Students, Treat Homework Like It’s a Job and You’re Working to Get Promoted
I evaluate students based on drive, curiosity, natural competency, self-management, and behavior, but not their grades, test scores, or even where they will go to college and graduate from. Even for the students I worked with who ultimately gained admission into Ivy League schools and equally competitive and prestigious institutions, I look past that.
I knew who students were before they gained admission, and they are largely still the same person after it too. Gaining the admission didn’t magically undo all their weaknesses and bad habits. A college admission result is just a new packaging of the same product.
Which students I believe in and which ones I don’t.
If I had to choose who hire four to five years later, I am more confident in students who were driven, proactive, diligent, focused, courageous, hungry, determined, creative, and constantly productive and solving problems on their own. I’m confident in them because who they were in high school will only improve as they continue pursuing more challenges and opportunities in college, even if that college isn’t as prestigious or high ranking. Those are the ones who I hope to stay in touch with.
The ones who I wouldn’t choose — the ones who lack follow through, who needed constant reminders, who needed pushing and nagging and the supervision a prison guard would need to apply — those are the ones who might get better, but they’re likely a slow learner and they’ve already cemented a first, second, and third impression on me.
Both types of students ultimately earn high grades and successfully gained admission to college. However, I evaluate them based on their process, not their result. I don’t want to know what you did. I care more about how you did it.
Who I wouldn’t consider hiring or promoting.
Do you…
Constantly procrastinate?
Choose not to write down what is assigned to you?
Let others do the work on group projects?
Choose not take notes on anything?
Choose not to maintain your calendar and update it with all your obligations and plans?
And if you do take notes, do you just copy down what is shown to you or do you ask questions to clarify what you’re being taught and told and add your own context and ideas into the mix?
Who I would consider hiring and promoting.
Or do you…
Start things immediately when they’re assigned?
Constantly write down everything you need to do and update it?
Start every shift of work (study session, homework time) by reviewing deadlines and priorities?
Schedule in what you need to do and work on into your calendar like it’s an event you will show up for?
Ask questions about assignments?
Ask for feedback on assignments?
Re-do assignments based on feedback and ask for more?
Suggest your own ideas and ways to do or make things better on group work and projects?
It’s not just what grades and scores you achieved. It’s also how you achieved them.
You should not look only at your exams and grades as a reflection of who you are, but more importantly at the process, effort, approach, strategy, and technique you used to achieve them. Treat your homework like it’s a job because it is.
And complete it like you’re working for a promotion because you might get one day. Not for your homework, but for your constant application of creativity, work ethic, and organization, all of which starts with this mindset that you can cultivate now as a student who decides how they will do their homework.
Because the baffling thing is that both types of students can appear the same on paper, on a transcript, and even a college application. But I knew who they are having known and worked with them in person, and while the version of you on paper may get you through the door, it’s who you show up as in person that determines if you get to stay in the room.
There’s always more room and a seat at the table for people who don’t wait to be told to make things better, to solve a problem that wasn’t assigned to them, to uplift others and constantly be reliable and competent.
Just remember that much of who you are is a choice.
So how will choose to do anything as a practice of how you will do everything?
