January 31

Today I did the assigned homework, which was to take The Emotional Competency Inventory. First of all, I noticed this lovely quote: "Participation in this study is completely voluntary, and you may opt out at any time by exiting your browser. Exiting will not affect your grades, status, or relationship with the University of Illinois." If the person taking this survey isn't taking it for a class, this is legit and applies. If you have to do this for homework, it's dumb. They had a box you could check so the people running the survey wouldn't use your responses, but I still think there's a better, less contradictory way to do this.


Before I could take the test, I had to edit my profile. I had already given them my name, major, college, ethnicity, and naming rights to my first born child, but they also needed my university identification number. I don't know why they didn't have us give this number to them in the first page of giving them information. I also don't know why an anonymous survey needs all of this information, but that's another matter entirely.


Already wary, I started taking the quiz. The format is that you grade yourself on various qualities that constitute emotion competency. If you think you're completely self-aware, you give yourself the highest on a scale of five. You could be completely wrong about this, it's quite easy to do, but according to this test, you're totally self-aware. To my mind, a better quiz would be situational and you'd pick a response. Honestly, the best test would be situational and you'd enter your response (or, you know, real life) but I don't expect that level of sophistication from this sort of test.

Hey!  I have high emotional self-awareness.  Probably.  I've even got accurate self-assessment.

At first, the statements that we were rating ourselves on weren't all that interesting. Then, I read this one: "I motivate others by arousing emotions". Oh my. They really should have picked a word besides arousing. My mind immediately goes to sex. I can't speak for everyone taking this class, but I try not to persuade people to do things because of sex.


Sex aside, the next statement that caught my eye took my mind in a different direction. "I offer feedback to improve another person's performance". Do you know that person who always tells you what you're doing wrong and what you should do instead? As nearly as I can tell, that's not me. This behavior seems bitchy to me, unless the person asked for feedback or you're in some sort of mentor-type position. Most college freshmen probably aren't on a day to day basis.


So maybe I think too snarkily (yes, that's totally a word), but I almost always try to disprove sweeping generalizations. Notice how I avoided making a generalization there? It's because of this tendency that I noticed this statement: "I believe I am among the most capable for a job". What job? I might be the best for something I know, but I would be a terrible person to put in charge of raising cattle. To my mind, if you think you're always the best person for every job, you have an ego that might be straining your back and you should get that checked out.


The last statement that caught my eye is a doozy. "I cut through red tape and bend the rules when necessary". I do this when the rules are dumb or not explained, but that's not the entire meaning of their statement. There are some rules that are a good idea. Their statement seems to advocate breaking any rule that gets in your way. Hey, if someone dishonors your family, you'd better hunt them down and kill them. Sure, there are laws against that sort of thing but, if you're going to complete your aim, it's necessary to break them. Don't you have high emotional competency?


One last note: they don't put periods at the end of their sentences. If you look back, all of the periods are outside of the quotation marks because I put them there. If they won't bother to have good grammar, should I bother answering their questions with anything but the same response each time?


Finally, finished with the inventory (that's a strange name that technically fits), I had to print it. Little did I know that my test results would take eight pages. Fortunately for me, my friend had already printed hers and adjusted my printer settings to print double sided and put two pages on each sheet of paper. To quote her opinion on the whole ordeal, "This is full of bullshit." I'm wondering if we'll even need to look at these results when I have class, or if this will be like the personal essay that we had to print for last week.

January 27

The crowning jewel of this day was when we got a handout of a PowerPoint presentation.  I was skimming through it when I noticed this: "Does IQ alone enough?"

What?  I understand that people don't use complete sentences in PowerPoints, but they need to be understandable.  It's never too early for a little irony in your day.

Shaking my head, at least on the inside, I continued reading the printed PowerPoint.  Then, I saw the question, "What were some examples of emotionally intelligent leaders that you posted to Moodle?"  Looking back before I made this post, I saw that my initial response was right: we weren't asked about emotionally intelligent leaders.  I wish they would read their own material.

The next slide declared, "Leadership development programs yield disappointing results, wasting billions of dollars."  This makes me wonder about the wisdom of having this class.  Again.

Then, after the teacher told us that volunteering for the Humane Society wasn't good enough for the volunteer requirement of five hours, we ended class.  I wondered about the rampant species-ism of this class before I shrugged on my backpack and left.

Also, as I realized later, we never shared the things we wrote and brought to class.  How silly of them.

January 25

Those of you who can do math will notice that this is before my second class. I just did the homework assigned for it. We had to read a 9 page piece about "emotional IQ" which the LAS website referred to as EQ. The piece was written with three columns per page, like a brochure. This layout makes me a little annoyed. They're having us read a brochure? It's too long to be a brochure, though. Anyway, we have to post on the discussion board about this. The button labeled "Post a New Discussion Topic" gave me pause, but, since it was the only button, I assumed this was how we were supposed to post our mini essay. Our prompt was this:
"What Makes a Leader? Emotional Intelligence, or EQ.


How can you tell if someone has high emotional intelligence? How can you recognize it in yourself?


Provide two examples of instances when you have witnessed (in yourself or in others in your daily work or school life) those skills described as integral to the concept of Emotional Intelligence (as defined by Goleman reading). Give one example of self-management skill, and one example of relationship management skill. Be very specific as to how the example relates to specific components of Emotional Intelligence (self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy or social skill).


Come to our next class prepared to contribute these examples (or others) as part of a discussion on Emotional Intelligence."

It's entirely possible that I took a screen-shot of the webpage with this prompt and edited it using Paint.

Paint is the editing program of kings and the king of editing programs.

Also, it may seem that we're saving paper by posting these online but we are also required to bring our musings to class, on a laptop or on paper. Laptops are heavy, so I'll be printing mine. I'm figuring most others will be too.
Anyway, I'm sure you're all wonderfully curious about the reading itself. It was "What Makes a Leader?" by Daniel Goleman. While I was reading, a few things caught my eye.


"How can one recognize self-awareness?" This question makes me sad that someone decided this brochure was worthwhile to read.

"There is an old-fashioned word for the phenomenon: maturity." I was unaware that maturity was old-fashioned. Perhaps I should refer to it as Goleman does in the previous sentence, “Emotional intelligence increases with age.” Then again, I think I'm not emotionally intelligent enough to want to give up my word. I'm not old enough for that yet.

"That story illustrates two other common traits of people who are driven to achieve. They are forever raising the performance bar, and they like to keep score." We should all keep score. About everything. Ever. This is emotional intelligence.

"As anyone who has ever been a part of one can attest, teams are cauldrons of bubbling emotions." Especially those teams with women on them! People are so difficult with their emotions and their needs...

"Social skill, rather, is friendliness with a purpose: moving people in the direction you desire, whether that's agreement on a new marketing strategy or enthusiasm about a new product." Silly me. I thought social skill was being well versed in interacting with people. It's a good thing I read this article and learned my mistake.

"That doesn't mean they socialize continually; it means they work according to the assumption that nothing important gets done alone." If people look like they're working alone, they will not get as much done as if you help them. They love it when you stand about an arm's length away, squinting at their computer screen and offering helpful advice when they mess up.

"For instance, socially skilled people may at times appear not to be working while at work." Clearly, socially skilled people are working even when they're joking and seem to be becoming closer to people around them. Secretly, they don't like anyone and every smile, every laugh is forced and painful

"It would be foolish to assert that good-old fashioned IQ and technical ability are not important ingredients in strong leadership." This seems to almost contradict everything else this brochure has said. Almost. I'm glad they told us this flat out. Wait a minute. I thought we weren't being old fashioned. What happened to that?

In closing, there were several pictures in this brochure and many of them looked creepy.  It was almost like someone wasn't using emotional intelligence to empathize with the viewers of the pictures.

January 20

My first class is where I learn our teacher is a dean. This should be interesting. We talk briefly about the homework but, just like most classes, we spend the first day getting to know each other better. She asked us about the seven traits of our generation according to the longer piece. We were supposed to absorb the reading that was wrong?

January 14

It is four days before classes start. They sent us an email with homework. This homework was two readings. The shorter one, listed second, contradicted the longer one, written first. While it was amusing to read about how some guy thought a 600 person sample from one high school told him about an entire generation of teenagers in the US, these readings were not worth my time. I get the feeling this will be a common theme.


The longer reading was by Howe, Neil and Reena Nadler. "Yes We Can: The Emergence of Millenials as a Political Generation." The paper itself is 23 pages long. There are 9 pages of notes that the end. Because it's so long, I'll just give you some highlights.


After the introduction, the authors almost immediately defend that their paper has a reason for existing. "The notion that Millennials constitute a new and different political generation seems novel and daring to some. But from the very foundation of the United States, if not earlier, many have observed a generational rhythm underlying the ebb and flow of American political life." Oh, well. If some people who were around when America was founded thought this was legit, it must be absolutely true with no questions asked.
"And finally, each new generation appears as a surprise. Its political attitudes and aspirations are never an extension of those of the previous generation, but rather represent a complete break, a turning of corners, an entirely different perspective." This is always true if you count each new generation as the group of people that throws off the expectations of them group before them.


There's probably more to pick at in the introduction, but let's move on to the meat of the paper.
"Howe and Strauss made major predictions in that book about how Millennials would transform the behaviors and attitudes of teens and young adults over the next five, ten, and fifteen years. Nearly all of them have turned out to be correct." It seems bad form to cite yourself in an essay that you write later. Then again, maybe no one else had written anything that would help them. Also, I wonder if they would have cited themselves if they had been wrong in their book.

"Critics may object that these trends do not apply equally to every Millennial subgroup, and therefore do not really constitute generational trends." Critics may also tell you that the 600 or so teenagers used for the statistics in this essay all go to the same high school in Virginia. These critics are clearly missing the big picture.

Then the authors of this essay decide to give us 7 core traits of “Millennials”. I'm sorry if those quotation marks seem unnecessary, but I'm not sure I can bring myself to type that word any other way. In the interest of saving space, time and my sanity in reading this again, I'll just give you one sentence that accompanies each trait. The traits are these:
Special-"From the precious-baby movies of the mid- 1980s to the media glare surrounding the high school Class of 2000, older generations have inculcated in Millennials the sense that they are, collectively, vital to the nation and to adults’ sense of purpose." If my parents hadn't had children, I know they still would have a sense of purpose. I and my siblings not the whole of my parents' lives, unlike this suggests.

Sheltered-"Helicopter parents figure these special kids will always require special care." Whenever I make generalizations about a large group of people, I always use the crazy ones.

Confident-"The Millennials have a new sunny outlook, confidence that they can achieve great things, and faith that America’s big problems really can be solved." Um... What? Have you spoken with people in this generation? Oh yeah, 600 of them in Virginia and nowhere else. That's right.

Team-oriented-"High school students now regard team skills (along with technology) as the most valuable for their careers." I tend to think that being able to do the job is the most important skill for my career. Then again, what do I know? People outside of the generation will always be able to tell you more about it than people in it.

Conventional-"Millennials trade advice easily with their parents and even share their parents’ taste in music and clothes." No, really. Have you talked with a teenager recently? Also, I'm not sure how the recent trend in gay rights and the kascrillion gay-support groups (on my college campus, at least) fit in with teenagers being conventional. Maybe the conventionality harkens back to a time when subjects were mad at an English king not for being gay, but for using their tax money to shower his boyfriends with presents. Somehow, I don't think the authors are using that as a framework for conventionality.

Pressured-"There is a new youth assumption that long-term success demands near-term organization and achievement—that what a high school junior does this week determines where she’ll be five and ten years from now." OK, I'll stop asking if you've talked with teenagers, because obviously you haven't, but really? I don't think that what I do this week will affect where I'll be five and ten years from now and I'm in college. Also, when I was a junior, I didn't worry about my activities on a weekly basis for affecting my future, unless they were potentially fatal activities.

Achieving-"Most students today support standardized testing and higher standards, and believe that the best cure for rampant classroom boredom is tougher curriculum." That's interesting, because I believe the best cure for classroom boredom, rampant or not, is not tougher curriculum. You see, there are these things called advanced classes for nerds like me. If people are bored in class, they might need more difficult classwork, or they might need a better teacher, or the student could be bored because s/he doesn't want to be in school and nothing a teacher does will change that. Sorry, that must have been my “sunny outlook” intruding.

So, moving right along with this ridiculously long reading assignment...

"More than any other age bracket, Millennial teens favor reducing the restrictions on government surveillance of citizens to prevent terrorism and are willing to let government protect the community even at the cost of civil liberties. A right to privacy does not rank high in Millennial priorities." Personally, I strongly believe in my right to privacy. If I wrote a diary, I wouldn't let people read it. I know they're talking about other methods of finding terrorists, such as reading emails that might reveal several personal/painful details, but it's the same principle.

"Millennial children, by contrast, have been protectively raised in a society whose adults have been steadily weakening—or disobeying— these norms and rules." Wait. Didn't we have a bunch of rules a couple pages ago? Is it just me or is it getting contradictory in here?

"More than half of young workers would prefer that employers mandate a minimum standard for initial contribution rates, automatically increase contribution levels, and place them in default investment options." I would rather handle where my money goes, thank you very much.

"Millennials also support policies that allow government to assume benevolent direction over people’s life choices, particularly for those whom courts or psychiatrists have decreed cannot direct themselves." Woah. No. I disagree and the random friend I polled said that she'd never though about it. As it turns out, taking a sample from a variety of people who fit in your category will help you make better generalizations. Then again, trying to generalize about teenagers seems like an impossible feat to me. Even something like, “They all like to eat,” doesn't really work. There are plenty of people who try not to eat because they're concerned about their body image. A couple of my friends, that I know about, went through times when they didn't want to eat.

"Millennials rarely resist uniform dress codes, locker searches, see-through backpacks, urine checks, or cell phone GPS once they understand that these policies enhance their safety. Surveys show that today’s teens are comfortable with “zero tolerance” for even minor infractions in schools, are somewhat more inclined than prior generations to report such infractions, and are more likely to say that enforcement does not go far enough." I'm sorry, when did high school become totalitarian? It must have been when I wasn't looking. At my high school, getting students to dress for gym was enough of a hassle. My high school could never have had uniforms. Also, urine checks? As far as I know, that never happened in my high school.

"As already noted, this generation is smoking less, drinking less, and getting pregnant less in their teen years." So... those stories about parties full of booze and all of the students' children in my high school daycare are a decrease from previous generations? Wow. I am impressed. It's a wonder the previous generation didn't all die from smoking and drinking all the time. Wait... is the “smoking” in the article just cigarettes or does it also include pot? I'm not sure there was a day at my high school when someone didn't come to school high.

"Three-quarters of all teens agree that there is nothing embarrassing about saying you are a virgin—to the amazement of older Americans, who imagine that only a much smaller share of teens would agree." Ha! Hah! Oh. That was a good joke.


This is getting too long. I'll just skip ahead about five pages...
"By the late 1990s, the majority of high school students said they had detailed five- and ten-year plans." Granted, I was a high school student in the late 2000s, but still... Detailed five and ten year plans? This seems outrageous and/or made up.

"Through the 2010s, Millennials will be marrying, starting families, and giving birth in large numbers, returning to college for their fifth-year and tenth-year reunions—and swarming into business and the professions, no longer as apprentices. Already in the 2010s, some will enter state houses and the U.S. Congress. In the early 2020s, they will elect their first U.S. Senator—and perhaps in the early 2030s, their first U.S. President." This is a pretty generic group of predictions. However, they will all be wrong if the world ends in 2012.

"The prospect of an ideal match between the collective personality of the rising generation and the mood of the coming era may seem fortuitous, but it is nothing new. In fact, this happens repeatedly throughout American history. Consider how well prepared the rising Silent Generation was for the caution and conformity of the 1950s, or how well prepared Boomers were the passion and idealism of the 1970s, or how well prepared Gen- Xers were for the free agency and carnival culture of the 1990s. This recurring match may not be a coincidence." It's almost as if the people who are the “current generation” are raising the future generation in their world. It's strange how these things work out.

"Yet by thinking generationally, by understanding who the Millennials are and how they are spurring nonlinear social and political changes, certain themes in this drama can be anticipated and their implications made clear." It's the final sentence and the authors didn't even take their own advice.


By the way, the second article was “The Millennial Muddle: How stereotyping students became a thriving industry and a bundle of contradictions” by Eric Hoover. This is the article where I found out about how terrible Howe and co. were at getting statistics.

To Begin...

Those of you whom I've seen recently (sorry, people I don't know, you missed out on a lot of ranting) have probably heard me complain about LAS 101. That was so last semester. This semester, I have to take a class on leadership. I hate being a leader, but that doesn't matter, I still have to waste an hour of my life every week in a class for this and a couple of minutes on the homework. So, I've decided to share my annoyance.

Also, I reserve the right to change content if I later learn it's untrue, it's grammatically incorrect, if it makes me look bad, or if I feel like it.