Workin' For the Weekend

Mike Madarasz

I find more and more that every week is really just a struggle to make it to the weekend.  Weekdays are really just a series of battles to reach Friday afternoon.  From the time I wake up Monday morning, I know exactly what I have to look forward to in five days.  Personally, the light at the end of the tunnel is what keeps me going through the rigors of the week.  The promise of a two day vacation following it is the consolation I need to push through that week’s schedule.  Some weeks, it may even take the promise of a cold beer on Friday night to push through. 

There’s no better feeling than walking out the doors of the last class of every week.  I feel like I’ve earned a miniature vacation and I can put classes in the back of my mind for a few days.  Without fail, Friday afternoon to Sunday night always flies by.  Before you know it, Monday morning is rearing its ugly head again and the grind resumes. 

Transitions

Shavonna Hinton

The adjustment from high school to college is certainly not a smooth process but it is one that every incoming freshman must face.  While I’ve only nailed down one semester of college so far, I’ve come to believe that it’s in this first semester that you establish your college lifestyle.  The habits you pick up in the first four months as a newly christened college student can very well determine your successes and failures throughout your college career.

Obviously homework is a much different ball game in college compared to high school.  There’s no such thing as “busy work” in college.  It may be a broad generalization but most professors don’t give out fluff or filler assignments for the fun of it. And while the amount of homework may significantly decrease compared to that of a typical high school AP or IB student, it’s not to say that that small amount won’t take twice as long to complete.

 I learned this all too quickly when I found myself awake at 3 AM on a Thursday night barely staying awake through an hour long Frontline documentary about the stock market.  Even though I had been given my MacroEconomics assignment earlier that week, I had just assumed the work was going to be pretty basic and would take no more than a half an hour to complete.  I mean, there were only 5 questions and in glancing over them they seemed pretty basic.  But there I was that Thursday night, with just 6 hours to go before my problem set was due.  It was torture trying to keep my eyeballs open after realizing the answer to question one could only be found through watching this absurdly boring documentary. Lesson learned.

Needless to say from that point forward I made sure to read through my homework much more carefully before causally brushing it off to do later.  Now, I’m no master at homework, I sometimes still procrastinate just like everyone else but if any lessons can be taken from this it’s that in college there are no rules.  Anything goes.  Professors could very well make you watch a movie for a homework assignment and ask you to write a ten page paper on a five minute scene from it.  In hindsight it seems pretty obvious but when you’re in that moment of truth, deciding to be proactive or not, you don’t really think about the repercussions.  It’s the same for anything you do in college, not just homework. No one’s there to tell you what to do, no one’s going to stop you either.  It’s a simple concept, but it seems like in college, everyone always forgets to actually apply it.  So, just make sure you think things out and consider all the costs of the decisions you make.

Until next time-

Business Ethics

Mike Madarasz

The majority of the material we learn in school is cut and dry.  There is a right and wrong way to put together a spread sheet and no one is going to try to argue that.  I’m now finding myself in the middle of one of the more subjective classes I have come across: Business Ethics. 

If you’re like me, the first thing that comes to mind when you think of “Business Ethics” is a classic scene from “Billy Madison”.  Eric failed miserably to define business ethics in the movie, and in reality he is not the only one that struggles with this.  People’s definitions of what is right and wrong are always going to vary.  What some people may see as a shrewd business maneuver others may see as crossing a moral boundary. 

Obviously there are extreme cases where no one is going to argue that the offender is in the right (See Enron).  But take a case where a corporation cuts into shareholder profits by making a charitable donation.  There may not be a right or wrong answer in existence to that question but there are certainly going to be an infinite number of opinions.

I’ll take away a familiarity with the issues in business ethics from this class, which is all one can really expect.  I don’t expect to instantly know what is necessarily ethical or not in business.  I don’t think that answer lies in this class nor do I suspect the answer lies in “The Puppy Who Lost His Way”…

Business Law

John Minami

It was Thursday night and 7 o'clock was quickly approaching.  While most of the students on campus were heading to dinner after a grueling day of school, an unlucky number of Freshmenchemistry students anxiously gathered around the Lecture Hall.  It would probably suck to be them.  How horrible it must be to have to take a quiz until 8 PM!

I had no sympathy for those Chem students as I sat down in Student Wing 325 because I would be sitting in that seat for three hours.  Yes, contrary to the "horrible lives" chemistry students believe themselves to have because they have a quiz from 7-8 once every couple of weeks, it is we, who are enrolled in BLS111, who should be complaining about "horrible lives".  What kind of class is from 7-10 AT NIGHT?!  I mean by this time most of us are already dropping dead from exhaustion.  The worst part is that the class is in a small room in Student Wing.  At least if it was in a spacious lecture hall, we could sneak in a few minutes of sleep. Not to mention the topic of law isn't always the most exhilarating topic to discuss for three hours at the end of the day.

Yes, despite all of these negatives about the class, Professor Pogson is magically able to pull us together and keep the class refreshingly focused.  Despite its horrendous time, I'm actually the most awake during Prof. Pogson's class.  With his witty humor, clear explanation of the text, and likeable voice, he makes a potentially hellish class into one of the most enjoyable classes I have had the pleasure of taking.  I don't regret taking this class at all.

At first, I had desperately hoped to get into Professor Loy's Business Law class like every other SOM student in need of a B-Law credit. Now, if I could choose again, I would definitely go with Professor Pogson. This is only my second semester at Binghamton, but I already doubt I will find a more engaging class anytime throughout my academic career.

And thanksto Professor Pogson for letting me blog about him!