General Course Evaluation & Reflection

My name is Kennedy Packwood and I am a member of Team 4, otherwise known as The Elements, for the Spring 2014 semester of ENDS 101. This blog will serve as my submission for the final examination essay, which I will have backed up as a word document, in case anything should go awry.

“An Aggie does not lie, cheat, or steal, or tolerate those who do.” Signed, Kennedy Packwood 

If I were responsible for grading this course, I would give this course an 8.95. I really enjoyed this class because it made me consider what I believed to be true as being false, made me look at some issues with a different perspective, helped me fully form my opinions on certain topics through providing me with more information on them, and taught me about some things I had never before heard of.

I am a sophomore Business Honors and Finance major, and the curriculum for both of the degrees I am pursuing is exceptionally challenging, demanding, and time consuming. Most of the projects required by this class were overwhelmingly large and took a long time to complete, time that I do not have to spare. Currently involved in Chi Omega, the Collegiate Panhellenic Council Executive Board, David Gardner’s Student Advisory Council, and the AVID program, I am terminally occupied and did not appreciate the copious amounts of what I perceived to be “busy work” that was assigned to me. Furthermore, combining groups of students who not only have different majors, but are also involved in various organizations was a challenge that I think could have been done without. The difficulty we had trying to schedule meetings in which every member could participate was insurmountable and proved impossible, as at a majority of our meetings at least one member was absent or had to leave early or arrive late.

Furthermore, the different input and viewpoints from various members of the group was appreciated, but not fully ever accepted by other members of the work group because the team failed to establish trust and overcome the five dysfunctions of a team that Patrick Lencioni warns against. I feel that this step in team building is essential, and because our work group did not ever attempt to pursue this team building model, we were destined to be just that: a work group, but never truly a team. In addition to this, some members of our team felt a sense of superiority over other members because they perceived themselves to be in a more challenging major or college than others. I feel that this significantly affected team morale, and for me personally, as one of the members of the team who was looked at as less intelligent due to my college and major, was detrimental to my ability to feel open and trusting toward my teammates. Because our team never achieved a truly open environment of accountability and mutual respect, I felt as if they purposely scheduled meetings at times when they knew I had a prior engagement, and would not send me work to complete at other times when I was available, despite my requests. This resulted in our team submissions being less than what they could have potentially been.

All in all, the subject matter of the lectures and the thought-provoking nature of the class in general was enough to make up for the critiques I mentioned above.

My main takeaway from this course is a reminder to myself to “take time to stop and smell the roses.” As I have spent the majority of my past two years at this university, I have been focused on achieving the goals I set out before starting my adventure at Texas A&M. This semester, as I have had my first real experiences with failure, rejection, and uncertainty, I have found this class able to make me consider different focal points and a new kind of optimism. The class, along with others that I am taking now and books that I have read recently, has inspired me to focus on the main things, the important things: what my true priorities are and who I am and want to become.