NEW STUDENT FAD: COLLABORATIVE LEARNING
Redefining Shared Economy: A Student’s Perspective
By Atique Naqvi | Boston, United States | Published in December 2016 | Unedited Version
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| Top business school in global diversity has campuses in four countries. |
The digital revolution has acted as a catalyst for
collaborative economy. Whether it is crowd funding, crowd sourcing or
businesses such as airbnb and Uber, the digitization of services has provided a
fillip to shared
economy around the world.
According to a recent report by PwC, the five main sectors of sharing economy – peer-to-peer finance, online staffing, peer-to-peer accommodation, car sharing and music/video streaming – are expected to generate $335 billion in yearly revenues by 2025.
Collaborative efforts are key to the success of a shared or collaborative economy, and students at the Hult International Business School have demonstrated this in their own unique way in the past four months.
When I arrived in Boston this September, I was quite apprehensive about my ability to get a grasp of subjects taught in MBA classes at Hult. And this was mainly owing to my background in journalism and my age.
I graduated from a university in 2000, and since then I have been writing and editing news stories. Let me put it this way, schools were very different when I last attended. However, I was mentally prepared for the challenge before coming to Hult.
What I didn’t realize was there’d be subjects such as accounting and managerial economics. I said to myself, what?
Being a journalist helped me up to some extent because good listening skills are part of my profession, but after a short while I entered the dark tunnel and there was no proverbial light in sight. Actually, the tunnel was turning out be longer and longer.
In my view, learning new things in a formal setting becomes a tedious process after you have spent more than 10 years in one profession. Practices become habits, and habits are difficult to change. The word habit itself is quite explanatory – if you remove h, a bit is there; if remove a, bit is there; if you remove b, it is “still” there.
To be fair, professors have been doing a great job in the class. The problem on my end was that most of the students have some sort of a business or mathematics background and that prompted professors sometimes to drive the class in top gear.
After all it’s a one-year course, and one of the alumni summed up Hult’s MBA program by saying: “Intense is an understatement.”
As I was dealing with my struggles watching instructional videos on my laptop, a message popped up on my phone – and I finally saw the light. To my pleasant surprise, the tunnel ended abruptly. Collaborative studies have come to my rescue, from nowhere.
Probably, some of my classmates were inspired by the words of American author and motivational speaker Les Brown, who once said: “Help other achieve their dreams, and you will achieve yours.”
The message on my phone informed me that some students have come forward to help their peers by holding small group study sessions at the Hult campus in Boston. The school administration was also quick to respond as classes and big meeting rooms were made available to the students who wanted to mentor their peers.
Free messaging platform What’s App was used extensively to communicate the time, venue and the name of the student ‘teacher’.
Lo and behold! In a matter of few days, a person like me was spoilt for choices for the student-led instructional sessions. In no time, more than half a dozen students were teaching their peers nuances of accounting and managerial economics.
One can imagine the receptivity of my classmates during these study sessions as I heard the sentence – I don’t (F-word) understand this, can you (F-word) explain this to me – several times. Hats off to the patience of student “teachers”, who replied saying: “Why don’t you (F-word) try”.
The study sessions helped me a lot, and I am sure many others benefitted from the sessions as well, including the ones who were teaching.
Without doubt, these collaborative study sessions are not unique to the Boston campus of the Hult business school. Team collaboration, interpersonal influence and adaptive thinking are part of Hult DNA, and students around the Hult campuses are setting new standards of collaborative efforts.
What one needs in the end is a growth mindset to respond effectively to the collaborative efforts.
I’ve a growth mind set. Do you?
economy around the world.
According to a recent report by PwC, the five main sectors of sharing economy – peer-to-peer finance, online staffing, peer-to-peer accommodation, car sharing and music/video streaming – are expected to generate $335 billion in yearly revenues by 2025.
Collaborative efforts are key to the success of a shared or collaborative economy, and students at the Hult International Business School have demonstrated this in their own unique way in the past four months.
When I arrived in Boston this September, I was quite apprehensive about my ability to get a grasp of subjects taught in MBA classes at Hult. And this was mainly owing to my background in journalism and my age.
I graduated from a university in 2000, and since then I have been writing and editing news stories. Let me put it this way, schools were very different when I last attended. However, I was mentally prepared for the challenge before coming to Hult.
What I didn’t realize was there’d be subjects such as accounting and managerial economics. I said to myself, what?
Being a journalist helped me up to some extent because good listening skills are part of my profession, but after a short while I entered the dark tunnel and there was no proverbial light in sight. Actually, the tunnel was turning out be longer and longer.
In my view, learning new things in a formal setting becomes a tedious process after you have spent more than 10 years in one profession. Practices become habits, and habits are difficult to change. The word habit itself is quite explanatory – if you remove h, a bit is there; if remove a, bit is there; if you remove b, it is “still” there.
To be fair, professors have been doing a great job in the class. The problem on my end was that most of the students have some sort of a business or mathematics background and that prompted professors sometimes to drive the class in top gear.
After all it’s a one-year course, and one of the alumni summed up Hult’s MBA program by saying: “Intense is an understatement.”
As I was dealing with my struggles watching instructional videos on my laptop, a message popped up on my phone – and I finally saw the light. To my pleasant surprise, the tunnel ended abruptly. Collaborative studies have come to my rescue, from nowhere.
Probably, some of my classmates were inspired by the words of American author and motivational speaker Les Brown, who once said: “Help other achieve their dreams, and you will achieve yours.”
The message on my phone informed me that some students have come forward to help their peers by holding small group study sessions at the Hult campus in Boston. The school administration was also quick to respond as classes and big meeting rooms were made available to the students who wanted to mentor their peers.
Free messaging platform What’s App was used extensively to communicate the time, venue and the name of the student ‘teacher’.
Lo and behold! In a matter of few days, a person like me was spoilt for choices for the student-led instructional sessions. In no time, more than half a dozen students were teaching their peers nuances of accounting and managerial economics.
One can imagine the receptivity of my classmates during these study sessions as I heard the sentence – I don’t (F-word) understand this, can you (F-word) explain this to me – several times. Hats off to the patience of student “teachers”, who replied saying: “Why don’t you (F-word) try”.
The study sessions helped me a lot, and I am sure many others benefitted from the sessions as well, including the ones who were teaching.
Without doubt, these collaborative study sessions are not unique to the Boston campus of the Hult business school. Team collaboration, interpersonal influence and adaptive thinking are part of Hult DNA, and students around the Hult campuses are setting new standards of collaborative efforts.
What one needs in the end is a growth mindset to respond effectively to the collaborative efforts.
I’ve a growth mind set. Do you?
Wonderful read, sir. Kudos. Indeed, I do wish I had such teachers and sources when I was struggling through college. Looking forward to your next article.
ReplyDeleteThanks, and stay blessed.
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