Musings of an Anonymous Rosser
A. Rosser
Issue date: 3/10/08 Section: Humor
Alright, so I took the last two weeks off to take care of a few things but now I'm back, (despite fighting a cold like everyone else at school), and ready for another column. I tossed around few ideas regarding what to write on, but everything seemed too mundane. Then it hit me, why not talk about something I am already tired of hearing about; something that we get bombarded with even before we even step on campus and will continue to hear about well past graduation. What am I talking about, you might ask? What could possibly be talked about so much that it makes me want to stick an ice pick in my ear? Well, MAP of course!
So Michigan sells us the MAP program as an added benefit of coming to school; a chance to get 'real world' experience outside the classroom in an environment where we can use what we've learned thus far. It all sounds very practical. The school even says that we may get a chance to have some fun while we're doing it. Awesome, sign me up.
When we step on campus, though, all we end up hearing from MBA2s is about the 'horrors' of MAP. We hear tales of bad teammates, bad projects, horrible accommodations-stories that makes us loath and fear our MAP project before we even meet our teams or find out where we'll be going. Now, if all we hear are bad stories about MAP teams, how can we be expected to go into the experience with an open mind? We're all going to hate our teams before we even have a chance to sit down with them to play the great team-building and ice-breaking games we learned about in MO (which will probably make our teams hate us anyways).
Honestly, wouldn't it be better if we heard good stories so we went in with open minds and tried to embrace the experience? A little positive reinforcement might do the program some good. We'd be ready to take the experience on and not worry about looking over our shoulders or trying to figure out who on the team was going to be the gunner, the slacker or the Houdini that disappears. I'm sure there are a number of MAP teams out there that are doomed before they even step into a room together, because all the team members have pre-conceived notions about what's going to happen.
So let's buck the trend and go into our MAPs with open minds. Let's not get caught up in pre-conceived notions about our teammates and let's all try to have a good time and enjoy the experience for what it is-an opportunity to use the skills and knowledge we've learned so far in business school, in a real world situation to help a company that needs our skills. Then again, we can always just hope for a MAP team like that stupid Harry Potter skit at Follies…
Think you're smart and witty? Try me: anonymous.rosser@gmail.com
So Michigan sells us the MAP program as an added benefit of coming to school; a chance to get 'real world' experience outside the classroom in an environment where we can use what we've learned thus far. It all sounds very practical. The school even says that we may get a chance to have some fun while we're doing it. Awesome, sign me up.
When we step on campus, though, all we end up hearing from MBA2s is about the 'horrors' of MAP. We hear tales of bad teammates, bad projects, horrible accommodations-stories that makes us loath and fear our MAP project before we even meet our teams or find out where we'll be going. Now, if all we hear are bad stories about MAP teams, how can we be expected to go into the experience with an open mind? We're all going to hate our teams before we even have a chance to sit down with them to play the great team-building and ice-breaking games we learned about in MO (which will probably make our teams hate us anyways).
Honestly, wouldn't it be better if we heard good stories so we went in with open minds and tried to embrace the experience? A little positive reinforcement might do the program some good. We'd be ready to take the experience on and not worry about looking over our shoulders or trying to figure out who on the team was going to be the gunner, the slacker or the Houdini that disappears. I'm sure there are a number of MAP teams out there that are doomed before they even step into a room together, because all the team members have pre-conceived notions about what's going to happen.
So let's buck the trend and go into our MAPs with open minds. Let's not get caught up in pre-conceived notions about our teammates and let's all try to have a good time and enjoy the experience for what it is-an opportunity to use the skills and knowledge we've learned so far in business school, in a real world situation to help a company that needs our skills. Then again, we can always just hope for a MAP team like that stupid Harry Potter skit at Follies…
Think you're smart and witty? Try me: anonymous.rosser@gmail.com
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