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.
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.
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