Mar 29, 2008
A Poor Start or Pure Genius
I went to a workshop offered by the Careers Office, and they opened with something like this line:
“Every time we have we have this workshop, most people leave it disappointed…”
Thinking about it, this could be either the worst or the most brilliant way to start a workshop. Bear with me here. Obviously, it could be thought of as a bad way to start any presentation. If the audience is going to be disappointed, what is the point of them listening to or caring about what you have to say. I was tempted to leave due to that sentiment (as I had already picked up the handout, which seemed to have a ton of information anyways).
But on the other hand, it could be brilliant to start out with a statement promising failure. One key to success is to keep low expectations, and forecasting disappointment is a good way to do that.
It turns out, it was neither a blunder nor an attempt to set the presenters up for surpassing expectations; they merely wanted to point out that the workshop is more about giving you tools instead of answers. In case you are interested, the workshop was an guide to self-assessment for starting a career search. Pretty interesting. The Career Office is really useful. They reviewed my essays for graduate school and offer a ton of other services and workshops. I even found my totally awesome internship last summer through a Career Office info session. Check them out.
