Problem-Solvers, not Memorizers and Followers of Instructions

As a thank you and farewell to my NYU intern at Maag Studios, Kyle, ? I took him out to lunch yesterday. During our meal he mentioned that he won a scholarship thanks to me and the letter of recommendation I had written for him in pursuit of it. He was wrong.

Kyle is not your typical college student.  He is the model of what our future generation of students needs to be. Did my team coach him on mobile (iOS and Android) programming and software development practices?  Yes.  But as Kyle worked on one of our apps, he took it upon himself to go read and physically call up or email people in the industry on his own initiative to find the answers he needed to build the best product. In many cases he spoke to experts who provided optimal solutions, better than what we had first thought of.

Kyle didn't just follow our instructions or base his work on memorized answers from his college courses. He took the time to understand our app's particular goals and sought to solve its unique problems to create an optimal user experience and product by immersing himself with our team and with industry experts. In doing so, he actually struggled through the evolution of those solutions and in the process became his own expert on our product.

Grade school teaches to memorize the right answers and follow the instructions. That may be appropriate for those ages. They tell you when you get to high school that you'll be with the big boys and girls and that THEN no one will help you and you'll be on your own.

High school teaches you to memorize the right answers and follow the instructions. But they too warn that once you get to college you'll be with the big boys and girls and that THEN no one will help you and you'll be on your own.

You get to college and in 90% of them, outside of medical and law school, the first two years you are memorizing answers and following instructions. The last two years you start learning things applicable to your field of study. Then you graduate and you wonder, "I memorized all the right answers. Followed the instructions. Got the grades to prove it. Why don't I have the great job and pay that society told me I am entitled to?!"

Why? Because real life needs problem solvers, not a one -size-fits-all approach of static memorized answers and out-dated instructions that every other robot out the school system knows, too. Real life success requires people, who've flexed their mental muscles at actually solving and thinking about problems in real life, not just in theoretical settings known as a classroom. In many cases the best way of doing that is establishing your own business, perhaps during your high school years. Why? You won't get to abdicate the answers and rules to a "higher power"; aka your boss at your job, a professor at a university, or government. You'll find that your professor, or government, may not have the right solutions to your unique business position; see Uber versus the many local city taxi and limousine associations. Perhaps you'll understand what healthcare you think is best for your employees and for your business to remain profitable. You might even form a more informed opinion on how the taxes taken from your business are best used rather than abdicating that decision or opinion to a higher power.

Society, with good intentions but unintended consequences, indoctrinates you into thinking that memorizing the right answers and following the instructions established by a "higher power" will yield results. Those answers and instructions are good to know, but are not absolute (with some exceptions like crime) and will mean little when applying them to each of life's unique circumstances.

This is the difference between reading something from a "higher power" and repeating it, versus having personal understanding and conviction from your own struggles with the answers. It's what helps you become a productive member and contributor to society, and not just a lemming following the instructions.

Kyle's internship journey at Maag Studios contrasted black and white against my own where I was the naive student waiting to be given instructions. I wished I had his wisdom during my younger years.

I was so detailed and emphatic in my letter to NYU for this scholarship to be awarded to Kyle based on his contributions to my company - telling them that I'd be flabbergasted and upset if he did not win the scholarship as a result. I challenged them to find another student whose internship manager could say the same thing. They called me to confirm my written attestation, and agreed that they could not.

Kyle won the scholarship based on merit because he is a problem solver; the anti-lemming. I merely wrote the truth about it.