Our class is made up of 101 individuals. The number 101 is interesting as it seems to stand for that little bit extra - many books are titled 101, rather than 100, Ways to e.g. Read People, Find Happiness, etc.
Back to the Sloan Fellows 09 class : we could also perhaps liken ourselves to the 101 dalmations, each of us with many spots, or facets which we are currently getting to know.
How we assess each other is interesting - the way I see it there are different scale and ratings to a person. This can be based on, for instance, how smart they are perceived to be - everyone says all the time, she/he is sooo smart. And it's true that it's pretty overwhelming to have so many smart people in one room at once...though i guess that's true for all of MIT classrooms and (even) Harvard too.
So we judge each other on academic smartness, on class participation (how this person adds value to the long hours and make e.g. the daily Economics classes slightly less intense and more relevant), on presentation skills and on social and practical skills, fitting in to life here and social leadership. Then there's emotional intelligence: understanding, empathy and kindness as well as generosity of spirit and overall niceness..who is always positive and giving, even when pushed to their limits?
I personally also find I judge straight intelligence on how much someone can talk about and ask intelligent questions even when they do not know anything about that subject. Being quick to pick up things is another input, but not too quick that they jump to the wrong conclusions... then there's intuition- I overheard an interesting discussion in the pub that went like this: “In our study group, you (person X) have intuition and so must absolutely must use that and tell us whenever you have an inkling if we are on the right/wrong track with a problem or case, you've proved yourself so much in having that intuition."
Well MBA-ers are supposed to be Type-A personalities in general, but as "The 10-day MBA" book says, "Sometimes a few Type-Bs sneak past Admissions" and I guess according to MBTI the majority would be TJ (Thinkers/Judgers) rather than FPs (Feelers/Perceptives) ....incidentally I, like Person X, am the latter...a good complement then to most of the class.
We must however give people a variable for random error in this evaluation of them because it is still early days and many are struggling in class, especially with understanding the language, the looming exams, the speed and intensity and hours and the long study group sessions that follow 8 hours of classes every day. On top of it all there's the added pressure of wanting people to think well of them. To be seen as smart and nice and well-rounded.
(and by well-rounded I don't mean their bellies, although that's another risk of sedentary lifestyles and not enough time for exercise)
1 comment:
Nicely put, Niki. IQ (as opposed to intelligence) is not how much you know, it is how quickly you can learn.
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