I did not really go anywhere with my last post. I just threw it up on here because I thought it was an interesting insight, but I didn’t go anywhere new with it.
After looking at it again though I see how I am stuck thinking that UT is structured much as the organization on the right of the diagram. Especially in the business school: inflexible pressure to conform, leading me to anger and frustration, to very critical judgment of the students and faculty, to almost zero creativity at the end of a semester, and a terrible if even an existant network. Granted, any institution that tells me I need to take my time on the sailboat off my resume can go to hell, I think I might need to exercise a better attitude and reframe how I picture the college. There is not much I can do about how the organization is structured, but I can change how I feel about it and how I picture the bullshit.
A big part of the problem is arrogance. I let people feed it by telling me my case is different but it should still be kept in check. Bringing a few years of real world experience with me before starting in undergraduate makes me look at everybody like children. I have to really stretch my imagination and look at somebody like Ben Casnocha as having huge powers of self-control to keep any arrogance and condescention at bay. I would be interested to hear whether or not he looked down on a lot of the freshmen around him when he started out at college, or whether he was able to relate to them after his accomplishments before arriving on campus. I know I will have to practice the latter and stray from the former in order to grow much there. Arrogance is not what lets you get around in a foreign country and I would never dare bring it with me on a trip abroad.
Joseph Kelly's Blog 