200413

by

two hundred and forty

Been bogged up lately with exams, assignments, presentations and other busy stuff... Quite a busy semester indeed....

It is 2.25am at the moment, and I spent the whole day watching movies and playing games as a means of leisure spent indoors and shielded from the rain... Horrid weather today must I say....

Mmm.. The reason why I'm not asleep yet is because I stayed up last night. It was around 3am when I finished my group homework and handed it in (even though it's not due until Wednesday). It's the International Marketing class.... Which I'm having a bit of an issue with... Perhaps I'll update you with that.

International Marketing

For this class, as I've mentioned, I am a team leader and we're working on Disneyland as our marketing launch project. In the beginning, I had thought this class to be fun and rather exciting as it entailed a learning journey I've never experienced before. The opportunity to lead a team, the independence to apply previous international business knowledge onto a mock launch and a general means of testing my abilities for future employment.
The source of this passion and excitement isn't the core problem for me... But rather the very fact that I am passionate and dedicated - when arguably the rest of the class isn't.
To add to the context, ANY marks that I receive during this exchange (even if it's an A+ or a D-) will not be transferred as such upon my return, but rather as a simple Pass/Fail mark. What this implies is that any serious effort will not be as rewarding as it would have, but on the other hand, it means that I can be lazy about studying and just go through with a 'passing' grade - maximising my enjoyment of being overseas for a year without any dire consequences.
A lot of my friends know this fact, and so they ask me why I'm taking my classes so seriously... I don't know either... Perhaps 4 out of my 5 classes right now have got the dedicated student out of me (the outstanding 1 subject being a very monotonous word-for-word series of lectures) and the teachers seem to be rather impressed with my standard of work... Definitely not normal for me. 
International Marketing is no different... You could say that it is a class that excites me. When the professor encourages us to think about certain concepts, I am usually a major contributor to discussions and my group members have commented that I work too hard.
Perhaps I do.. But I do enjoy it... But do I enjoy it perhaps too much? Especially compared to the class?...

So 2 weeks ago, we gave our first mock launch presentation. Please also remember that the professor was not here this week, but the class still went on in his absence. I had thought that our group did rather well and a lot of the other class members have commented so. I communicated to my members how good of a job they did and that they should feel proud for setting the bar, and all was well... Until the week after.
Now, there are two Teacher Assistants in the class... Me and this other guy (J). J isn't a team leader, perhaps for fear of over-commitment, but is a rather hot headed guy. He may not be as excited about the subject as some, but some say that he is rather passionate about standing out - having the spotlight shining on him. Others have told me that in other classes, he enjoys questioning people's presentations and focusing in on areas where he can put them down. And so, for our presentations, the professor asked us TA's to write him critiques and comments about the groups' presentations. I was under the impression that he wanted a generalised overview, and not a page of 'things group X can improve on'. Little did we know that the professor intended on handing out these critiques to the rest of the class the following week. For me this wasn't an issue as I believe I was fair with my critique and was quite honest. But for him... When the professor told us that he would be distributing these critiques, his face went pale and he broke out in cold sweat - you could tell he's feeling guilty about something.

And so, the critiques came out.. Each student in the class received two sheets of paper. One from me and the other from J. I gave it around 2 minutes for the class to finish reading, and 2 minutes it took for the atmosphere to turn sour, bitter, musty and stagnant. It was easy to guess that the groups were not expecting such words. If you read what J had written, it was blatantly obvious that there was a degree of bias in his critique of his group vs. the others. Perhaps something he only wanted the professor and him to know.

Anyway, I can take criticism and I'm generally quite open to it. But when a criticism is handed to me for the sake of criticism (albeit false and predatory), I can't help but get defensive - especially if my team mates were much affected by the gravity of the criticism. Our presentation that I thought was informative, well thought out, well organised and well executed was said to be "lacking information, focused too much on market analysis, confusing, lacked actual consulting and needed improvement". When I read this, I was shocked. Shocked and confused. 
His basis of argument was that we focused too much on our SWOT analysis of the company - the internal and external competencies of a company and the implication they had on market positioning. He said that we didn't go beyond that and we therefore did not give any means of consultation/strategy formulation for the future. 
This infuriated me because the professor clearly assigned us that very task the week before. If anyone paid attention to what he actually wanted, that person would have known to NOT go beyond a SWOT analysis and to let the consulting begin a few weeks later. And so, if anything, we were the only group that actually did the right thing.
I'm not all up for going out of my way to prove myself right... If anything, I'd rather avoid conflict even at my expense. But I knew I had to take this matter up with him because my team mates were affected. I could tell that they felt disappointed and perhaps felt that I, as team leader, was not working towards their best interests. For that reason, I confronted J and told him that I wasn't prepared to take his criticism... that I didn't agree with it and it was very unjustified. 
After a few long exchanges, he apologised and so did I. There was a general misunderstanding, it seemed, over the actual task and the overall situation. He knew that his criticism was unfair and I made it known to him that he caused a very awkward situation among classmates with it. 
All in all however, it was all resolved and we quickly resumed to how it was before this critique episode happened.


Until this recent Friday. 

To put shortly, there was another presentation we had to do and although it was a short one, the contents of it were complex and confusing. The professor in the week before, taught us a strategic framework and told us to apply it in our first stage of consulting... and in doing so, to also create a presentation that talked about this - complete with a graph.

It sounded easy enough, so I designated work to my team members on the day the task was given... But I did not receive their finished work until 4 hours before the presentation was due. Obviously by then I was rather stressed.. but I had a back up plan. Knowing that it was exam week and some needed more leniency with their parts, I was prepared to be more flexible. And so, when 7pm came on Thursday night (the night the presentation was due and the day before our class), I received the last piece of the puzzle and I proceeded to complete the group piece.

HOWEVER, it ended up being messy, confusing and there were a lot of loopholes. Curious as to why this was so, I researched into this strategic framework, and it turned out that the class had a VERY different understanding of it. An understanding that was incomplete and thus, unsatisfactory to turn in as a viable presentation.

So, after a few hours of research and a major reworking of the contents, I came up with a completed framework, and one that was very much in line with what was asked for.

The next day came, and the class was set up. The teacher then uploaded our presentations and set us up in order:

- Group D (the group J was in)
- Group B
- Group C
- Group A (my group)

Not realising that the professor had intentionally ordered it like this, I was ready for another week of criticisms from the class....

But, as the first three groups did their presentations and realising that their content was wrong, I began to realise that the professor had ordered our groups in order of how well the content was in line with the proper strategic framework.

The thing that bothered me the most was the atmosphere that filled the room. It was the same feeling as when we received J's critique, but only this time it was harsher because it was from the professor himself. After each of the three groups presented (around 10 minutes duration), the professor dedicated the same 10 minutes to critiquing their work.... At most times, very negative comments about how they forgot the core objective of this course and how wrong their content was.

Of course, this built up a lot of nervousness because I did not know what to expect for mine... 

But after the third group received their critique, the worst possible series of events then happened.

"Alright guys... we will now take a 10 minute break.. And after the break, we will hear from the last group, who did a superb job with their presentation. They actually did the right thing and even went forward by researching into applying the appropriate strategic frameworks".

Yes. It was my group. Yes. It was our research and our work.... But it was a horrible thing for the professor to put us in that kind of spotlight. To make us look outstanding after quite literally destroying the other groups.

So.... after my presentation and generally after the class, I felt a lot of negativity from others towards me.... Where normally my classmates would say bye to me and a "see you next week!", it was a cold shoulder and I couldn't help but notice a very strong prick of hatred. Although that is a strong word, I honestly felt that way...

Anyway, the class doesn't look to be the same anymore, and in these situations, being the outstanding student/group isn't necessarily something you want to be. Although my group members are happy with me, I feel as though we've made quite strong enemies... But we'll see how we go from now on. I just hate it that none of these things were what I wanted... And I would have rather helped each student in the class understand the concept better so that we would all share the spotlight.... But I never envisioned this to turn out the way it did.

J's face turned extremely sour, especially when I was presenting. Some say that his pride got what it needed as the professor critiqued him on stage... But I don't know what to make of this whole situation.


Anyway.. the professor requested the whole class to re-do their presentations and to re-send it by Wednesday... Our group had a head start, and as of last night, we are finished. 

We will be having a party next class, so perhaps you could say I'm looking forward to that. It'll be a good chance to talk and see whether or not such an atmosphere will cease to exist after it.

Time will tell.... Time will tell.


Apart from this class, the other classes are more... conflict-free and there exists a more mutual pleasure with each other. Thankfully.