Big Bags GraduationThis semester is passing me by. It’s starting to both scare and excite me. Being scared, I guess, is a good thing. It motivates me to find answers to the events and opportunities looming over me.

Today I caught one of my professors contradicting himself.  This is the same professor that just gave a test that the entire class failed. (The highest score I’ve heard announced so far was a C.)  He is teaching my “Principles of Marketing” class. He has years of experience in the marketing industry… but his product was electricity, which to him, is boring. The boredom of his career coupled with the droning of the required text book, and monotonous PowerPoint presentations is sucking the life and creativity out of the class. I can see it happening as the days go by. Fewer students show up to class every day. The ones that do show up only do so to mark the roll and either work on homework for other classes, tinker around uselessly on Facebook, or, if they’re like me, they catch up on the current events on Google Reader and the New York Times.

Anyway, back to ‘catching’ my professor. I think I threw a wrench in his lecture today. As he stammered through Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, I raised my hand. He called on me and I said, “I know you have some extensive professional experience in the marketing industry. Can you give me an example of when you used this?”

I honestly wasn’t trying to be one of those students like those from math class who complain, “When are we ever going to use this?”  I am just a firm believer that professors should always teach from their experiences.  It provides opportunity for students to see the application… and for me, it just makes it easier to understand, remember and then apply in my own life.

He fumbled through an answer that, to me, was not really satisfactory.  I felt like he was stretching to tie things together, thereby proving the value of his lecture.

Before he could continue back to his regularly scheduled programming, I raised my hand again. I asked him for one gold nugget. One piece of marketing information that he deemed to be most valuable that we could take with us when the semester was over.

Sadly, I don’t think he’d ever thought of this before.  After a couple of attempts,  I could see something ignite within him.  He got passionate, and started talking about giving the customer what they want. “Always put the customer first,” he said.  “You’ll be tempted to do otherwise in your careers. You’ll be tempted to sacrifice what the customer wants for your boss, or for money or profit or shareholders. Your job is to give the customer something they want. Without customers, you’re nothing.”

Sound advice.

Now I just wish he’d realize that in the setting we’re in, he’s the business and I’m the customer… and thus far in the semester, he’s not delivering.

I was one of the many students who failed his first test.

I’m holding on, white knuckled, trying to pull off passable grades so I can hit the ground running as graduation blows by me. I’m doing this while balancing an awesome job, and trying not to be overcome with every little side project that comes my way. The limited hours in a day do not permit me sufficient time to pursue all of the dreams and opportunities that my heart yearns for every day. Come on graduation… make my day.

Oh, and also… Seth Godin… yeah, he vouched for me today.