The 2nd situation: Dealing with our own problems

In the 1st part of this discussion I explained how people sometimes feel frustrated when they "get the run around," and how this is often because they do not know what kind of help they need. This week I'm looking at situations that we all hate. Where we are in an unfortunate place and we were the ones that put ourselves there. As an advisor I see this a fair amount. The most common situation is when a student fails a class or an semester (or several) and is then faced with the consequences. In some cases all the student needs is a little "GPA damage control," something that is easier than many think. Other times, the student may be facing a three year suspension from classes, denial of financial aid, being unqualified to apply (or unsuccessful in applying) to their program of choice. Whatever the situation is it's not uncommon that the person who has put themselves there chooses to reject responsibility and pin it on something or someone else. A common expression used by guilt avoiding students is, "The professor failed me." My thoughts make me want to say, "Are you sure it wasn't your assignments, papers, and test scores that didn't fail you?"

To be fair, there are circumstances beyond our control. Insurmountable obstacles that cannot be overcome by sheer determination and will power. Relatives die, people get sick, jobs experiences layoffs or go out of business. This post is not to claim that any failure is a result of our own lack of desire or ability. I am not claiming that all misfortune is the fault of the person experiencing it. The purpose of my post here is to address when people to not acknowledge where the responsibility lies and instead choose to affix it to something else. Again, this tends to be off of themselves and onto somebody else.

It can often be challenging working with these students (I'll stick with academic situations as I am most familiar with them). They may rant and complain about their professor, the university, the services provided, and everything else under the sun. Any mention of what they may have done (or may not have) is met with counter accusations about what others did (or didn't) do. For example, my office handles compliance with the developmental placement and completion policy for the university. The consequences of not taking or not passing the mandated classes vary between minimal to restrictive. Students that don't pass the class do so for a number of reason most of them circumstances beyond the students' control. However, a small group of students simply refuses to take the mandated classes. Perhaps they don't agree with the policy. Perhaps they don't like required coursework. Perhaps they simply don't like to bow to authority. For whatever reason, they don't follow the policy. A small group of them will then take issue with the university for blocking their registration, as they were told would happen. I hate to confess that I have often wanted to inform these students, "We told you so!" or "Why did this happen? Oh, it's because YOU didn't follow the policy." Needless to say, these statements would never make the situation better.

So what do you say when someone is upset or frustrated? First, they may just be venting. Just remember that they are not angry at YOU, they are just being angry TO you. While never a pleasant experience, understanding that it's nothing personal can help you listen without defending or retaliating. Once they've got it out of their system, often these people are more than willing to listen to what you need them to do to solve the situation. The trick is not to take it personally.

Regardless of whether or not the person is venting, the best way to help them is pretty simple. The first step is to apologize. This does not mean that you agree with them or their frustration, just that you are sorry that they are frustrated. This is also a good time to acknowledge their emotions. It does no good to tell someone, "You shouldn't be frustrated about that." It is similar to telling someone, "That doesn't hurt" when they are injured. Apologizing helps them understand that you wish they weren't frustrated and expresses empathy.

Second, you want to make sure you listen to them. Like I mentioned last week, often people don't know exactly what kind of help they need. Make sure you listen so you can identify the concerns and separate the facts from the emotions. Remember that listening also means asking appropriate questions, but don't rush them. Let the person talk uninterrupted.

Third, you want to actually remedy the situation. You do everything you can to get them the help they need. If what they need done isn't in your department, you get them specific information and help them contact those that can. Never let a student leave your service without knowing what needs to be done, by who, and when in order to get their solution. This includes things that they need to do. Make sure that you are attentive, informative, and helpful. Using the Arbringer Institutes' ideas from Leadership and Self-Deception or The Anatomy of Peace are very useful in all steps of the process, but are of particular note while you are helping the person. It's important not just to provide assistance, but to make sure that you are doing it for the right reason. Wrong reasons include: to get them out of your office, because it's your job, because you want to earn a service award. The only right reason to help someone is because you want to make their experiences better as a human being. Anybody who has been served can tell when some is doing something for the right reason and when they are looking to get something out of it. Do everything you can for the person and be as accommodating as possible. This does not mean to let them walk over you, but simply to make sure that you have done everything that you are able to do to help them.

Lastly, you will want to thank them for bringing the situation to your attention. This is a great final step as it closes the interaction with an interest in the future. You are telling them that now that you know about this you will be better able to help them and others in the future. If you had to refer them elsewhere, you can also ask them to report back to you when and how their situation is resolved.

When I did sales training for one of my jobs (it turns out I'm a horrible salesmen) they talked about how there is a percentage of people who will never buy the product and a percentage of people who will always buy. As a salesperson, your focus is the percentage in the middle who might. The same applies to resolving problems. There is a portion of the people you deal with who will never be satisfied with your service. The trick is to not let it get to you and make sure that you give everyone the same level of service because you won't know who wouldn't be pleased until you've done everything you can.

Christmas Holiday

I apologize for the delay in posting, but I will not be doing a Musing this week. All of the good food and great company have sent my musing mind into a bit of a content stupor. Any musings are of the joys of family. You can read about those thoughts at Grandfatherswish.blogspot.com.

The first of two situations: How to get help

A bit of a continuation of my topic form last week, this week I've talked with a number of students looking for help. They were frustrated, disappointed, or in some other way discontent about their situation. In one case the student said that "he kept on getting the runaround" and that "nobody would help him." Two others were facing consequences from literally "not making the grade" they needed. Both of the situations are ones that many people, myself included, face in different ways throughout our lives. It was thinking about these that prompted this particular musing.

In the first situation the student didn't feel like anyone was able to help him. When I asked him what the situation was he related what a lot of students would like to know: What classes go well together to provide a balanced workload? In some ways this is similar to when students ask what classes are "easy." I used to get after students for asking for easy classes until I found myself asking my master's advisor the same questions. Most university personnel don't have an ethical problem answering this questions. It's not like we are banned from endorsing one professor or class over another. The reason why advisors say they can't answer this question is simply because it's impossible. Easy is relative. What one person finds easy another one finds hard. Anybody who has received a personal recommendation about this or that book, movie, game, restaurant, college, person to date, etc. knows that while the person recommending may have good intentions they may not know enough to provide a perfect match. Sometimes they get close and sometimes they are way off - it depends on how well they know you, how long, etc.

Many students expect advisors to know the "best" schedule of classes for them to take. However, I don't have many interactions with professors, have never (in the majority of cases) sat in on lectures or taken their class, and have no idea what the student's preferences are in teaching style. How can I recommend a class to a complete stranger when I don't know anything about the person or the class? It would be nice if I did and it's not always difficult. At my last school I did know many of the professors by sight and name and we had a small enough faculty that I heard a lot of things from students. However, I still felt very uncomfortable when students asked me for recommendations. I explained this all to the student and referred him to ratemyprofessors.com, where our university has a pretty decent following. In some ways this is the easiest way to find out about professors and classes as the reviews are done by students who have to say what class they took. I still tell students to take the reviews with a grain of salt as what someone like somebody else hates. The student then asked how he would go about meeting with an advisor. Figuring he was just looking to talk to someone else (or perhaps he thought I was just a secretary because I was manning the front desk) I asked him what kind of help he was looking for.

That question, "What kind of help do you want?" is an important one. I think that when we are looking for help it's important that we answer that question first as it will help us narrow things down. The kind of help he was looking for was basically a variation of what he asked me for - what classes should he take together. I told him who he needed to talk to for his degree and suggested a way to approach the appointment so he should get better results. What is this way, students ask. Try to ask specific questions whenever possible. The easier you make it for someone to help you the more likely they are to be able to. If you ask someone, "Can you help me?" without preamble they will probably not be able to until you tell them more.

This has run a little long, so I'll continue with the 2nd situation next week.

An academic case study: Mike Wazowski and James P. Sullivan.

My family and I watched Monsters University last week. I enjoyed the film and it brought back a couple of memories about my own college experiences. In professional life I've worked for four different universities and colleges of varying types and have met with hundreds of students. I'm not into the thousands yet, but I'm sure I'll get there someday. I thought that Mike and Sully in the film were a lot like real students that I've met with before.

Students that have Mike's enthusiasm are some of my favorite but not because they are generally well prepared for their appointments and don't have any surprises. I take a sadistic pleasure in asking high achieving students about the one imperfect grade they have. I find it fascinating how much ire an A- grade can generate from someone who has straight As otherwise. I do this very, very rarely and only with students that I am comfortable with. I get the feeling that Mike might prove to be a bit difficult. His desire to become a scarer coupled with his lack of scariness is like when I've met with students who wanted to enter a program that required a 2.75 and had a 2.0. Those circumstances are some of the more challenging, but not impossible. I freely admit that there are many situations that students can recover from. I've even guided students who overcame a .75 GPA deficiency to qualify for the program they wanted. It takes time and effort and is done regularly. However, I also acknowledge that often the challenges require more than the person can or is willing to invest. I did like how the movie showed how Mike was able to achieve his dream in a way that was conducive to his abilities. As I think about Mike's desire to become a scarer and the position that we know he ends up in I think that he enjoys his eventual position more than he would enjoy being the scarer he wanted to be. He has an mind for analysis and he likes be in control. Really, as a scarer he is the one taking orders. Mike did a good job of refining his dream to match his abilities and his experience. Much like many students all over the country do when they have their first dream crushed or bubble popped.

Sully, Mr. James P. Sullivan, exhibits a trait that get to see in many, many different students. He has a sense of entitlement that he has to overcome. He is not just this feeling. I liked the roundness that he had and the depth of his internal conflicts. In many ways, he overcomes his entitlement fairly early in the movie and then dukes it out with his other challenges such as dishonesty, depression, self-doubt, and anger management. Many say that entitlement is a feature of the Millennial Generation, which is the one that is currently moving through college to the workplace. I've attended a least a dozen panels, workshops, or presentations where the topic was working with millennial students. Entitlement can be a big deterrent in a student's education though. I heard a student say that he intended to "talk his way through college, just like he did high school." At the end of the school year I came across a letter of probation in that student's file. Somehow I didn't think he was going to talk his way through a class whose professor presented "10 reasons why this class is not for you" as the first lecture. As I mentioned, Sully learns pretty early in the film that what he thought was a given required more effort from him than just being there. Once he got that figured out, he did a pretty decent job at learning how to succeed.

Mike and Sully were two very different students who have very different problems. Like unhappy families, students with difficulties all struggle with different things. In meeting with students for petitions or probation / suspension intervention I've never heard the same story twice. Every situation under the sun is possible. One of my favorites was when I asked a student what was his biggest academic difficulty. He replied, "I'm a great student when I'm not in jail!" To me getting thrown in jail means that you're not a good student, but what do I know. Regardless of what difficulties students have, my job (and every advisor's job) is to help students succeed. So when (not if) you start to have difficulty, don't hesitate to see an advisor. We would love to help you get through it and it is far better to meet before things go to pot than afterwards.

Cold

The temperature for the next week is not supposed to get over freezing (32 degrees F. / 0 degrees C.). Living in northern Utah means that you'll have weeks like this from time to time - often several times in the same month. I know it's not as cold as many other places, nor is it the coldest we can get. Peter Sinks (not far from where I went to college in Logan) holds the state record (or at least did) at -69 degrees F (-56 degrees C). It has a bit of an unusual situation that fosters that kind of temperature. I do remember being on campus when it was -40 degrees F/C (the point where the scales intersect). That day it didn't get above 0 degrees F (-17 degrees C.) You know that it's below 0 degrees F when the air in your nose freezes and pulls all of your nose hairs. If you've never experienced it you'll understand when it happens.

It's interesting that cold is measure of how little heat there is in something. A degree is a measure of heat. That's why the absolute scale (Kelvin) is considered such. Fahrenheit and Celsius are taken in reference to something. Fahrenheit has its zero point centered on a equal mixture of water, ice, and salt. Celsius uses zero as the freezing point of water. Kelvin uses the same degree size as Celsius but has zero at the point that all matter becomes inert. According to the third rule of Thermodynamics you cannot reach absolute zero. If you think about it this is simple and a bit of a no brainer. In order to measure something your instrument needs to move. If you're at absolute zero nothing is moving. A metaphor that Pratchett likes to use may be fitting. Reaching absolute zero is like trying to open a box with the crowbar that is inside of it. It just isn't going to work unless the laws of physics decide to conveniently ignore you. However, near zero temperatures are a big area of study. It's even used in quantum computers. Derek from Veritasium did a video with with Dr. Morello from the University of New Wales where they talk about one of the methods of cooling thing to near absolute zero using helium

So if we consider the absolute scale as the measure of heat that means that we cannot have negative temperatures because there is nothing less than nothing. However, there are studies that work in "negative temperature." It is not less heat that zero, but rather a different level of energy. Professor Moriarty from the University of Nottingham explains how this work, but not without a little frustration when Brady asks him to make his metaphor fit an incompatible situation.

You can get some answers to frequently asked questions about negative absolute temperatures here. In all, it's fascinating how cold we can get something and the consequences of doing so. Or should I say, how much heat we can suck out of it.

Gratitude

With Thanksgiving being today I feel a need to muse on gratitude. There is plenty of stuff online about the benefits of gratitude but I would just like run a stream of consciousness about why I'm grateful. There will probably be some acknowledgements of thanks, but I just want to pants this. Free form writing can bring out things that structured prose doesn't always allow. Sometimes this is a good thing - sometimes not.

In any event, I see gratitude as an acknowledgement of that which we appreciate, often obtained through the help of others or as a gift, i.e. through means beyond our choice and control. We may ask for things but the gratitude comes form the receiving of our request be the free will of another. Most often expressed using the phrase, "Thank you."

There are a number of things that I get from being gracious. Humility is probably at the top of the list. By being grateful to others I acknowledge my own limitations. In addition, because acts deserving gratitude are given by another's free will I can be humbled by others' trust or dedication to me. This is the reason I am very grateful for my wife - because she voluntarily sticks around and hasn't killed me yet. I am grateful for my children and the way that they act and think. I've tried to teach them, even to condition them, but the choice is ultimately theirs. The fact that my children want me to give them hugs and kisses at bed time and tell me that they love me really drives me to humility as I am a very imperfect person and yet, somehow, my children feel that I am deserving of their love.

Gratitude also gives me closer relationships with friends and family. This is imply an extension of common politeness. Being around someone who is not gracious can be draining and not pleasant, particularly when you're working on something together. Ungrateful people tend to be a little more self-centered or egotistical. Sometimes people just don't feel that people need to thank them, and so following the golden rule they don't thank others. Often these people are already close friends or I've arrived at an understand with them for working purposes. However, I've found that when I'm more free with my thanks it increases the strength of my relationship with others. A sincere "thank you" can help strengthen those bonds that you consider the most important. I cannot stress what it has done to strengthen the relationship with my wife.

When I express my gratitude I find that I am generally a much happier person. My day appears a little more bright and my experiences tend to be more positive. For whatever reason this is, I enjoy the fact that with a simple and relatively small act I can increase my general well being. Also, by being active with my gratitude I see more opportunities to express it. It's amazing what you can find yourself thankful for even when you're going to difficulty.

I also feel fortunate that as a man of faith I can always thank my Heavenly Father that is God for those things that I have that have come to me by chance, circumstance, or even my own efforts. I believe that anyone can achieve great achievements through diligent work and focus and I believe that those opportunities are given to us by God. It was He that brought us to live upon this earth and established our history and abilities. I believe that He has given us the agency to choose our paths and that he is a fair and just God who loves us like I love my own children. Just as I provide opportunities for my children to attend school, play, and learn it is up to them to actually do so and to make the most of their experience. I am proud of every achievement my children accomplish and if they don't thank me for providing the opportunity because they are too busy making the most of it, I can understand that. Still it's very nice when they let me know how much they appreciate the opportunity. I feel that our gratitude to God is the same. There may be things that we receive directly from him - my son surviving being born 27 weeks early with minimal difficulty was a miracle of both medical and divine power. I thank God for my son every time I see him. I also thank God for the opportunity to meet my wife and have children. I still had to do the looking, the courting, and the wedding, but I am still thankful to God that the opportunity was there.

I am very thankful for my life which was initiated by a loving God, influenced by family and friends, and enhanced by the wonderful opportunities that I've had. I am able to tell how grateful I should be by how happy I am. And I am very happy.

Dreams

I had a dream this week where I underwent a number of adventures in a spooky and sinister town. It seemed quite real with time progressing. Like the movie Stalker I remember the dream being tense, but nothing actually happened. The weirdest part of the dream was the end. The dream ended with me getting into bed at the end of my dream day and ended as my alarm went off, waking me up to reality. My first thought on waking was, "My heavens! I just lay down. Did I get any sleep?" It was then that I remembered / realized that I had experienced a rather life-like dream. That got me thinking about dreams, what causes them and how they effect us.

Most people know that we sleep in cycles, moving through different kinds of sleep and that dreams occur in the final stage, Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep. While REM sleep doesn't last very long (18 to 23 minutes on average of a 90 min sleep cycle) the images and sounds we experience seem very real. Our bodies are actually paralyzed (by our mind) to prevent us from acting out our dreams. As we shift between sleep cycles, just like shifting gears in a car, we occasionally slip and not make the full transition. This can cause us to act out our dreams, to wake partially but still be paralyzed, to have our dreams superimposed on our awake vision, and various other things. While there is a whole host of sleeping disorders, dissociations in sleep, and parasomnia, but that's not what I am looking at here. I just want to look at dreams.

As an article I found in Psychology Today starts, Freud was well known for his thoughts on dreams - presenting them as "poems we tell ourselves at night in order to experience our unconscious wishes as real." The article goes on to say that Freud was only partially right and then presents five theories currently held today. A search on Google of "Why we dream" will pull up a variety of different theories. As the article I start this paragraph with includes theories put forth by many other sites and sources, I'll stick with it. The long and the short of it is that we still don't know everything about dreams. the theories (and that is exactly what they are) propose in a nut shell that dreams are the brain processing information from the day. Whether it's to sort it, locate the important stuff, or "defrag our hard drive" dreams are often heavily influenced by the activities, thoughts, and emotions from the day. But just because you have a particular dream doesn't mean that you experienced a specific sequence of stimuli that codified your dream. Dream interpretation is, at best, "metaphor mongering," posing the most plausible symbolic and / or rational reason for the cause of the dream. There are plenty of people that think that dreams have no specific purpose but are simply a natural part of our brain.

Interestingly, we often talk about our deepest desires, fantastic ideals, or things aspire towards as our "dreams." This may be because we often live out our fantasies in our dreams, particularly when we have what are referred to as lucid dreams. A lucid dream is one that we know that it is a dream and knowing that we are dreaming often allows us to take control of the dream and use the broken physics and logic of our imagination to do what we want. My father has told me that his favorite dreams are when he is falling - because he quickly realizes that it's a dream and that lets him fly.

One of my favorite lines in Voyages of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis is when they rescue a man from a sinister isle. He tells them to get away as fast as they can. When questioned why he responds, "It's where dreams come true." When the crew starts exclaiming what a great place it must be, he clarifies, "not those dreams." Nightmares are a classic icon of terror, suspense, and anxiety. But people have given them a more realized image as well. In Piers Anthony's Xanth books (where all things are literal - literally) nightmares are black female horses which bring bad dreams to people. I found it fun that a similar image was used used in the recent Rise of the Guardians movie from Dreamworks. However, upon waking up from a nightmare there is little that is entertaining. Because dreams are often emotionally driven our nightmares don't feel fake.

Dreams may never be understood. There are certainly parts of them that are, but enough that is not to make it still puzzling. Here's hoping for sweet dreams for all who read this.