This is leadership? Yuk!
by Miki SaxonPost from Leadership Turn Image credit: hellolapomme
Yesterday’s NYT Bits wondered who is the smarter of two Harvard dropouts, Bill Gates of Microsoft or Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
Neither bothered attending class, but Gates caught up “in a single intense burst during a separate reading period at the end of the term.”
Zuckerberg was to busy with Facebook to even do that. “So in an inspired last-minute save, he built a Web site with all of the important paintings and room for annotation. He then sent an e-mail to the students taking the class offering it up as a community resource. In a half an hour, the perfect study guide had self-assembled on the Web.”
Sorry, what Zuckerberg may not have been de facto cheating, but I certainly wouldn’t term it ethical. At lease Gates did the reading himself.
These two men, and other’s like them, are the role models for today’s students. I know, most people think it’s no big deal and a lot of them are very impressed.
I’m not.
No matter how successful they’ve become, they’re attitudes seem to belittle school, essentially saying that it’s OK to not do the schoolwork and pass in any manner you can.
Great examples to set for our future business leaders.
As to the media hype regarding entrepreneurs who start businesses in their dorm rooms, sure, there are a few that make it big. But the great majority of companies are started by seasoned business people and the most successful have advanced degrees.
Am I just a dinosaur, out of touch with acceptable behavior? What do you think?
Your comments—priceless
May 30th, 2008 at 7:04 am
The little snippet you quote doesn’t say Zuckerberg cheated at all. It says he created a group study guide. How did he cheat?
If he handed that in as part of an assignment, and group collaboration was prohibited, then yes he cheated. Otherwise he used the internet to get key lessons together for he and his classmates faster than if they met in a group and did it in person.
So yes, you’re a bit of a dinosaur on that front.
And Gates and Zuckerberg are the perfect examples of the type of person who have no need for a vocational college education (which is what most people get unless they go to a liberal arts college). What would the benefit have been of either staying in school? To validate a model that wouldn’t have benefited them? Seems like a very unwise choice to have made on their part.
If cramming belittles the educational experience, you should comment on the thousands of college students who cram every semester…
May 30th, 2008 at 9:58 am
HI Chris, thanks for stopping by and adding to the discussion.
Yup, definitely a dinosaur:) I have the stupid idea that college is a place to learn, not just pass tests. Silly me:) I grant that cramming is traditional, but no one will convince me that skipping class while passing test yields an education.
And I vehemently disagree with the comment rolling all non-liberal arts into the category of “vocational college.” Foremost, college should be place to learn to think and thinking isn’t limited to liberal arts.
As to a “type” who doesn’t benefit from a college education I believe that the study on entrepreneurial business success speaks for itself. I’m not saying that it can’t happen, but the odds are against it.
June 2nd, 2008 at 4:07 pm
I have mixed opinions about this. As a recent graduate myself, I can definitely tell you that there’s nothing inherently good about attending class. Because I agree with you, college is there to help you learn, and more importantly, learn how to think – and, frankly, not every lecture is going to do that for you. I didn’t attend the majority of my GE classes for that reason; I wasn’t learning anything. Facts and figures I can pick up in my spare time – but I wanted something more substantial than that, and if I wasn’t getting it in lecture, there was no point in my presence there.
Heh, I guess you could say college taught me how to prioritize :)
It just seems that college is more about learning how to survive within an externally-imposed system – the same way you’ll eventually have to learn how to survive within an externally-imposed office system. The way you learn to cope is entirely yours though; you could be like Gates and Zuckerberg, and innovate your way to beating the system, or you could be like most folk and simply learn to make the best of it by working within its strictures.
I also agree with something I think Chris is implying, which is simply that college isn’t for everybody. It’s a model that works for most people – but not for everyone, because everyone learns differently. And what’s the point in doing something everyone else is doing if you’re not getting the same reward?
June 2nd, 2008 at 5:19 pm
Hi Sara, thanks for stopping by and adding your thoughts to the discussion!
Unfortunately, not all lecturers are good at it. I remember my niece telling me that the value in having a few poor ones was learning how to get value from information that was poorly presented:)
Of course college isn’t a good fit for all, but most who drop out won’t end up starting multi million dollar companies.
As to the survival, that’s a really valuable lesson, since most of LIFE is an externally imposed system.