Episode 168 Debunked by Student: College is About Experiences, Not Just Content Part 2

Welcome to Digication Scholars Conversations. I'm your host, Jeff Yan. In this episode, you will hear Part Two of my conversation with Dami Akingbade, a junior at Boston University's Questrom School of Business, pursuing a degree in Business Administration. More links and information about today's conversation can be found on Digication's Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Full episodes of Digication Scholars Conversations can be found on YouTube or your favorite podcast app.

You know, feel free to talk about this if you'd like. I saw in your LinkedIn profile that you have been in a number of student organizations. Um, an African students organization. It looks like that you might've been the secretary of the African Student Organizations. Um, can you tell us a little bit about that and whether these types of learning experience have helped or influenced the way that you, um, you know, participate in these organizations and so on?

I mean, like, it's, it seems like the theme of what we're talking about today is Diverse perspectives and that really is what that club does for me. I joined the African Students Organization my freshman year and then I was just an events coordinator.

I would help with planning events and really what it was was helping to bring people together and celebrate the diversity of Africa, the different countries represented within Africa, and helping people who came on campus find a community, was so important to us to have people feel like they have a safe space. Um, it's sometimes it's really difficult when you come, you leave home and you can't really find that home away from home somewhere else. And that's really what we're trying to bring.

Now that I'm secretary, I try as much as I can to, um, you know, book spaces and. Contribute to meetings and make sure that we're thinking critically about how are we helping the people in our community? It's something I'm so passionate about. I'm passionate about building community and celebrating diversity. We actually have an event coming up soon, which is funny, this weekend, which is Just a Thanksgiving celebration since Thanksgiving is coming up.

Just a Thanksgiving celebration and it's like basically a potluck. And so we're going to ask people who represent different African countries to bring their food that represents them and their home.

And so we're going to have people from all over Somalia, Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, really come and bring their food and we all get to taste and just like have a good time and really feel like you know, remove the stress of exams and really feel like we have a community here and just be able to celebrate everything that we're thankful for and that we have that culture and that home that we appreciate so much. So you said it was about diversity. I think it's more about food.

Yeah. Um, let's talk a little bit about other things that, that, you know, that, Seems to be, you know, happening in your life.

Um, uh, I saw that you, um, have just participated in the 2024 Goldman Sachs Possibility Summit. Um, tell us a little bit about that. Um, what was that like and how does this all connect? Does this connect with all these things that we've been talking about? Or is this sort of the next chapter? If I feel like everything, everything is connected at this point. Um, the Goldman Sachs Possibility Summit was another place that was celebrating diversity.

That summit was to help underrepresented communities. It was really Goldman Sachs way of like giving people a head start, helping people understand what Goldman Sachs is and I feel like my experience is the fact that I was in the African students organization that I had done diverse things studying abroad that really came through on my resume, which helped me when I had that opportunity. And so the summit was really just a way to learn more.

It represented, like, the Black community, Hispanics, women, um, past veterans, the LGBTQ community, things like that, and, um, It was really just helping, you know, bridge the gap and just help people feel represented and feel heard. Just giving us a space to learn more. We learned about different practices. We learned how to build a resume, how to interview, and we just got that head start that we needed. It was really an inclusive and great program, collaborative as well.

You got to meet people. I connected with so many people during that summit. So yeah. And I should, I know that you're being quite humble here, but it is not an easy one to get into. Um, it's, um, it's a summit that has over 10, 000 applicants, um, every year, I believe.

And, um, and so it's a, it's a, it's a rather prestigious Um, uh, on your resume, but I think that this is what I, I, I, I sometimes wanted to, you know, I feel like that for folks who've been looking to get ahead, like you said, right, you have to look for these kinds of opportunities, but also have to realize that schools like Boston University and many others too, right. Have spent a huge amount of resources.

And scholarship and intellectual, you know, prowess to figure out programs and design opportunities that is really professionally, that's their job, is to get students able to have these opportunities to learn and to, to grow.

And for, I think that, you know, especially for those who are listening, who might be thinking about. What's the value of higher education? Should I just go in and, you know, do something else? And by the way, I take back some of the... for some people, you know, it's It may be true that college is not for them. Yeah. It may It may well be true.

But I think that for those who are simply going through the Actually, rather rational, logical Um, thought process that is, Hey, if I want to be an engineer, if I want to be, you know, sort of fill in your blank, like, you know, dream job, dream, you know, like career. I don't need all this other stuff. Yeah. And I think that sometimes we just don't know better. We don't know that actually we do.

And not only do those other things, those other things is what's going to make the, the job that I want possible, you know? Yeah. I think, you even mentioning that, it's making me realize I didn't talk about a huge part of the College of General Studies program, which is the Capstone that we have at the end, and you work in a group with, I think, about eight people, and you write a 50 page paper.

Some people might question what is the relevance of that, it just seems like added stress, but you really get to understand what it's like to work within a team, and we live in such a fast paced world and the center of any business, whether that, whether you're an engineer, whether you're a doctor, whether you're working in business, you are most likely going to have to work with a team at some point, you're going to need to work with people and

being able to have that experience from CGS of like writing a paper, 50 pages, a research heavy, being able to split that up, knowing how to communicate. It's so important to have these skills from such a young age to really help you build on that, allow you to make those mistakes when Arguably, it matters a little bit less. Um, and just being able to learn more about yourself, how you work with others is so, so important.

And you get to, you have so many options to choose from of what to write about. You learn so much more about yourself, about other people in the process, how people think, what those diverse perspectives are, and how the, how those apply within your life. And How you operate as well is just, it's so important. So you had actually mentioned a few times, um, about learning about yourself. And we had also previously talked a little bit about that from different perspectives and whatnot.

What is, what is this about learning about oneself, right? So how does that apply to a business degree? How does it apply to your, and by the way, you're not defined by your degree. Yeah. Yeah. You know, you are, there are things in the world that you want to do. You want to see the world in a certain, in a different, in a certain way. And you want to make that happen. You want to contribute to that future. What is the role and the significance about learning about yourself?

Cause you talked about a few times and I feel like there's, there's more to that.

I think the most important part about learning about yourself is just learning about emotional intelligence. I actually gave a speech about this last week to my class about the importance of emotional intelligence and really the first step of being emotionally intelligent is being self aware. And I just think that knowing who you are as a person, knowing what your boundaries are, what your triggers are, what your biases are.

Being able to understand that is such a huge skill that a lot of people don't have, and if you do have that skill, you are miles ahead of a lot of people. Being able to understand who you are as a person. Helps you be more socially aware because you understand, okay, this is how I'm going to communicate with this person because this is how I think about this situation. And I know when to take a step back.

I know when I want to speak passionately about something I know when and how to communicate effectively. That is important in any field. Like I said, you're going to be working with so many people. You need to be socially aware. And sometimes, Well, most times, actually. Learning about yourself takes a difficult situation.

It requires something challenging to happen and you take a step back and you look at it and you say, oh my gosh, I didn't realize that this is something that usually upsets me. I didn't realize that I reacted in that way. It was just in the moment and I just did that. Taking that time out to self reflect on why you make decisions that you make and why you do the things that you do really helps you understand who you are as a person more.

And understanding who you are as a person plays a huge role in your relationships, how you manage those effectively, and how you manage yourself. How you feel about yourself, how you feel about your life, you will be more satisfied with life and you'll be more able to Self accept and have a better psychological well being When you understand who you are as a person Understand what your weaknesses are and you're able to work towards those as well. Can I ask you sort of a side question here?

So Dami, are you always this self reflective or is it something that you learn? Like, what is, what is it? Um, I definitely had to learn it. I mean, no one's perfect. Um, like I said, I gave a talk last week about emotional intelligence and really the start of the talk was when I had a time when I wasn't this self reflective. Um, I realize from a lot of my friends and that that's another thing is being able to take feedback is a huge thing that comes with becoming self reflective.

I remember growing up, a lot of people would tell me that I was defensive and I never thought of myself. I never thought of myself in that way. So it was something that I started to brush off. But when I realized that people who I care about deeply, my best friends, my siblings, were telling me like, we can have an argument and you can like, you know, lay your point down, but you don't need to fight me. You don't need to not listen to what I'm saying.

And that's when I realized like, Oh my God, I had to take the step back and be like, Oh my gosh, I'm, I'm not listening to people. And because I'm you know, I want so badly to be heard. I'm not hearing other people and I was able to really learn the value of being self aware, knowing when to listen to people and knowing that like sometimes speaking all the time is not how you get heard. You need to listen to people first. Um, so yeah, there's the self reflection journey.

It's, it's, it's been a journey. I wasn't always like this, but I think with time, with age, with things like CGS that force you to be in those positions where you self reflect, force you to be in positions where you receive feedback from other people about how you responded to certain situations, triggers you to want to be better. And I want to just have that self reflection of, okay, what, what can I do next? How can I better myself on this journey of life? Can I, um, I, this is so beautiful.

You just said, you know, these are, these are amazing. I, I, I want to, um, point out this notion that a lot of people have.

And I don't know whether you even agree with it because, I mean, you, you only started college a few years ago. So, you know, before then you, you don't really know, you haven't experienced what college is like yet. And a lot of people, and this is not young people alone. This is across ages, across the spectrum of people who have attended college. Depend on when you attended college. It could be 30 years ago.

But a lot of people think about going to college as being this giant sort of pressure cooker of let's feed more, let's marinate you more in more and more knowledge. And knowledge, you know, is, is almost like in, in, in, in forms of content, you know, like, you know, I think everyone who's listening to you today can say. Man, she's really well spoken. She's really can, she really expressed herself. So there's that language component, right?

To build the ability to carry yourself, to be able to, to express, to be able to, to, to, to make sense of the world and to be able to express that, um, you know, to others, right. Yeah. Um, but, but there is actually, um, you know... and there's, there is, by the way, a fair amount of content, so to speak.

If we hear everything that you said today, it's actually much more about the experiences that you were, that were created for you that were like, you know, like, here's, here are the adventures. They're well designed. We hope you go through it. It's not a bunch of content that we want you to have. We want you to have the experience so that you have.

You're forced into doing the reflections to examine yourself, to learn about yourself, to learn about who you are, what your values are, so that when you I mean, you talked about, for example, the value of diversity today. And by the way, it obviously shows up in then what you then participated in at the Goldman Sachs, you know, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, summit and the fact that they picked you out of a 10, you know, um, you and a number of others out of over 10, 000 applicants, right?

It's not some skills that. Or some content, I should say, that was read to you in a book, like in a book, paragraph three, this is how you work with a team. Yeah, exactly. They can listen all out, but you won't, you won't understand it, you won't learn it, right? And I think that those are some of those things that, it's elusive, it's like, wait, what is college about?

And I actually think that there's so much about education that is It's so obscure and therefore also so it's abstract, um, and therefore it's hard to put your finger on it. And people almost kind of discount it because they go, I don't know why I need that. Yeah. Right. Because it's like, it's not this skill that I can just check off in a box. Actually you do check those boxes off. It's just that it doesn't come from reading a couple of paragraphs. Mm hmm.

Right, it comes from actually going through an experience that is hard, like you said. You know, they're hard and, and it's like you have to face it and you have to take courage to face it. You have to take hard work and resilience and all of that to face it and to then process it and then reflect on it and then you go, now I actually own this. You wouldn't otherwise own it, because otherwise, we could have just said, Let's not worry about going to London, it's really expensive.

Like, just read this book, right? John, uh, Regan could just say, Here, I wrote this book. Read it, and you've got it all. You don't need to go and do all of this. It wouldn't work, right? It wouldn't work. And that's the difference I feel like between sort of a learning experience as what education is versus just a bunch of content that you think you can just read about and then just Remember it and then that's it. Yeah. No, yeah, exactly. I think I agree completely with what you're saying.

I feel like there is that misconception of college is just a bunch of, you know, exams and studying. And while it is that, there is that part, but it's so much more the experience. Like you said, I think, of course, college isn't for everyone. But I do believe that it's Um, what I'm going to take away from college, mainly, is the experience.

When I'm talking about that Capstone Project, where we had to write the 50 page paper, I didn't even mention what the topic was, because it almost ended up not even being the main focus anymore. It was, Um, More about what we learned as a team. I think, honestly, the project, what I've realized now is the topic doesn't matter.

You can choose whatever topic you want to talk about, but what is really the main takeaway is how you effectively worked with your team to produce a good, well written paper. How did you guys split the work up? How did you communicate? That's really what the takeaway is. What are the skills you learn from that that are actually like applicable in other areas? Not just the knowledge you got from doing the research. I mean, our paper was about. CTE, um, and brain trauma.

That's not applicable for me because I'm going into the business world, but the experience that I got from that, that's what's applicable. That's what's helped me in other team projects that I've had working internships, working in team projects and classes. That's what's really carried through. That's what the importance of education is. It's the experiences that you get along the way.

You. meet so many people in college that are from all over the world and that's the really the only time where you're meeting people so many different people who are all kind of in the same stage of life like at the same time and And are all commonly working towards the same goal. And I feel like people don't appreciate that moment enough and really take the time out to reflect and be like, Wow, this is the only time that I'm going to be around 19, 20 year olds.

That all just want to get a degree that all want to learn something from this, even though we're all so vastly different.

I know that, uh, at CGS, you had been building a portfolio of your work throughout those two years. Yeah. Tell me a little bit about that. What that was like. What did you do? What did you have to do? And what did you get anything out of it? So At CGS, we had to use Digication to create an... a portfolio of all of our work.

So we had a homepage and we also had every single class already embedded within the Digication once we got on campus, it was nice that we didn't have to set that up, but we had to really learn how to include tabs within the Digication site to put different projects on there. And I really liked it because I liked that we were able to personalize it and customize it when you use traditional like homework poster sites.

There's not really much personalization that can go with this, but with this it's literally a portfolio. It has a picture of you, a description of you, and it's very personalized, which I really like. And I like that it was like really easy to use. You can just put everything. I like that everything is in one place and so easy to access. Um, and so. Yeah, it was, it was nice. I think there were about 12 ish classes within it, and it was nice that we, we just had it embedded within the system.

I remember, you know, seeing that your portfolio being presented for the first time, like for me, it was at that conference. And I remember, you know, Um, I believe that you, I still remember that you had shown, um, your portfolio through your London trip. And I think that's why I remember this food assignment so well. And I think it had, I mean, you talked about the design, the colors, um, And I remember, I think there was some of that that was part of the portfolio.

Am I right or am I dreaming this up? No, it was definitely part. I included the pictures of the food, the pictures I took, like, at the place within the portfolio as well. Yeah, and I remember thinking, you know, I remember, um, you and John were talking about how communication, You know, a lot of people think about going to college is just writing a ton and ton of papers, you know, but it's also about expressing yourself in all these different models these days, right?

Being able to express yourself through photographs, through design, through, through how you put a sort of web page together. And these are some of the skills that frankly, it becomes a today's everyday skill for, uh, a someone, you know, in the 21st century trying to. You know, whether you go into business or you want to become, you know, a researcher or what have you, right? Um, yeah, we're talking about data analytics, but that's not going to be just charts and tables anymore, right?

Yeah. You're we're moving into such a tech-focused world that I think it's so important to understand, to know how different platforms work. Use things differently, what different buttons mean, what different icons mean.

It's nice to have that technological portfolio that has everything in one place and it is applicable to Data Analytics as well because I'm learning how to format things and the huge part of data analytics, especially when working in a business field, is knowing how to present data in a neat, pretty, and understandable way.

And I feel like having that design aspect of designing the portfolio in a way that it's readable for people, a way that it's easy for people to understand, definitely applies now in my major and everything that I'm doing. It's just, How to make life easier for people, basically. Yeah, I hear a lot of people that go through that process talk about the, um, experience of being able to tell stories. So storytelling, not purely through the ability to write papers.

Yeah. I almost feel like that it used to be the case, you know, like every, most college students just write a ton and a ton of papers. Um, but, but today it really is not like that anymore. Um, and I also remember seeing your portfolio cause it's so rich. You got, you know, 12 classes worth of stuff in there. Yeah. That it's almost impossible to ignore the type of interconnectedness and the integrative nature of your learning.

Yeah. And, and one of the things that I had always felt that that was important in, in education and learning, but it's somehow seems sometimes forgotten, is that you know, and, and I don't know what it is because of the way that grades work, work out in most schools or in most classes, the culture of just doing assignments and this assignment is worth 10 points and this assignment is worth another, you know, 15 points.

After the assignments over, you kind of almost don't even think about these assignments again.

It's episodic and transactional, you know, whereas when I see your whole portfolio, I remember thinking, man, that's a body of work and a body of work is different from a bunch of transactions, almost like, you know, when you look at like someone's transcript, it almost looks like, it's just like a receipt, it looks like a receipt, it looks like a receipt, you know, but what we really want to see is a body of work of someone who's accomplished all these things,

and the sum of all of that is It adds up to be a lot more, a lot bigger than just, you know, a list of receipts. Yeah. I, that's, I think that's one of the reasons why I really valued like having the portfolio and because I'm such a visual person and I really like to dig deep and understand the value of things. And I feel like having, like you said, that body of work is, it's valuable than just seeing a bunch of A's.

It's different when you get to go in and see the different papers, the slides, the pictures, everything in one place, and you can really tell how the classes are interconnected than if you just see a class name and a grade right next to it. It doesn't have that same effect on you, and you don't really see what the person did. What buildable skills they got from that experience as well. So that's the reason. Can we wrap up with a quick exercise here? Let's see if we don't work, but let's see.

All right. So based on some of the work that you've done, right? I mean, you see your portfolio with all this rich, you know, 12 courses, word of stuff in there. Now that you see them there, are there relationships or connections that you can make? After the fact. Either it's today or after these courses are over that, that surprised you, you know?

Like maybe it's something that, oh wow, I did this in London, but I also, this reappeared again over somewhere else or, you know, something along those lines. Can you think of anything like that? Like I said, um, the experience definitely carries over and there have been moments where I've gone back into the Digication because it's just so much easier to go in. It's all in one place to go in and look at something.

I I had to write a research paper for one of my business classes and I remember Professor Regan taught us like a really good way to write research papers and so I just immediately was like oh okay Digication let me just go look in there it was I'm like it's all in there already so it's so much easier to go from there and I think also from London like I said the experiences we had from there, the different classes, the fact that we were able to learn from experience was really what.

um, London was, because of course Professor Regan's class, which was the writing class, we had the food in London critique class, but my social science class, she really wanted us to, my professor, um, Professor Blaschke, she really wanted us to have autonomy in the work that we did, and so she told us, explore London. Find something interesting. You think about London, it can be history related or not history related and I want you guys to create a podcast.

So we actually submitted a podcast episode as one of our homeworks and then finally my art history class was, um, he told us go around to, like, four museums, find interconnected themes, and choose from one era, either the 1960s, 1970s, and create a slideshow of that. Depicts these images and homework being exploring is just so important.

I think those experiences, learning so much about the world and how to communicate because all those projects, what they had in common is you're sharing your experiences. You're learning how to communicate experiences. This isn't just, it's not just writing a paper, it's communicating experiences.

So whether it's through writing, through a slide deck, through a podcast, you're learning the different ways to express yourself, and I feel like that can be applied in any field, and I've definitely seen that show up in the work that I do now, where I have to analyze data and depict that through a slideshow or in some of my marketing classes we're talking about like marketing management, creating a slide deck that shows how organizations work, all that, all those

experiences I had that I might not have had if I just went in straight on have really, really applied as I've gone in through my work and I think. The Digication has been such a center part of that because the fact that it's all in one spot is so nice, and it's so nice to go back and look on and be like, I created this, like I, I made this. This Digication was blank at some point, no color, no design, no work embedded into it, and I put the work into this.

I designed this, and I've really made it my own, is what It's such a proud moment for me as well. That's wonderful.

Um, well, listen, I, I've, I've been fully inspired by talking to you today. I've been inspired for you too. You, you, you, you know, honestly, I think that you give a lot of, I think that people who will be listening, this will, will feel a sense of hope. And also. Hopefully a for those who have been pessimistic. Yeah about colleges And what it means and what higher education does.

I hope it gives you some renewed optimism to sort of, to appreciate that, you know, if it was all about just learning a bunch of skills that people just read a lot into a, into in the book. We would've just set you free in a library. Exactly. Right. But this, it, it, this sort of planned experience, these going on these adventures in a guided way by professors who have spent their lives trying to perfect that skill. Mm-hmm . You know, to be able to help you.

I think that's what you are really getting, you know, in a, in a, in a, in a well structured, well designed, higher education program. And I, I really do think that people, um, before they. Dismiss that. Um, they should give it a fair shake. They should give it, they should really look at it and understand. Hold on a minute. These are things that I can't get out of reading a book. Um, and it's, it's just hard otherwise, you know, to, to be able to get, get that.

Um, and, uh, and you've just been so, um, delightful to talk to and, and, and, and it, it, by the way, it makes me want to go back to college and be like, can I just do that London semester, please? I wish I could go back to the London semester too. Right, right. Okay. That's what, that's what BU should be doing, doing a London semester for alumni, right? Yeah. After you graduate, you know, you can still go back, but now you have to pay for it. All right. Hey, listen, it's been.

It's been so great talking to you, Dami. Thank you so much for having me. I've, I really enjoyed our conversation. Yeah, same here. And I look forward to like, please keep in touch. Mm-hmm . I look forward to seeing what you do. Thank you so much. Into this next phase. I'm sure that lots of amazing things will come out of it and, uh, we, we, we are so glad to have been a small part of you know, your, your journey. Um, so it's, it's very inspiring. Okay. Take care. Thank you.

And I, uh, stay in touch. Okay. Of course. Bye. All right.

Here's a preview of what's coming up next in my conversation with Matthew Gomes, an ADP Systems Analyst at Bunker Hill Community College. But it, it is one of those things where the more you put into it and by more, I don't mean quantity. But the more you put into it, the more you can get out of it. So it transcends just that one class you're taking where you want to get an A on your homework.