The College Life Report--send yours in!

Below is my column for this week. If this interests you, I encourage you to participate -- no matter which college or post secondary education you attended. Feel free to reach out if you have any questions.

I will not publish any letters without permission--I do not want to sacrifice authenticity. That said, sharing these will be a great avenue to mentor students at a time when we need it most.

I'm also encouraging professors to reach out to me if they sense any research opportunities.

Here are examples of a Life Report from David Brooks' blog.

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If you are a college senior, professor, or an alumnus, I’d like to ask you for a gift.

I’d like you to write a brief essay about your college experience, an evaluation of what went well, what didn’t, and what you learned along the way. Feel free to write this as a short paper or divide your experience into categories – intellectual exploration, relationships, self-knowledge, and life preparation– and grade yourself in each area.

In exchange for sending these to erik.torenberg@gmail.com, I’ll send you a personal thank-you note and write a column synthesizing the results next semester.

This gift request is inspired by David Brooks’ column, The Life Report, which made the same request of people over the age of 70 for two main reasons.

First, our culture does not provide enough opportunities for self-appraisal. Sometimes we stumble across a moment to contemplate how we got here, how we’re doing, and how we can do better, but there is no specific tradition prompting us to do so.

Second, a collection of personal essays would benefit young adults. “Young people are educated in many ways” Brooks writes, “but they are given relatively little help in understanding how a life develops, how careers and families evolve, what are the common mistakes and the common blessings of modern adulthood.” Additional perspectives would inform young adults as they begin to make important life decisions.

I ask for this gift – specified to your college experience – for the same two reasons.

College students, too, can learn from people who’ve navigated the University terrain before, whether by learning from their example or merely using their story as a means to reflect upon their own.

College students, too, have few opportunities for self-evaluation. Our grades tell us how well we understand certain parts of a certain subject, but they don’t tell us if we are developing lasting relationships, challenging our beliefs, or becoming the person we want to become. These essays will encourage us to address our personal goals and evaluate our progress in achieving them.

Such introspection is a foundational: How can we evaluate how we’re doing if we don’t know what we’re trying to accomplish? Rarely do we think about what it means for us to make the most out of our education. And the thoughtful ones who do ask the tough questions, receive, at best, insufficient answers — “Get involved! Get connections! Get laid!” — and, at worst, potentially contradictory ones  — “Do what you love, but be practical!”

What does it mean to make the most out of one’s education? There are a myriad of answers, of course, and these essays will illuminate many of them. While an answer to such a question can neither be complete nor universal – there are always unexpected opportunities that we can’t foresee and no one account can work for everyone -- such introspection is still valuable, even if all it does is personalize the rubric to which you evaluate yourself and your projects.

So no, these essays won’t provide the exact blueprints to making the most out of one’s education, but they may indicate that most people believe in striving for some combination of A, B, and C things and they went about achieving them in D, E, and F ways. There might not, though, be such an overlapping consensus.

At the very least, your essays will provide us with valuable source material to help us think about what we’re aiming to accomplish and how we’re doing.

If you’re an alumnus, we’ll be curious to read about how what you learned in college applies to what you’re doing now, and perhaps how you feel you could have better prepared yourself. Briefly note to college seniors how you thought about the daunting post-graduation process and how you might think about them it differently today.

If you’re a professor, we’ll be curious to read about  how you think you could have gotten more inside of – and outside of – the classroom and how professors could have played more of a role in your undergraduate experience.

If you’re a college senior, we’ll be curious to hear what you think you did well and what you think you could have done better. It will be interesting to compare these answers with those by people who graduated many years ago. We’d also like to hear what your plans are for the remainder of college in light of what you’ve learned.

These essays could change our perceptions of the college success. While we can benefit from simply reading them, perhaps academic research could accompany such informal analysis.

In addition to providing valuable perspective to the incoming freshman, the departing senior, and everyone in between, these essays will also benefit those curious about living well and life-long learning.

And yet, those who will receive the most benefits from these essays, however, will be the people who write them.

A Tale of Two Students Part II

This week, I wrote a sequel to my last piece on Ryan and Josh. I am curious to hear your thoughts.

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Surprised by the different types of feedback I received from my last column (A Tale of Two Students, 10/4/11), I have decided to continue my study of Ryan and Josh.

There are three main factors that have contributed to who Ryan and Josh are today and where they will go in the future.

The first factor is their upbringing.

Though Josh grew up in a household that stressed the importance of financial success, he believed that this wasn’t enough. There had to be more to life than just money. Whereas growing up his parents had asked themselves: “How can I make enough money to live the good life?” Josh instead asked himself: “What is the good life?” and then later, “ignoring money, how can I change the world?” (The great irony, of course, is that the answer may require making lots of money.)

Growing up, Josh was a people-pleaser. He was often “adapting,” which, in his case, meant bending his interests and whims to what other people expected from him. Everyone liked Josh, but that wasn’t the problem. The problem was why they liked him. People liked him because they could easily influence him. People liked him because they felt constantly reaffirmed by him. People didn’t like him, however, when he expressed ideas that went against the grain, even if he felt he was becoming more like himself.

Ryan has a different story. Though his parents had modest incomes, the rest of his family did not. He’s seen the stress that comes from living paycheck to paycheck. At an early age, he vowed to never let money be a concern. Grades, as a result, were always of paramount importance. When adults were hard on him for achieving anything less than perfect marks, he was harder on himself. As long as he can remember, perfection has been habitual.

Yet his academic achievement didn’t translate to social success. His lack of a certain indescribable quality, prevented him from having any social influence. Other people had that quality and he couldn’t figure out what it was and why he didn’t have it. He didn’t dwell over social dynamics for too long, however, because soon — for reasons he would neither know nor question — he too would have that social influence.

The second factor pertains to their natural talents and interests.

Josh is and always has been strongly affected more by his own thoughts and feelings rather than with external things. Though he loves to connect with people, to delve deeply into why others do what they do and why they think what they think, he is at his best alone — where he can contemplate and make meaning through analyzing memories.

Whereas Josh is at his best one-on-one, Ryan is at his best in large group settings. Though he enjoys meeting and mentoring individual peers, he feeds off the energy created by a collective, whether through laughs at a party or brainstorming sessions for a project.

The third factor deals with perceptions of success.

If Josh had any doubts about basing life decisions on his conscience and intuition, Steve Jobs’s words — “They somehow already know what you truly want to become” — eliminated any remnants.

Ryan read biographies of Abraham Lincoln, Bill Gates and Warren Buffet and craves a similar type of influence, of legacy.

So it’s no wonder that Josh strived to obtain the internal success in college he couldn’t find growing up. Josh grabbed the opportunity to redefine himself, encouraging people to understand him for who he was — or who he aspired to be — rather than fitting himself to how others wanted to see him. He often over did this.

And it’s no wonder that Ryan strived to obtain the external success in college he didn’t have growing up. Ryan grabbed the opportunity to become a campus leader, influencing and mentoring his peers instead of shying away from displaying his talents and abilities. He, too, often over did this.

Although there certainly is some overlap between Ryan and Josh, there are fundamental differences in these three factors — upbringing, natural talents and self-perceptions — that have led each man to where he is and will indicate where he will go.

Whereas Josh naturally bends any assignment to himself, to how he can personally benefit, Ryan naturally bends himself to the assignment, to how he can amaze the grader. Whereas Josh is rigorous in his quest for the right balance, Ryan finds a balance in his rigorous track. Whereas Josh views life as a sculpture to be built from scratch, uncertain of whether the final product will stand strong but confident in his approach, Ryan views life as a sculpture to be built based on other great models. He has the blueprints of his ideal life, and he is using the traditional, proven medium accordingly.

A Tale of Two Students

I based my last column on observations of myself and a few friends.

A few people reached out to me individually to express their thoughts. If you have done so, I ask that you post them here so others can weigh in on the discussion.

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There are two types of successful college students: One excels within the traditional path; the other succeeds by drawing his or her own. Let’s illustrate these two types through the stories of hypothetical students — Ryan and Josh.

Ryan came to college with a simple plan: To be the best. And he does exactly that by achieving a 3.9 GPA while studying economics and leading a major organization on campus.

These activities take up most of Ryan’s time. Old hobbies fall by the wayside. He can’t do everything, but he does have an active social life. His accomplishments and easygoing personality earn him many friends. They relish when his name comes up in conversation: “Oh, you know Ryan too? Yeah, he’s great! How do you know him?”

Ryan works hard. He often gets little sleep. But once in a while, he makes time to let go: He watches bad sitcoms. He fights with his ex-girlfriend. He goes out to black out.

Still, Ryan leaves his mark on campus. He mentors many students in matters personal and professional. He develops close relationships with influential professors and alumni. Their approval encourages him to work harder, be better.

Ryan doesn’t choose this path because he is passionate about each part of it. He doesn’t always enjoy those problem sets, those sleepless nights.

Ryan chooses this path because it fits his personality. His identity has roots in academic excellence and future professional success, so he achieves what he believes to be absolutely necessary — one hell of a résumé.

And the pieces fit. He has a natural aptitude for economics. He found his organization early on, but he could have had a different major, joined a different organization and achieved just as much.

In hindsight, Ryan was very proud of his college experience, and deservedly so. After graduation, he chose between high-paying positions at highly respected companies.

Most importantly, Ryan never let success get to his head. He remained jovial, caring and honest.

Josh, the second case, finishes college with a GPA of 3.3 in the same major as Ryan. The class work does not inspire him to strive for perfection. He is too curious and too stubborn. He is determined to prioritize his education over his grades.

Josh stumbles with his extracurricular activities too. He joins a group, immerses himself in it and then leaves when he feels he has maximized the ratio of personal benefits to time put in. He becomes an extracurricular nomad. To others, it seems like he is all over the place.

But Josh keeps exploring opportunities. He begins to notice patterns, certain aspects he enjoys about his experiences and ones that he does not, and applies such recognition to his future endeavors.

Josh dedicates most of his time to his passions: He reads voraciously. He experiments with filmmaking. He pursues these side projects with peers who share similar interests, many of whom become his close friends.

He creates his own social scene. Certain things that once seemed integral to his college experience — football games, party culture, social status — suddenly become less significant. The vicissitudes of college life allow him to detach just enough to realize what exactly has lasting importance: losing yourself in a passion, a project, a person.

In hindsight, this path, albeit circuitous, also fit Josh’s personality. When others inquired about his ostensibly random decisions, he would say that he simply followed his intuition. Josh knew he had a unique skill set that could not and should not be boxed; he just needed to find a way to put it all together.

Josh would also choose between quality options after college — ones that matched his interests, values and desired career path.

Ryan and Josh are intriguing case studies because they challenge our perception of success. We typically differentiate between outer success — money, lifestyle and reputation — and inner success — mastering ourselves, pursuing wisdom and having meaningful relationships with others.

Ryan equates success with external achievement: He receives a high mark in anything assigned to him. The grade is more important than what he does or how he does it. Although he knows that outer success doesn’t necessarily equal inner success, he believes attaining the former will make attaining the latter a bit easier.

Josh equates success with personal excellence: He pursues his passions and lets his conscience judge his performance. This satisfied conscience is more important than any external measure of achievement. Although he is aware that attaining inner success doesn’t necessarily lead to attaining outer success, he doubts the converse is true — that aiming for the latter will facilitate the former. Regardless, he would not do so even if he could.

It all leads to this: Whereas Ryan strives to be the best in everyone’s eyes, Josh strives to be the best in his own: the best version of himself.

Perform a Grand Project

This week, I wrote a column encouraging U of M students to perform their own Grand Projects. Thanks to Cal Newport for the idea.

I highly encourage you to start one. Submit it to the e-mail address mentioned below if you'd like feedback/accountability.

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If I could turn the clock back to my freshman year, one thing I’d make sure to do is thoroughly read Cal Newport’s blog, Study Hacks. His blog has changed how I view success and how I aim to achieve it during and after college. Here are a few things I’ve learned from Newport’s blog: Master a rare and valuable skill; don’t spread yourself too thin. Send your e-mails in large batches; don’t whimsically check your inbox throughout the entire day. Focus on working right; don't brood over finding the “right work.”

But perhaps my favorite idea of Newport’s is one — if I had implemented earlier — I believe would have significantly improved my student experience: Have a Grand Project.

It’s unfortunate because these projects were the experiences that would have enriched my life personally, socially and professionally. Amid many of my academic requirements that failed to elicit my complete engagement, these were the opportunities to actualize what I truly wanted and believed in. Of course, it's never too late, but it’s better to start early.

And it’s not like such ambitious, exciting projects are simply unrealistic. My friend Alex O’Dell, Public Policy Senior, filmed a documentary a couple summers ago in India, and then presented it on campus this past weekend. My friend Allen Kim, College of Engineering senior, started his own business last year, Bebarang, and this year he is working on it full time. Alumni AJ Holmes, Ali Gordon and Carlos Valdes (who I would like to have as friends), wrote an entire musical in one summer and then gave a captivating performance at TEDxUofM last year.

These projects were not completed through any formal programs. These students pursued their passions on their own terms.

What they did was perform Grand Projects.

If while reading this, you’ve been thinking, "Well, I’ve always wanted to do 'X,'" or if looking back at your years at the University, you’d be incredibly proud of yourself if you accomplished a certain “X,” then I implore you to make that your Grand Project — to at least try “X.”

A Grand Project is an opportunity for you to pursue your passions, or to merely explore your interests. It’s also an opportunity for you to combine your class work, extracurricular activities and free time into a personalized project, customized to your beliefs, talents and idiosyncrasies. A Grand Project may even help you, as it did Allen Kim, discover what you would like to do after college.

A Grand Project will leave you bustling down the hallways, induce exciting ideas when you least expect them and infuse your daily life with a sense of purpose and significance.

But what if you don’t have an idea for a Grand Project? If your “X” is, like mine was, “something impactful” and “you’ll just know it when you see it,” then pursue an interest on the side, and see where it takes you. Or perhaps you already have a full schedule with classes and extracurricular activities. That’s fine, as long as they satisfy the “X” condition mentioned above. If they don’t, find a way to tailor your current activities into a Grand Project, and if that’s not possible, it may be helpful to re-evaluate.

After you decide what you’d like to accomplish, where do you begin? Newport provides some recommendations: First, talk to people who’ve done something similar in the past. Learn where they succeeded, and learn where they failed. Second, set clear expectations and goals for yourself and your Grand Project. Third, ensure that you receive feedback consistently. Applying to a competition, publicizing your work or sharing it with close friends will confirm that you are either on your way to achieving your goal or that you are behind and need to catch up.

As a matter of fact, a great opportunity exists on campus to receive feedback for your Grand Project: 1000 Pitches. Hosted by MPowered, 1000 Pitches is an entrepreneurial competition that collects ideas for businesses, social ventures and improvements to the University. Submitting a pitch will allow you to outline your Grand Project, and other incentives will help to hold you accountable.

If you would like further encouragement and feedback on your idea, send it to Grandproject@umich.edu, and MPowered will evaluate how it can help you. Who knows? Perhaps in the future, with enough interest and participation, some organization may hold a 1000 Grand Projects competition.

It's Partially About Us

Ever since Brooks wrote the piece, "It's Not About You", I've been writing this column in my head. I've been toying with these concepts -- help others and you'll help yourself, help yourself and you'll help others -- for a while now, with nothing concrete to show for it yet.

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Earlier this summer, New York Times columnist David Brooks sent an unfamiliar message to college graduates: “It’s Not About You.” This is in great contrast with commencement speakers who often urge us to never settle, display our individuality, and “march to the beat of your own drummer”.

As graduation looms for the class of 2012, my graduation class, I’ve been thinking: His message is only partially true.

In a past column titled “The Summoned Self”, Brooks wrote about a successful businessman who, during his college years, spent an hour every night contemplating his future plans and solidifying his life purpose. This approach is rare, Brooks notes: “Most successful young people don’t look inside and then plan a life. They look outside and find a problem, which summons their life”.

Yet, Brooks claims, college students are still being told to focus inwards – to figure out what you want and then to live your live – exactly at a time when they need to start thinking about things bigger than themselves. “The successful young adult is beginning to make sacred commitments — to a spouse, a community and calling — yet mostly hears about freedom and autonomy.”

However, such commitments are lot to ask for. How can we choose a definite career path, when we’ve only held two part-time jobs? And where to live, if we’ve only lived at home and at college? Or to even contemplate marriage, when we’ve had one major girlfriend, and our parents have been divorced twice?

Universities don’t require students to choose their majors immediately, since they obviously haven’t yet taken enough courses to fully know what they like and what they don’t. So, how can we be expected to be able to make decisions that’ll affect the rest of our lives, when we haven’t had enough experience to fully know what we want and what we don’t?

We can’t. So, it’s more likely that Brooks is suggesting that we start to think about these important decisions, not that we rush them. It’s more likely he believes that the terms “finding yourself” and “gaining experience” should refer to experimenting and tinkering with relationships, jobs, and lifestyle niches with the intent to learn what’s out there and what we want, instead of merely referring to checking items off of our ever-growing bucket lists.

So I don’t want my commencement speaker to tell me that it’s all about me. Or that it has nothing to do with me.

I’d prefer she speaks about not only how we can help others, but also, how we can help ourselves. I’d prefer she acknowledges, that, it’s at least partially about us.

She would recognize Brooks’ main point: not that we should avoid introspection, but rather, that we should construct our identity through interacting with the real world, realizing and acting upon where we can make the most positive impact, and not isolated in our rooms, or in the desert of a foreign country.

She would call the businessman’s actions mentioned in the beginning of the article potentially imprudent, because the time he spent planning his life in advance may have cost him other opportunities he couldn’t have planned for – potential business partners at a conference, the business woman at the party – that could have altered his life plans for the better.

She would add: Think about most of the important decisions you’ve ever made. Most likely, they weren’t planned years in advance, but, rather, it’s more likely they came about through a combination of diligent preparation and taking advantage of unexpected opportunities.

On the other hand, she’d also emphasize how imprudent it would be to avoid internal reflection. She’d criticize the person who reacts to his every whim, never examines if he feels fulfilled by his activities, and never self-corrects by noticing patterns in his mistakes.

She’d say that it’s best to do both. Look inside: Think about what you want, what you can do, and plan accordingly. But also know that life will probably force those plans to change. Be open to opportunities, to experiencing things you didn’t plan for. Then go back to the drawing board: reflect, tinker.

She’d make the following analogy: “Let things hit you like bruise. Embrace a person, an experience, an ideology, live it, and reflect afterwards. Did you like the bruise? Did it identify with everything you want to represent? If it didn’t, don’t let it hit you again.

A commentator from Brook’s original column summarizes this quite nicely: “my life would have been better with a better balance of identity of self from within as well as without. Both aspects of our personal development in our search for connectedness as ‘social animals’ need equal time and emphasis coincidentally, not sequentially.”

I’d like my commencement speaker to close with the following: Today’s commencement speakers often tell you students to help yourselves. And Brooks tells us that by helping others, you’ll help yourself. I agree with him.

But I also believe that by helping yourself – through pursuing your passions, maximizing your talents, and achieving self-contentment – you will be helping others, too.

1KV

Over the past couple of months a few friends and I have been working on 1000 Voices, a campaign to promote entrepreneurial education on campus.

Phase I is to targeted towards some of the most creative people on campus: LSA students. We want support for programs like eRes (an amazing, amazing opportunity). LSA students should have access and incentives to take entrepreneurship classes and engage in entrepreneurial projects. Regardless of major, whether their motive is profit, a desired social change, or both, students should apply what they learn in the classroom.

Here are the details of the petition. I wrote a column about it here. The Daily separately covered us here.

We're at 1000 voices and counting. We've heard positive support from students, faculty and alumni. Onwards.

Engineering Innovation

Here is a column I wrote about innovation a couple of weeks ago.

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In LA I had the luxury to pick a screenwriter's brain about innovation. Over dinner, he mentioned the following.

1) Most ideas are either bad or unoriginal.

2) It's important to know the field you're trying to innovate in. His recommendation for screenwriters is to see lots of movies and tv shows.

3) "Live a robust life". Most aspiring screenwriters write about an aspiring screenwriter who moves to Hollywood. Have a personal story worth telling.

While he meant these specifically for aspiring screenwriters, they apply to anyone who wants to come up with valuable ideas. Especially that last one.

NELP, a university program I went on a few years back, has the adage: "how vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live."

Column: Finding your inner entrepreneur

In my second column, I talked about thinking like an entrepreneur at the University of Michigan.

Column 1 Addendum: A Letter to the Editor

After writing my first column, I received a letter to the editor the next day:

"According to Erik Torenberg, "If a school’s ultimate goal is to get its students into a top college and a subsequent high-paying job, then yes, a focus on test-taking and test preparation is conducive to such a goal" (Where’s the finish line?, 01/17/2011). Well actually Erik, you're wrong. Schools that focus on test-taking strategies aren’t only concerned about getting their students into top-paying jobs". Well, a nice welcome to the Michigan Daily!

A quick response: I didn't say that schools that focus on test-taking strategies are only concerned about getting their students into top-paying jobs. Schools want to impart many skills onto their students. I said if a school's ultimate goal is jettisoning their students into top colleges, focusing on the criteria colleges will be evaluating makes sense. If a school prioritizes having their students succeed in college and beyond, they need to emphasize teaching different skill-set. The letter agrees: "Besides, college requires a vast amount of critical thinking — a skill that isn’t learned through test taking."

The letter ends with a very good point that I did not cover in my column: The federal government has undue influence on the way schools evaluate their students. If schools are financially rewarded from the state based on their test scores, they have every financial incentive to teach to the tests. I ended my column emphasizing the responsibility students have in their education. But this point begs the question: Is this primarily a bottom-up problem or top-down? To be sure, both can act. But does one party have more agency?

Column: Where is The Finish Line?

Here is a link to my first column. In it I tried to show that in order to tackle the multi-faceted problems in education, we first have to analyze the paradigms underlying them.

My Column

I will be writing a column this semester for the Michigan Daily. One will be due every other wednesday. I will post links to them and encourage feedback on my blog.