper was typed.  However, this paper was one of the best papers that I received during my three-year tenure at this Christian college.

While being clever, do you see what this essay lacked?

THIS STUDENT DID THE MINIMUM TO GET BY...  and that attitude is not what will be successful in the business world.

Students today, do not take their education seriously, thinking all they need is a college degree and it does not matter what they have learned or retained.

Let me close by sharing this with you.

THE PERSON WHO IS RANKED DEAD LAST IN HIS MEDICAL SCHOOL GRADUATING CLASS, IS STILL CALLED A DOCTOR.

Would you like to go to this doctor???