Week 7- The Test

The exam was Monday night. We all knew it was coming and had heard from our friends what it would be like. I talked to several people who told me not to read the book, that it would be so dificult that no one would pass it anyway. I heard from one friend that she read the book cover to cover and still failed it. Wow, I didn't think there was an easy way out of this situation. So, what did I do.... I followed the advise of my friends and I didn't read the book. I looked over some of the key concepts the night before the exam and hoped that the little work i had done would be enough to get me through. Well, the exam wasn't easy... I felt that I knew some of the answers, but there were definately some that I guessed on. Shame on me for being a follower and not a leader!!
After the exam we learned that this was also a test for our leaders. The leaders could have written the test, asked Feinberg what would be covered on the test, or could have made a study guide for the rest of us. This is disturbing to hear, but if I were a leader I wouldn't have thought about doing these things either! Feinberg also posted an audio clip about the exam. The point is if he could have trusted that we would have read the book and learned the lessons, we wouldn't have had a test at all! CRAZY! This class is teaching me to expect the unexpected, think outside the box!

Week 6

We finally have group leaders this week! I'm not sure, for me, if that is a good thing or a bad thing. On Monday, I received an e-mail from my leader telling us we were in his group and to bring 20 solo cups and duct tape to class for a group activity. He also said to try to sit in one area of the room so we could all sit together. First impression- not too bad. He seems organized and communicating well. So, in class I sat in the designated area as requested with my solo cups and tape ready to go. So, we are told about the activity and Feinberg says- "ready go". Our group leader immediatedy leaves the group! What? Where did he go, half the group is in the designated seating area wondering where our leader has run off to! So, make our way to the fron of the room, along with 5 other groups, and try to figure out what is going on. Bad leader! When we finally get to him, he says just start taping cups together and we will make a tower. Well.... ok leader thanks for asking your group how we should go about this or if we had any ideas as to what should be done! Bad leader! So, we do as we are told and just tape cups together growing our tower as tall as the room with allow. We were not prepared to represent our group on our tower... and had no idea why we decided to use solo cups and duct tape! Bad leader! Hopefully our leader will for future activities get some input from his group members!! This class is definately teaching me how to be a BAD LEADER!!!!

Week 5

Our Leadership workshop was this week with Kirk Weisler. Kirk is an amazing speaker with a lot of passion for what he does. I loved the fact that he talked about each of his family members and what makes them special at the begining of his presentation. His stories of Diamond and the pin lady were really inspiring! It amazes me the little things that we could do to make someone's day a little brighter, and how often we pass up these opportunities. After listening to Kirk, I have the desire to be GREAT.....the problem is keeping that mentality and not letting anyone take our spirit away from us!

Week 4

This week was about choosing the leaders for our groups. The one's who volunteered to be leaders were given about 30 seconds in front of the class to plead to us to vote them as a leader of the class. This was interesting to watch. Some people didn't know what to say and were thrown off by the pressure to impress. The rest of us observing got to see first hand how important it is to sell yourself within the 30 seconds. I now see how important it is to be able to sell yourself and to know why you are a good leader. I can see that it's important to be prepared to lead others at any moment in your life, and know why you should be the leader at that moment. The one's who impressed found a way to show or to tell us that they would be sucessful in the leadership position in unique ways. One guy was a marine who simply stated that he was born to lead, trained to lead, and didn't know any other way (in so many words) and the class was very impressed. We could see that through his confidence and formal training he would be a great choice to lead our class. Really makes me think about how I would sell myself in 30 seconds, and if I would be able to communicate effectively the leaderships skills that I have.

Week 3

We finally met the man who has put us threw so much stress!!!!! Wow! Class today was very intertaining! Feinberg finally introduced himself and warned us that until we force him to become a good leader... he is going to be a really bad one.. obviously! We have definately seen this in the past two weeks! He read some e-mails and told stories about students asking questions with no regard from him. How frustrating!! His answer to everything is/was "figure it out". So, to use a Feinberg term... what's the point. The point of the first couple of weeks was to show us that we have the ability to take the initiative to find the syllabus, and complete the assignments without any directions from him. We all had the same opportunity to do the work and attend class to attempt to learn without even knowing Feinberg. Well what an experience that was!

Week 2

This was a short week for us as we didn't have class on Monday. Wednesday Feinberg was in Holland, so we watched The Queen in class. We were told that we would watch part of the movie in class the rest would be posted for us to watch later. Well many people decided they didn't want to stay to watch the movie, and left. This week was also full of assignments to complete. I enjoyed the video about Pauch, he was a great inspiration, and what a surprise ending!
I'm looking forward to actually meeting Feinberg this week! I hope that lectures are better than the first two weeks, and I will feel like I'm learning from this experience!

First Week of Classes

Well.. the first week was a very interesting week. I have heard how things would go in this class from previous students. I was told that the first week the Professor would sit in the back and just observe and let us try to figure out what to do. Well, apparently everyone heard a little something about this class and thought they knew how things should go as well. I thought it was interesting to see how everyone reacted to no structure and no instructor for the first two days. Many people thought they knew how to get things started, but after reading the notes... no one really had the right idea! For me, I think this is going to be a frustrating class. I am a person who likes structure and likes to follow a schedule. So, to have a syllabus (or lack of) with due dates all over the place and lots of things due at the same time is going to stress me out and frustrate me!! Hopefully I will be able to handle this, and the semester will improve!