I keep asking students to think for themselves. Then I hand them detailed instructions explaining exactly how.
Ismael Sanz recently described graduates who did everything universities asked of them: studied, borrowed, earned the credential, and still entered a world of precarious work and unaffordable housing. Universities cannot fix all of that of course. Even a spectacular PowerPoint presentation is not a housing policy. But his frustration raises an uncomfortable question: what did we actually prepare them to handle?
Business schools are excellent at packaging uncertainty into tidy exercises. I know; I design them. Clear briefs, reassuring rubrics, deadlines, boxes to fill. I encourage creativity, then explain precisely how I would like it submitted. There is a certain genius to teaching independence with a checklist.
Now I am designing an elective called No Script. And naturally, it requires a syllabus.
This week I spent hours assembling that document from dropdown menus, contradictory requirements and five departmental instruction leaflets that seemed blissfully unaware of one another. The result appeared compliant, but left almost nowhere to explain what students might experience, or why they should care. I had obeyed the instructions (perhaps I deserve an excellent grade.)
The irony would be funny if it did not bother me so much. Students learn what our systems reward. If we consistently reward compliance and polished completion, we should not be surprised when they hesitate without instructions.
So No Script will put teams into unfamiliar situations where they must observe, listen, disagree and decide. I will provide boundaries and feedback, but not all the answers. I am still learning how much structure to remove tbh.
I cannot promise them a job or an apartment. But I owe them more than the ability to please a professor. They trust us with years of their lives.
I would hate to discover that, after all my talk of independent thinking, the lesson that stuck was to wait for my instructions.