What drives a business student towards commencement?
I still remember once reading an essay among which the author said commencement means the start of one’s own life rather than the end of his campus period of four years. For that past period, one can almost do nothing to make up, but for the coming future as a being in society, one needs to learn more and learn from his past four year lessons and gains.
For students majoring in business and the alike disciplines, asking the question of what kind of person I am going to be, or I want to be is crucial but I merely cannot see that crucialness perceived by our college graduates from the recent case of my advising one student on his dissertation. I am totally disappointed at the student’s lack of seriousness, strictness and self-discipline in writing and doing research. I cannot see any traits of his responsibility or diligence as a business major to graduate.
It is quite right to say that our education system, or the college is producing students for society, the factories, plants and companies so that this college can make ends meet, not posting a deficit at the end of the fiscal semester, but our college administration and management are also entitled or bestowed to help its graduates to see further as a being, to understand their power of contributing and to perceive their meaning of life as an indispensable and essential component of society. The way of achieving this goal is through education, a real education not only delivering texts but also implanting ideas of doing the right thing right, and of doing in a proper and harmonious way. If such an education system tells by its behavior that it has been target- or result-driven in producing student-products, then its graduates are more likely to follow suit and see this philosophy granted while there are potential risks of damaging their careers.
To instruct the students in the classroom is not a simple job, but it is more tough as well as important to shape their minds and values while they are still a blank sheet. For business majors, this should be stressed since business people do business professionally but doing business itself is not a profession which can be and has long been advised, disciplined and supervised to ensure a properly-run industry among which participants practice according to a set of widely-agreed ethics.[1] Thus, we need to show students who would be business players or even leaders of our future society examples and models in their four years at campus, telling them to pursue the righteousness, the integrity and strictness in the process of shaping their future rather than pursue too hastily a symbolic degree/diploma as a result.
Concentrating more on the pure result, one shall surely lose his perspective on the process, by which human beings learn the true meaning of the world and their existence. It is the profit that drives business actions. It has been our current educational philosophy that drives some colleges and their graduates to be myopic. It will be the educator’s conscience as well as conscientiousness that drives our business students towards commencement.
Gardner H. “The ethical mind. A conversation with psychologist Howard Gardner.” Harvard Business Review 85, no. 3 (March 2007): 51. MEDLINE, EBSCOhost (accessed May 24, 2009). ↩︎