Innovation Roadmap #13

Recommendation

[rek-uh­-men-dey-shuh-n]

Noun

1. An act of recommending

2. A letter or the like recommending a person or thing

3. Representation in favor of a person or thing

4. Anything that serves to recommend a person or thing, or induce acceptance or favor

TOPIC: Recommendations for the class

One of the things I remember talking about with someone in the class was how difficult it was to get 10 different problem statements/opportunity statements down that related to something we were passionate about. Maybe we just weren’t passionate about a lot of things. Or maybe we are passionate about something, and we just haven’t found that something yet. In another class that may have a few upperclassmen, this may not be a problem (or maybe it is. Peoples’ interest changes all the time, after all). But in a class of freshmen, who may or may not know what they’re doing? It’s very hard. I remember sitting down to that assignment and thinking, “Aw, crap, what am I going to write?” I’m only just getting into linguistics as a field and I’m not fully aware of all the problems in Japanese. I think a few of those problems were ones I came up with that I didn’t really feel passionate about. I’d recommend moving it from 10 problems (what it says on the syllabus) to 7 or 8 (what was said in class the week before the assignment was due).

The blogs are actually super helpful, so I’d recommend continuing them. It makes students think about topics they may not necessarily think too deeply on. I really enjoyed writing my thoughts down for this class. I don’t do it enough in a personal diary, so writing it in a blog very much helped with that.

More guest speakers would be nice, especially guest speakers from previous classes. In my mind, when it’s guest speakers from businesses, they are inspirational, but it’s sometimes hard to connect their failures with the current success because we only see the success. It’s the same way with many of the prominent figures today. A lot of the time, the success is only focused on, not the past and the failures, to the point where it’s possible to have the person seen as always successful. I believe that by having people who are currently living through their own roadmap and making it happen, the students in the class will see how this class impacted previous students. I really enjoyed the two visiting that one class. It may also be helpful having alumni from that class (I don’t think there are any yet but when it happens) visit and talk about it. It makes the speaker much more believable when there’s a common ground between the speaker and audience. They can claim having taken the class and struggled. Give tips on finding passions and connecting to mentors. Give tips on picking classes and engagements. And finally, give tips on how to proceed with their roadmap. Quite possibly, explain how it’s helped them! If a concrete example can be given, I may have been more inclined to believe earlier in the year that this would look good on a resume.

One last thing I have to add is it may be helpful dividing people into their own sections. The medicine people go together, physical exercise people go together, and so on. This was inspired by the one time we did this in class and the idea of being split into general groups for the April 24^th even so that we can meet others who are pursuing the same thing we are. The only thing I can see wrong with this is what was a little wrong with the one time it happened in class. No one knows how to help each other with their problem statements. It may have been because we’re not aware of what’s happening on campus, as freshmen. I have no doubt that if people knew about ways to get involved, it would really help others.