Grad School Ostracism

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I am in grad school. I attend a program for working professionals who are seeking their MBA. The program is well-regarded, and the work is challenging. One of the factors that helped me decide on the program is that at the beginning, the class is divided up into teams of 6. Throughout most of the program, one works with one’s team, and until the last two semesters, it is impossible to do well w/o the team. If you get kicked off your team, you’re pretty much fucked unless another team takes you on. Our particular class had eight teams.

At the very beginning, one particular team lost a member. She came to the first session of the first class and decided she couldn’t hack it. So they were down to five. By the end of the first semester, one of the members of the team, who I’ll call Allie, left the team. My team had lost a member due to work relocating her, so we took Allie in.

Just last week, that same team exploded. Four people weren’t enough to complete the work, and apparently, tensions spilled over. Three of the four went to two other teams, leaving Paul by himself. Worse yet for Paul, the two teams that took in his other teammates flat refused to allow him on the team. Paul then approached two other teams, and they shot him down. Since then one other team has told him no way. And our team has not been approached.

If the one remaining team doesn’t take Paul, he’s fucked. It is unlikely he can do the work on his own. He’s not a bad student, in fact, he’s pretty damn bright. So, one would think, ‘Poor Paul, why won’t anyone take him?’.

The answer is that he’s a creepy asshole. If ten years from now a news report showed Paul being arrested for serial killing and cannabilism, no one would say, “He was so quiet, I’d have never thought he could do something like that.” No, it would be, “No shit? Finally caught him did they?”. Nearly every woman in the class thinks he’s a sexist creep and are uncomfortable being around him. Hell, I think he’s a sexist creep. Most of the men in the class think he’s douche-tastic and want nothing to do with him.

Paul has made his own fucking bed and now he has to lie in it and I don’t feel the least bit of pity for him. He’s been ostracized for his bad behavior and I personally think it is a good thing.

2

Has anyone talked with the professor or head of the program about Paul?

3

I don’t think it is really any of the professor’s jobs. As for the head of the program or the Dean…not that I am aware of. Mostly, he’s just avoided by all & sundry.

4

Seems to me that if he is making people uncomfortable to the point where they cannot work with him, that’s something the prof should know about.

5

Sounds like you’re in for an interesting future – creating a serial killing cannibal whose first targets of revenge are likely to be his grad school classmates who forced him into flunking out.

6

Really? Are you saying that partly in jest, or do you really think he’s capable of pulling a Viginia Tech?

7

I think that the professor needs to step in. Yes, creating a realistic simulation of being in a tough corporate environment is valuable. But this is an academic setting, and he needs the opportunity to succeed within it. Working within a group is incredibly valuable, and getting feedback from your peers is important to grades in a class like this. But I think the professor is skirting his duties by allowing one’s peers to control the entirety of your opportunity/performance in their hands.

8

Given that this is an MBA program for current or future managers, I’d hope that Paul would tell the professor. If you were a senior manager, and one of your reports was having a serious issue, would you rather he hid it until it exploded or told you assuming he couldn’t solve it on his own. Not to mention that someone who has managed to alienate the entire class might not really be a great management prospect.

9

This was tongue in cheek. I don’t think he’s going to stalk someone, kill them and eat them, no. He’s creepy, but not -that- creepy.

10

There isn’t a single professor. We’ve completed 6 classes and are about to finish our 7th. To the extent we have someone responsible it would be the program director or the Dean.

Paul has slowly alienated everyone in his group, and in the class in general to the point no one is willing to work with him. IMO, he is weeding himself out by demonstrating an inability to work with/lead others. Multiple people have told him that he acts like a jerk, and he is convinced that he doesn’t need to change. As Voyager said, his inability to get along is demonstrating he isn’t really cut out to complete his MBA and manage people.

So what should the Dean and/or program director do? They’ve tried to talk to him about his attitude and he isn’t willing to change. They can’t -make- a team take him on; one of the aspects of the team that works is that the team can vote you off if they choose. They can’t really kick him out, as nothing his done really rises to a level of harassment. So he’ll be left to sink or swim, and probably won’t make it due to the workload.

11

The Program Director made this mess so it’s his to fix. The problem is the program itself. The whole system of forcing people to work in teams is stupid and unfair and bound to result in situations like this. If that’s going to be a requirement, then teams should not be allowed to kick people out. I can’t see either value or fairness in making one’s grade dependent on the performance or the social acceptance of others.

12

Then its just high school all over again then IMO…

13

Well, it’s hugely standard in MBA/ EMBA programs. The companies are looking for the graduates to come out certified as having some level of ability to work with others. It’s actually not that hard to teach people to use PowerPoint and Excel and read the WSJ.

To a certain extent, I see this as the program working as designed.

Munch, I actually think this guy’s performance is in his own hands, and he’s f’ed it up early. Just like failing to do the reading, failing to work the math problems, or failing to show up to class in the first part of the semester can leave you totally screwed in other subjects, alienating teammates screws you in this type of class. People with MBA-level people skills need to know that.

Those programs also tend to have pretty good resources for people who want to improve their people skills (negotiation, conflict resolution, etc.) But if he doesn’t want to learn, let him fail.

I do think he should have the option to obtain some coaching from the professor or program director if he asks for it. That’s probably better than he could hope for in real life.

14

double post!

15

Actually, if they have reason to believe he can’t finish the program successfully, then yes, they can kick him out. If the have not kicked him out (and he or his company is paying tuition) then they have to make a reasonable effort to give him a chance at succeeding. Leaving him to do the work of 6 people isn’t really a reasonable chance.

Their options are:

  • kick him out
  • let him drop and retake the class
  • let him substitute another class
  • force a group to work with him (so change the rules)
    But doing nothing and leaving him to be a group of 1 does not sound like a reasonable solution to me.
16

What’s to stop someone from being ostracized for being the wrong religion, or the wrong color or the wrong sexual orientation?

17

Thge PD or the Dean needs to force a team to take him. These are supposed to be adults. It’s not a junior high school lunch room. In real life, they aren’t going to be able to mean girl people for being creepy (not that I DOUBT he’s creepy, but in real life, you have to work with some people who skeeve you out).

18

Has it occurred to anyone that maybe this idiot is actually part of the program and maybe not even a student? Sort of to see the reactions of the teams and how they will respond. In the real world you might have a creep and be stuck with him. The “star” might get a better job and leave or die or something and he’s all you got for now. You can’t fire him for no real reason, etc. What do you do? Let him sit there alone? Or see that he is involved in a project?

Just saying…

19

The law, in the case of religion and color. Possibly also in the case of sexual orientation. Also, many schools would prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation by policy, even where not prohibited by law. But the just-a-jerk contingent has a hard time organizing to get any protective legislation passed.

20

If this were fifth grade, they can make the teams take him. But this is a management program. An important part of being a manager is working in teams across organizational boundaries, even when there are conflicting priorities and goals. An important part of being a manager is building your team, of your reports, and resolving conflicts in your team. If every team in this school has rejected this guy, I suspect it is him not them. Not everyone is a good manager. I think he either needs to really look at himself, quit the program, or start growing pointy hair.

If this were a CS grad program, and he was a very skilled jerk, it would be different. There are ways a good manager can make use of someone like that. (I’m basically a CS person, so don’t yell at me.) But managing is mostly about people skills.

BTW, at least one graduate program I know of in Software Engineering is extremely team based, and a person who can’t work in teams would have a similar problem. But there would be some hope. it sounds lile the PTB have already tried to do something. I’d say the inability to work in teams is reason enough to fail someone in a team based program.