Follow Up To Class Session Thursday September 19

Based on comments after submitting the Excel homework, some of you seemed to have difficulties with it because you didn't learn the lesson from the Tutorial, last week's homework, to use cell references.  Anyone can make a mistake, but not all mistakes are equally valid. In our class (and I assume in much else that you learn) the lessons are meant to be cumulative.  You really should try to use what you previously have been exposed to in the current situation. But doing that requires practice. 

Which leads me to the next point.  Given the little demo I did of how you would come up with the meaning of opportunism, in a operational way to use in framing your blog post this week, I wonder if you felt you could do that on your own or if instead you felt it was beyond your capabilities.  I will say, some things for me are quicker than they will be for you.  I have more experience and am closer to the expert end of the spectrum.  You are closer to the novice end of the spectrum.  But novices can still practice to teach themselves things and make operational meaning in a situation where they are initially unsure.

Before we did that example, we talked about giving employees autonomy as a way to provide them with motivation.  But a manager needs to have confidence in the employee for making good judgments before autonomy is granted.  So it seems to me that practicing this skill of making mean for yourself - without getting outside help - is necessary as a way for you to move up the ladder at your place of work, wherever that turns out to be - and to encourage your manager to give you more autonomy.   If you look at he post in the left sidebar by the former student, Susan Athey Econ 490 fall 2017, she says as much in her post, and that the habits practiced in college carry over to the workplace. 

Then I wondered if in last week's blog posts where some students reported not getting direction from their supervisor during their internship, whether instead of this entirely being neglect on the supervisor's part if some of it was delegation and the granting of autonomy to the intern.  How would you determine if it is one or the other as an outsider to the situation?  I'm not sure in any individual case, but with a large enough sample of interns if many floundered yet a few flourished that would be just the sort of evidence the company would want as to which interns to hire.