Zachary Davis's Online Journal

Learning Plan

Tue, 13 Dec 2005 16:32:08 EST

I think that the Learning Plan, although long and time consuming, was a good assignment. It is very good for students because it forces us to think about what our goals are and how we plan on achieving them. I'm certainly glad that I had the opportunity to work on this paper because otherwise I probably wouldn't think too much about my future goals and things like that.

Tom Mendola

Tue, 13 Dec 2005 16:27:32 EST

I found the Tom Mendola case very interesting. I liked it because it was a short reading that still had plenty of content. I found myself being able to relate to Tom a little bit. I certainly find myself at times not being as productive as possible at school because I don't always feel like I'm interested. I was surprised, however that even with his family depending on him the way they were, that he didn't learn from his repudiations and focus on keeping his job to help support his family.

Team Evaluations

Tue, 13 Dec 2005 16:23:25 EST

I think that our team came up with a very good scale for evaluations and good categories to judge our performances by in class the other day. It does seem strange though that we have to come up with our own when there are other evaluation forms that we have to fill out also. I guess it just allows the professors to get a better picture of how we worked together.

Career Center Guest

Tue, 13 Dec 2005 16:18:17 EST

I enjoyed when the guy from the Career Center came as I usually do, but I couldn't help being somewhat frustrated with the part when we chose what skill set category we fit into. I felt like there were two that I would have fit into either of very well and they weren't even right next to eachother. They were almost direct opposites. Naturally then, there were also two other categories that I felt like I had some skill sets in. It just made me feel like I didn't have any idea what I wanted to do.

Extra Session

Tue, 13 Dec 2005 16:11:56 EST

I found the last extra session somewhat irritating. I was very happy about the pizza, but I thought the alphabet excercise was ridiculous. I think that if I would have been presenting the alphabet, I would have started under the assumption that nobody knew it. I found it irritating that the people teaching it were asking people what the next letter was, when we were supposed to be pretending that we didn't know it.

HR Simulation

Sun, 06 Nov 2005 23:55:46 EST

The HR simulation is started to become somewhat annoying of a project. Our team has lost one of our members due to not being enrolled in the course and we are having difficulties getting all of our members to meetings due to time constraints. I think that team projects are good sometimes, but most of the time I find that they are innefficient for the completion of work when students schedules are extremely busy.

Orientation training discussion

Sun, 06 Nov 2005 23:51:52 EST

I found the Orientation training discussion to be inneffective. The class voting system made it inneffective. Even with the ranking system in place all the teams had to do was rank the people that they thought were not going to win higher so that the teams that presented good ideas would lose. Also teams started proposing rediculous ideas that most companies wouldn't have the budget for actually doing.

Crieghton Case

Sun, 06 Nov 2005 23:43:10 EST

I thought Jonah Crieghton handled the case of discrimination very poorly. He was however in a very difficult position. Two ideas that came up in class were very good and would have probably worked out alot better for him towards making changes in the company in regards to discrimination. They were: Going to a legal firm, and telling Martin Banks about what happened so that he could take matters into his own hands. The only problem with these two options is that I think he would probably lose his job over it and it also might be something that could hurt his chances of getting hired by someone else.

Case study

Sun, 06 Nov 2005 23:34:41 EST

I enjoyed doing the Harrah's Casino case very much. I find case studies very interesting usually because it's a fun way of working on problem solving skills. I think that case studies also can be extremely useful for application of course material. It is also extremely beneficial for class discussion, and allows for people to discuss and hear different ideas about solutions to the same problem.

Job Ethics

Sun, 06 Nov 2005 23:28:07 EST

I thought that the guest speaker from the career center did a very good job going over job ethics. I had never thought about some of the situations he went over. In my opinion also I wouldn't have thought it unethical to accept a job when you already accepted another one, before he asked the question. I would have thought it to be inconsiderate obviously and I would be weary of doing it myself, but I don't know if I would have considered unethical.

HR Simulation: Team Dynamics

Sun, 09 Oct 2005 23:22:07 EST

While doing the HR simulation with my team I felt that our group worked very well together and that we will be able to work well together throughout the entire process. All the members of our group are very cooperative with each other and very flexible in attitudes in regards to each others ideas and thoughts about how we should handle different situations and what decisions we should make. When we went over the Five Dysfunctions of a Team in class I was able to think about how our team works together and it seems like we work very well. I began wondering however if it was possible that certain members of the group weren't voicing their opinions due to fear of conflict, because we haven't really disagreed on much. I don't think that this is the case, but it is possible. We discussed how it can be harmful if team members don't express themselves because they are afraid that their ideas are in conflict with others. Hopefully this is not the case, but in the future I will try to pay more attention and see if some group members don't seem to be voicing their opinions.

MBTI

Sun, 09 Oct 2005 23:09:19 EST

When we got our MBTI results back I was very skeptical at first. I was somewhat surprised by the results because the last two categories weren't what I picked in my self assessment. When doing my self assessment though I did struggle to place myself for the last two categories though, so I kept looking at the results and noticed that on the last two I scored twos in both categories. So the results were not necessarily accurate. Then I looked at the handout and looked for all the types that had the first two categories that I was sure I fit in, and I read all of them, and saved the one that I actually was placed in for last. The last two that I read seemed close to my personality type, but just slightly off in some ways. Then I read the category that I was placed into and it really fit me. It was somewhat general so I couldn't find much that didn't agree with me, but overall I'd say that it gave a pretty good description of my personality. It made me feel really good and I felt like I was able to understand more about myself and I shared it to other people who also were able to gain some understanding about me. I am careful not to pin myself in that category alone though because I feel like that could be harmful. I think that it is important to keep in mind that it doesn't fully describe someone’s personality and that if one limits his or herself to only thinking about them self in that way that it can be hindering.

My Values Worksheet

Sun, 09 Oct 2005 23:00:42 EST

The My Values worksheet that we had to fill out was very interesting. At first when I started doing the worksheet, I looked at all the options and thought that I would never be able to narrow it down to fifteen. After a while of crossing out ones that definitely weren't my main values I was able to come up with about twenty. Then I started to weigh the options and determine what things I valued more than others, and it started to become a lot easier. After some time I was able to finally narrow it down to the top five and rank them. When I was done I was able to look at it and it really made sense to me. It gave me a clearer image of my self and how I make decisions and why I worry about the things I worry about. It was just good to be able to actually have a sense of self understanding.

Networking

Sun, 09 Oct 2005 22:35:41 EST

The class networking day was very effective. It gave us students a chance to gain experience in making new connections and contacts in a more relaxed environment in which there wasn’t a lot of pressure that in other networking situations usually exists. I was able to talk to the professors and to the guest speakers so that in the future they might also possibly serve as contacts. I was also able to talk to other classmates and develop contacts among my peers. Some of us were able to develop possible business ideas that we might put to use in the near future. Hopefully something comes of those contacts and connections, and ideas that I was able to leave the class with. At the very least learning from the experience will be beneficial.

Mock Interview

Sun, 09 Oct 2005 22:12:12 EST

While doing my mock interview write-up, I had the opportunity to think more about my mock interview. I think that it was a very good opportunity for me to test myself in the interview process. I think that it was a very good opportunity to learn about how I would react in that situation, and it allowed me take note of my strengths and weaknesses when it comes to interviewing. I found that I need to work on my responses to tough questions and be more prepared with answers. I need to also work on how nervous I get. I think that in the future when I interview for a position I will improve based upon what I was able to learn about myself and the process. I think that the interview was very beneficial to me and probably for the other students. I would recommend it highly for other students in the future.