Dispatch 3/4/11

Sitting in my dorm room on a beautiful sunny morning.  The weather has finally warmed up to the point where you don't need to bundle up to go outside anymore.  It's crazy to think that just last week, the entire city of Lawrence was blanketed with 3 inches of snow.  A lot has been going on in the past week, but I'll do my best to fulfill my promise of one post every day.  I barely posted on time yesterday.

I've been selected to interview for a scholarship with Koch Industries next Friday.  Koch is a private energy conglomerate based out of Wichita, Kansas with subsidiaries in manufacturing, trading, and investments.  The name Koch might be a bit obscure to you, but back in 2008, Forbes magazine called it the second largest privately held company in the United States.  Their reported revenue in 2009 was $100 billion.  Before the interview, I'll be doing a ton of research on Koch just in case the interviewers ask me a question about their company.  If I do well enough, I'll be entered into a pool of finalists and invited to participate in Koch Leadership Day on April 1.

The past week has been a blur.  Libya's dictatorship is still refusing to submit to the will of the people.  The residents are afraid the Gaddafi will send more rebels into the city of Tripoli.  From what I can tell, the whole situation is a violent mess.  I can't imagine actually being in Libya at this turbulent time.  I think the internet has been a key player in all these revolutions in the Arab world.  For the first time, individuals in that region are using social networking to further the ideals of democracy.  Iran is the next country on the radar.

This past week, I had an interesting conversation with a friend of mine who is a philosophy teacher.  I came to him battered, broken, and bruised (not literally) after a rough accounting exam.  I started to explain to him that multiple choice questions are the bane of my existence because I tend to over think them and create scenarios where more than one answer could be correct.  Then, he explained to me the reason he administers his exams in essay form-- to see how much the student actually knows.  I realized that I am the first generation of this no child left behind era where multiple choice questions are the way to test a student's comprehension of material.  In grade school, I took the Iowa Basic exams followed by the Kansas assessments.  All these exams were multiple choice.  The ACT and SAT are multiple choice exams.  Quite honestly, I think an oral examination is more effective than toiling over fill in the bubble exams.  I'll continue to answer multiple choice questions to get my diploma, but it's important to keep in mind that in the business world, one must know how to read, write, think critically, and evaluate arguments.  Filling in bubbles on a sheet is a task that monkeys can do.

Thanks for reading this,

Joe