Comments on: S.M.A.R.T Goal Setting in Your 20s

By: Studenomist

Studenomist — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 06:46:51 +0000

Congratulations raptor for taking initiative when it comes to reaching your goals. I have found over the last few years that attaining a goal is a lot easier when you have conducted the proper research.

By: raptor

raptor — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 05:54:46 +0000

I’ve been pretty good at setting goals for a couple of years now since I started reading websites and books on the subjects, but I’m totally with you, Studenomist, that setting goals is an important skill that must be learned and must be done well to be effective. Just like anything else in life.

By: 1.01.09 Featured blogs of the holidays – Student Bloggers

1.01.09 Featured blogs of the holidays – Student Bloggers — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 17:03:19 +0000

[...] on your resolutions? S.M.A.R.T. goals seem to be the way to go according to several student blogs. [Studenomics, [...]

By: Studenomist

Studenomist — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 22:54:09 +0000

Sorry it is my fault I was not clear enough when I used the example of attaining higher grades. The purpose of this article was to show an effective method for applying the S.M.A.R.T goal setting strategy. The reason I used higher grades as an example is because that is probbaly one of the most common goals for students.

I do agree in the sense that grades are not everything because let’s be honest cramming all day for an exam does not make you smarter than the next student. I find that students stress so much about the theory that they completely forget about the practical.

By: Vik Dulat

Vik Dulat — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 18:54:06 +0000

Great use of the word SMART! I believe the most important ones is realistic. You should start with something you think can be achieved. Once that is achieved, aim for something bigger.

By: Early Retirement Extreme

Early Retirement Extreme — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 08:04:49 +0000

The caveat is that SMART is a hammer, but the whole world is not a nail.

SMART seems to be results-oriented, but some things are process oriented. Lemme splain. I’ve been on the other side (giving out the grades) and optimizing for grades does not always optimize for knowledge (using information correctly) and it does in particular not optimize for wisdom (using knowledge correctly). Furthermore grades are not a perfect measure of understanding, particularly not real world applicability. One may say grades are well correlated with cleverness but not so correlated with intelligence. Hence in problems that have no easily definable solution (perhaps it is not known if there even is a solution) the SMAR part fails entirely and the T part is undeterminable.

what I’m trying to say here is that education is process-oriented and not results-oriented.

For fear of hijacking the post — this has nothing to do with SMART per se — I would say that grades are only important insofar if one is not going to use one’s degree for anything but getting the foot in the door (the GPA>3.X from a top tier school BS on job ads). If actual learning is important, then forget all about the grades. Work the hardest at the hard courses and skate the easy ones even if triage (linear optimization) tells you otherwise. This will impress your network (professors) more and you will learn more as well so your education will be useful later on.

BTW I don’t like accounting either