Sep 30, 2007

Newly Revised Buddy System

After its initial sign up announcement, the buddy program went under the radar for quite a while. I had growing concerns that it would flunk like it did last year. However, things seem to have improved. I received an email notifying me of my budd(ies) just today, and it seems to be fairly thorough. I got three of them, apparently due to a lack in volunteers. Will they stick with it and nurture it into a full, successful program? Who knows? I can only hope so...

...Yet, I have concerns that it'll fall to the level of quality that can be found in a lot of the materials they provided us relating to creating a schedule/staying on pace (If you haven't seen the 'staying on pace' video, save yourself the time and squelch your curiosity- suffice to say, it's scarily corny.) The introductory document sent to the buddy-ers (can't think of a better term as of yet,) told me to fill out a survey and send it to my buddies, but it was a very lame survey. You'd think with the number of email surveys circulating, it would be manageable to pick a couple good questions, but no. One of them is literally "I need (fill in the blank.)" Full thing below:

Line 1: I am (your first name)
Line 2: (some adjectives that describe you)
Line 3: Son/daughter of (and/or brother/sister of)
Line 4: Who needs (some things you need)
Line 5: Who loves (some things you love)
Line 6: Who hates (some things you hate)
Line 7: Who fears (some things you fear)
Line 8: Who came to iQ because (some reasons you’re attending iQ)
Line 9: My favorite thing about iQ is (your favorite thing about iQ)
Line 10: Who dreams of (some goals for this year and/or beyond this year)
Line 11: Resident of: (you can describe your house, or name your hometown; or even the planet you live on!)
Line 12: (your last name)


I don't mean to be too harsh on the poor guys; they clearly put some effort into it, but the worst part is how they describe that survey:

"you’ll be creating an autobiographical poem that will tell your buddy some important things about you."

Ouch.

-H2

2 comment(s):

Anonymous said...

This is my first year at iQ. I still haven't got my buddy. The staying on pace video is corny. My advisor made us watch it.

Anonymous said...
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