Interview Questions: Be a STAR

It’s a new year, and time to get a new job or a first job. With more people than ever fighting for a job in a down economy, how can you stand out and make it through all the bloodshed? There are a few ways I’ve seen students make a positive impression on potential employers, and one of the most important ways is responding with killer answers to tough interview questions.

This is the first post in a series of entries I’ll write about interview questions. Some of the most common interview questions are Behavioral Based Interview (BBI) Questions. The idea behind a BBI question is that past performance will indicate future success. The employer wants to know what you have done in the past to get an idea of how you will react to future situations in the firm. These are not hypothetical questions – you need to use real examples from your past to answer a BBI question.

These questions will generally start with, “Tell me about a time when…”

The typical topics interviewers are interested in are leadership experience, conflict, analytical skills, goal setting, innovation/creativity, and failure. A quick Google search of the most common interview questions will yield results that fall under those primary categories. Begin to think of some relevant stories for each of those topics long before your interview.

The reason I say stories rather than answers is because you need to answer BBI questions with a well-developed story. The best way I know to help students practice putting stories together for an interview is the STAR Method. STAR stands for Situation, Task, Action, Result. Use this method to craft your BBI stories. Go two or three stories deep for each topic, and practice your stories with friends.

Here is an example of what I mean:

“Give me an example of a goal you didn’t reach, and how you handled it.” This would be an example of a goal setting, conflict, and failure question.

Situation: My sophomore year, an ambassador for the International Programs office came to speak to my class about international internships. I heard that my university offered a Parliamentary internship in London, and that it was the most competitive position available, with only two people accepted each year. I wanted that internship!

Task: By the summer before my senior year, I had saved enough money and had built up enough experience on my resume to be eligible to apply for the program. I got past the initial screening and was finally offered a phone interview with a campaign manager for one of the MPs (Members of Parliament).

Action: I completely failed my interview. The campaign manager asked me my personal political opinion and I tried to dodge the question by saying I would represent my politician’s views to his constituents during my term in his office, but he kept pushing for an answer. Knowing that most politicians in England are more liberal than I am, I tried to defend my fiscally conservative position. He asked me to prove how a fiscally conservative government could provide for social projects, and I gave examples of big business sponsoring social programs. I even included personal examples of how Fortune 500 companies had helped my social entrepreneurship club with some community initiatives. But I don’t think he believed me!

Result: I did not get the internship with Parliament that summer, and I think it actually worked out for the best. I got an internship instead at an international dot com business headquartered in London and worked in sales, marketing, and public relations. I was living in the same building as the two students who were working at Parliament, and I found that in a smaller business setting I had far more opportunities to make a difference in the company than they had in Parliament. I sat next to the CEO and worked directly with country managers every day in my internship, where they were lucky to see their MP at all for the whole summer.

Make sure your stories fully answer the question, are memorable, and (especially for conflict and failure questions) depict the end result in a positive way. You will need to spend a while thinking up these stories ahead of time, but avoid making them sound rehearsed. Also, don’t be surprised if they ask you follow up questions about your story, or for a second example!

When your best isn’t good enough

Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. That’s life. When your best just isn’t good enough, you can either learn from your experience or make excuses. You will never grow if you choose the latter.

I have become fairly accustomed to winning. When I enter academic competitions, I usually fare quite well. But last night, I entered an oratorical speech contest and completely underestimated my competition. I didn’t win; actually, in my opinion, I was one of the worst presenters.

Despite all that, I don’t believe I would change very much about my presentation! I had written a compelling speech on the topic; rehearsed my diction, clarity, and emphasis; and even choreographed my presentation a bit, with specific movements and hand gestures to accompany various points. I did my best, and I’m proud of my work.

But my best simply wasn’t good enough.

I approached this competition like a game that I could win with a formula, and as a result my speech lacked passion. It was my first time entering this kind of contest, and I was overly confident for a newbie. I was so impressed by all of the other speakers that I was proud to lose to my competition. I learned a lot from the experience.

That’s life. You can’t win them all! I walked away with no regrets, because I learned from the experience and have made some new well-spoken and passionate friends. I know that I’m still good at a lot of other things, and I believe that I can become a better orator if I practice more and take some tips from my new friends.

When your best isn’t good enough, it is difficult to accept, especially if you have failed in an area of great pride and importance to you. Don’t be discouraged, and don’t be a sore loser.

There will always be someone out there better than you at something. Think of it as your lucky day when you meet those people, because you can make them your friends in life and partners in business one day.

Don’t be afraid to surround yourself with people who are smarter than you. In fact, you should be scared if you are the smartest person in the room!

Stop Complaining

Stop Complaining! It’s a pretty simple concept, yet one of the most difficult habits to break. I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, but…no one cares about your problems. Do you really care about other people’s problems?

It’s very easy to get caught up in complaining about how your roommate drank your last beer, or how your teacher unfairly gave you a pop-quiz, or how you didn’t get enough sleep due to partying and now you deserve pity for being awake and talking to me. I have no sympathy for you.

Complaining is generally used as a vehicle for attention, pity, and sympathy. Do you really want or need those things from your listener?

I think that college students often use complaining as a way to modestly impress someone. “OMG, I am so hungover, I didn’t read the chapter at all, I stayed up all night partying, and I just aced that quiz! Whatevs, it’s no biggie, I guess I’m just a prodigy. How did you do?”

I may be guilty of uttering a similar sentence myself, but what are you really telling the other person? “I’m more popular than you as evidenced by the desirability of my company last night, and I’m smarter than you because I don’t need to study. Even on my worst day, I’m better than you, so you should be impressed.”

Is that the sentiment you really want to convey? Because that’s what people hear. So, just stop doing it!

No one really cares about your problems or wants to hear your excuses or your veiled bragging. We all know people like this – they’re downers and they will never ask you about your life. Complaining is egocentric and it brings down your listener’s mood. Do you want to be remembered that way?

Going cold turkey on complaining is hard work! One tip I can offer is to ask before you tell. Show interest in the other person first. Ask how they are doing. If you are interested, people will find you interesting.

When you come off as interested and interesting instead of as a complainer, you can guess that people will like you better and want to spend their time with you. You will be tempted to go back to your old Negative Nancy ways, but resist the urge, and I think you will be amazed by the results!

Do you pass the “Airport Test”?

What is the “Airport Test”?

Interviewers don’t care how many liquids you have in your luggage, if you have turned off all portable electronic devices, or if you can land a plane full of snakes. The “Airport Test” is a common interview technique recruiters use to determine if you are a fun and interesting person to spend an extended amount of time with between flights on a business trip.

In addition to asking you about your leadership experiences, academic accomplishments, analytical skills and the occasional stress question to see how you react under pressure, recruiters are also judging if they like you and think you are cool.

Going into an interview, students are usually so concerned about impressing the interviewer that they often forget to think from the recruiter’s perspective. At the core of most interviews, recruiters are generally looking for two main qualities in all candidates.

1) Can the recruiter show you off to their boss?

2) Are you a fun and interesting person to hang out with?

This post will refer to the second point. It’s hard to believe, but recruiters are a lot like matchmakers. When you join a company, it is like entering a relationship. You will be spending most of your time with your new co-workers so it is important that you like each other and have common interests. If the recruiter thinks they would rather pretend to be asleep than chat with you in the airport waiting area, you have failed the “Airport Test” and you will not be hired.

Part of your interview is to find out if you match with the company culture, and the recruiter must determine if you are a good match in as little as 30 minutes. With such a short amount of time to win a rose from your recruiter to get you to the next round, everything you do in the interview is being observed and judged.

There are a few things you can do to prepare for the “Airport Test.”

– Look at the company website and observe what people are wearing. You can learn a lot about the company culture by the smiling corporate photos. If everyone seems to be wearing pastels, maybe red isn’t going to be your power color for this interview; try lime green or salmon. If the firm seems super conservative, keep it to navy and gray.

– What do you do for fun? More and more companies are starting to ask questions like this during interviews. Don’t get thrown off guard and talk about your keg weekends or reading at home with your cats. Think of some good answers before you go into the interview. A good answer should be interesting and memorable, but also show off some leadership or teamwork skills. Sports are a great go-to answer, but pretty common, so it’s very important that your example is a story that the interviewer can relate to or remember you by.

– Ask the recruiter why they chose to work for the company. At the end of the interview when they ask what questions you have, a good question to ask across industries is why your interviewer chose that firm. People love to talk about themselves, and if your recruiter is passionate about their job, they will light up when they talk to you about what they do. By showing interest in them, you will be remembered as someone they would like to work with.

– Smile! It seems obvious, but you would be surprised how many students freak out during an interview and forget to smile. Don’t let the stress get to you, and just be yourself – the better dressed, more accomplished and articulate version of yourself!

Would you want to spend 2 hours with you during a layover?

How can you convey how awesome, qualified, and fun you are to a stranger in an initial interview? It’s not easy, and that’s why not every applicant will be hired. But remember you are interviewing the company as much as they are interviewing you, and they may not be a good match for you. Do your research; if you are excited and passionate about joining the company, it will shine through in your interview and you will be far more likely to advance to the next round of interviews.

New Year’s Resolutions

It’s a new year and that means a new beginning; a time to write resolutions for the year 2012. Assuming we survive the scheduled apocalypse, keeping our resolutions for the whole year is often very challenging, and few of us have ever kept all or even some of our new year’s resolutions.

Resolutions often stem from an area of our lives wherein we are dissatisfied. Gym memberships and online dating profiles certainly spike January 1st, since some of the first places people focus on improving in the new year are their bodies and relationships. Improving your body takes discipline, and after that first week the snooze button on your 6:00 a.m. workout alarm gets hit more than once. Improving your relationship status might take courage if you decide to break up (and a dedicated group of friends to keep you from drunk texting your ex the following weekend).

Each year we focus on our bodies and relationships because we believe we can do better, but how many people are satisfied where they spend most of their day – at their job?

I don’t pretend to be an expert on health and fitness, and certainly not on relationships, so you guys are on your own there. However, I think that an area many people want to improve, but are either afraid or don’t know how to change, is their work life. Here are a few thoughts on this topic that may help you get that promotion or even change careers this year:

What Makes You Happy? Spend some time thinking about what would make you happier at work. It might not just be money – it could be more time off, flexible hours, more responsibility, relocation to a new city, a cubicle closer to the windows so you can watch the squirrels play, whatever it might be for you! When you go to negotiate, come to the table with a plan of action; it’s much easier for your boss to say yes to a reasonable plan you propose than to a generic, “I’m unhappy here and you need to fix it or I’m leaving.”

No Ultimatums! This one is a pet peeve of mine. I think that ultimatums are a sign of immaturity and an unnecessarily aggressive way to get what you want. Ultimatums are generally very selfish and do not result in a win-win situation for all parties. If you say, “I want a raise or I’m going to a competing firm,” be prepared to follow through on your threat, and read your non-compete before you go around making statements of that sort, or you could end up fired and searching for a job 50 miles away.

Ask! If you don’t ask for what you want, you almost certainly won’t get it. Your boss probably doesn’t even know that you are unhappy; people usually assume that no news is good news. Tell people what you want – share your goals with your co-workers and supervisors. If you share your interests, you may find there are other areas within your company where you could be promoted horizontally instead of looking for a new job at a different company, or even in a different industry.

Know What You Do Best. Be confident in your skills and abilities. Figure out what you do better than everyone else and compile specific and measurable evidence to support your claim. This could include getting testimonials from satisfied customers you have helped, reports that show improved sales or revenues in a certain month due to an initiative you suggested, peer reviews from co-workers that state how you put in extra hours or helped them on a project. Don’t be afraid to talk yourself up, but don’t lie.

Don’t Gossip. If there is some area of your job you don’t like, keep it to yourself unless you think you can change it. Constructive feedback is generally welcomed and encouraged my managers, so if your cause for complaint is a process you believe you can improve by suggesting a change, by all means share that view. However, if your problem is with a disagreeable co-worker, suck it up or find specific and relevant evidence that proves they are in serious violation of a company policy. Unless they are stealing or harassing you and/or other co-workers, you might have to settle for killing them with kindness. Try not to burn any bridges, even if you are considering leaving – you never know when you might meet again or if they will be able to influence your future in some way later on. It’s a secret dream for all of us to have some grand speech on our last day and storm out escorted by security, but after that initial rush of satisfaction, have we actually accomplished anything?

Be Humble. Restarting a career may mean starting at the bottom. Be prepared for a temporary reduction in pay or responsibility. If you have spent some time really thinking about what you want and have decided that a career change is right for you, stick it out for a few months. Once you get over the initial hurdle of learning a new industry and building up some credibility, it should get much better. Before making a drastic change in your career and lifestyle, be sure you have some financial security to supplement the change in income and a strong network of advocates. Supportive friends and family will get you through those tough days when you question your sanity.

What are your New Year’s Resolutions? If you want to improve your career or work life, consider some of these tips and you will have the confidence and know-how to make that change this year!

Today is a great day!

Today is a great day! Today is a great day! Today is a great day!

This is a sentence that someone once told me to repeat three times in the mirror with different intonations to start off each morning. Waking up might be the most difficult thing you’ll do all day, so sometimes you need to give yourself a little pep talk. Get yourself excited about the day ahead; each day is a new opportunity to make a difference in the world. “Wake up, Show up and Follow up“ are the key ingredients to success.

Some mornings, I wake up to my alarm and all I want to do is count the hours ’til I can go back to sleep. If I find myself falling into that trap, I repeat to myself, “Today is a great day.” You can’t make a difference or accomplish much if you don’t get up and get out there. That’s not to say you don’t need a “Lunch, Nap, Vodka” day every now and then, but most days, you may need to give yourself a little extra motivation to join the real world.

Saying the words “today is a great day” has no magic effect on its own. The magic happens when you think about what you are going to do that day, and what you are most looking forward to doing. The countdown in your mind becomes the time until you meet a friend for coffee, or go to an interesting lecture, or read an article for class. You create your own mini-countdowns so that you don’t spend your waking hours wishing you were asleep.

I know it sounds a little corny to talk yourself up in a mirror. It’s a little too “who’s the fairest of them all” – I never thought I would ever actually do it when it was suggested to me years ago. But it is such a simple, quick, and easy confidence builder. So, while I now occasionally say “today is a great day” to myself to get motivated about the day ahead, I also give myself little compliments throughout the day, especially when I have a stressful activity ahead.

Before an interview, I might coach myself about what a qualified candidate I am for the position. Before a presentation, I might remind myself of how knowledgeable I am about my topic. On my way to a party, I might tell myself how great I look. (And after running into an ex-boyfriend, I might exclaim in my car on the drive home how great my new life is without him!)

Do what you need to do to build your confidence and remind yourself how great you are! When you do it privately, you become your own secret weapon. Although we try to surround ourselves with supportive people who love us and think we are wonderful, those people will not always be around when we need that extra ego boost- so figure out a way to boost yourself up when you need it!

Sometimes on my note cards for a presentation, I will write myself little compliments; or before an interview, I will make a list of all the things I’m really great at doing. Every once in a while, look yourself in the mirror and repeat, “Today is a great day,” or whatever you construct to get you motivated to make your day exceptional.

How will you remind yourself of your own greatness? How will you become your own secret weapon to success?

Silence is Golden

Silence is a very interesting concept to me, because when used well it can be a very powerful weapon in your college success arsenal. Silence can be awkward – and therein lies the power. People will do almost anything to avoid feeling awkward! If you can control silence by not being afraid to use it and not getting uncomfortable, then you can exert some control over a conversation, a presentation, an interview, or even a date!

The following are a few applications of intentional silence that I have found are easy to implement and can result in the user gaining some form of power in the conversation.

• Negotiations – When you are in a negotiation, there is always a (real or perceived) power struggle between the two parties. I have found that the negotiator who has better control over the use of silence will generally hold more power in the negotiation. What do I mean by “control over the use of silence“? In a negotiation, information is power; so, if you can get the other party to tell you something they did not originally plan to reveal, you can use that to your advantage. How can you do that? In the information gathering phase before you suggest your solution, you need to ask a lot of questions. After you pose a question, you’ll know the other person has finished answering when they stop talking. Typically, you’d interpret this as the time for you to ask another question, or fill the silence something else.
  
  But what happens if you say nothing? Most often, if you allow a period of silence after the other person has finished answering your question, they will keep talking and add further detail. This additional information was not a part of their original answer and may contain important details you can use in your argument against them.
• Interviews – The bad news for us is that, usually, interviewers already know this little trick. When they are interviewing you, if they are a good interviewer, they will leave an almost uncomfortable silence between questions to prompt you to share more information. When the pause occurs, you begin to feel like your original answer was not good enough. You start to panic a little and try to answer the question again, but your second answer is given under much more stress and is usually not your best work. Interviews are already pretty stressful for most of us, but remember that knowledge is power. Use this knowledge to your own advantage in the interview!
  
  You can either a) stand by your original answer confidently and sit smiling in uncomfortable silence until the interviewer breaks it with a new question, or b) elaborate upon your answer, but without the additional stress that your fellow candidates will undergo, because you were ready for this. The interviewer’s job is to make you feel a little discomfort and stress to see how you perform under these conditions. Now you can impress them when you stay cool because you knew this was coming!
• Class Presentations – A third application for silence that I have found to be useful for college students is in giving presentations, where you need to either keep an audience’s attention or, even more challenging, get your audience to participate. Class presentations, especially ones over 20 minutes, are a challenge and are becoming more and more common as a part of college curriculums. As you prepare your presentation, think of how you can use silence to your advantage in your delivery. A pause for emphasis is a pretty easy technique. Asking rhetorical questions is always a good way to go – ask a question and pause long enough for them to think of an answer (and feel a little pressure that they may have to answer it themselves), then answer it yourself. This keeps your audience paying attention and following along without actually engaging them. This technique is good if you have a very strict timeline and cannot afford to have someone answer your question with a lengthy or controversial response.
  
  Lastly, if you do need to fill up some time and facilitate a discussion, or even a debate, you will need to ask questions. Confidently pause and wait for an answer. If you wait long enough and don’t lose your cool, someone will always come up with an answer. Additionally, after you set the tone that you are willing to wait an uncomfortable amount of time for an answer, others in the class will more willingly participate for the remainder of your presentation.

These are just a few tips I’ve learned along the way, so try them out next time you’re having a conversation and see what happens. I think you’ll find that when you have mastered the art of silence, you will feel much more in control of any situation. My last piece of advice on the issue is this: Look out for others who have mastered this concept – you may end up in an exceedingly awkward staring contest!

Emotions are contagious!

As you go through college, you constantly encounter opportunities to influence others. Almost every interaction you have is one of these opportunities, and you can influence others positively, negatively, or indifferently. Each time you interact with a teacher, a classmate, a roommate, a friend, a recruiter, a co-worker, a boss, your parents, or anyone else, you have the chance to influence their opinion of you, and that influence can often result in favorable treatment for you in the future.

If you want to gain favorable treatment from the important or influential people in your life, my advice is to spread the passion for what you love contagiously, and they will be inspired by your enthusiasm!

Emotions are contagious. How many times have you met up with a friend and the first thing they do is complain about their day? Conversely, how many times have you seen someone and they’re on top of the world? What happens to you when you’re around them?

Generally, you’ll find that when you spend time with a “Debbie Downer,” your mood deflates; and when you spend time with a “Peppy Pam,” your mood elevates. If you have experienced this phenomenon, as I believe most of us have, then you’ll agree that you can wield significant power over the emotions of others by managing your own.

Think back to how you feel around these people – when you are around happy people, you feel happy; sad people bring you down. After such an interaction, when you think of that person, or their name comes up in conversation, what kind of feelings do you associate with them? Well, positive feelings with people that made you feel good, and negative with people that make you feel bad. Pretty simple psychology, right? Now that you’ve mastered the concepts, you can start using that power to your advantage!

Knowing that you can affect not only others’ immediate moods, but also their lasting impression of you, you can have complete control over that impression!

Wouldn’t you like to be remembered, thought of, and talked about as someone happy, upbeat, and passionate? Think of the adjectives with which you’d like to be associated. Maybe they’re reliable, charismatic, friendly, nice, intelligent, or considerate. How do you want others to describe you?

Now it’s simple – just start acting out those words. It takes discipline to always “be on.” But just as I referenced in “How are you?” and “Fake it ’til you Make it,” you are in complete control of your personal brand. If you are lazy about building your brand, you create a sloppy, inconsistent image. Whereas if you show the discipline to behave in the manner you want to be perceived, you will eventually own those characteristics.

So, be mindful that how you behave affects others, and take that responsibility seriously. There are only three outcomes that can result from any given interaction:

1) You leave them feeling worse than when they met you
2) You leave them feeling better than when they met you
3) You make no impression on them

Which would you prefer?

Don’t keep Michael Jordan on the bench

Group assignments can be a challenge for college students. Your grade for the class is now in someone else’s hands, and most people do not react well when they feel that they have lost their sense of control over a situation. When your success is directly related to the actions of others, it can bring out the worst in you.

However, once you learn how to bring out the best in others, you will all succeed as a group!

One of my teachers once told me, “If you had Michael Jordan on your team, you would let him play! You wouldn’t keep him on the bench all game.” And she was, of course, correct. When you have talented teammates, as a leader, you should empower them to do what they do best. For your group work projects, bringing out the best in others requires three simple steps:

1) Identify the skills and passions of others in your team

2) Assign roles that match the person’s talents or interests

3) Don’t tell them how to do their job / Don’t micromanage

The first step is identifying the skills of your teammates. Everyone has something that they are good at or that they like doing. When you discover, for instance, who on your team is the creative thinker and who is the analytical thinker, you can then place those people in roles where they can flourish.

The second step is as follows: Once you have identified each person’s strengths and what they bring to the team, give them tasks that they can perform to the best of their ability. For example, the creative person might be great at brainstorming ideas, but lack the discipline to choose one single idea and iron out all the details. A more detail-oriented teammate might be a pro at developing an outline and filling in the missing spaces, but a nervous wreck when it comes to presenting. A third teammate, who is very outgoing and enthusiastic but seems to lose focus easily, might be a captivating presenter. If you assign these people to the right roles, you can see how the entire group will succeed with far less of a headache. Likewise, if you arbitrarily assign people to tasks such that their talents are not being used effectively, you waste time and energy and create unnecessary stress.

The third step is just stepping back and watching your well-oiled machine work. When you have identified people’s strengths and placed them in the right positions, you need to make them feel empowered to do their job their way. Sometimes, this can be the most difficult step, especially for the leader. It is difficult to trust people when you have a stake in the collective results! You need to first trust yourself and know that you have performed the first two steps well.

All right, what do you do when you get a dud on your team who seems to have no skills? I know that not every team is going to have prodigal members with useful core competencies. When this happens, I suggest you ask that person what they think they are good at. Everyone thinks that they have strengths in some area (whether you agree or not is a different story). Let them tell you how they feel they can best contribute, and see where it goes from there.

Much of this goes back to the idea of SYNERGY which I reference in an earlier post: 2 + 2 = 5. Look for the Michael Jordans on your team and let them shine! It is difficult to trust others and relinquish control, but you must find a way if you want to succeed as a team.

Have you ever felt like you were the Michael Jordan on your team and that your talents were wasted? How can you avoid letting that happen to others in the future?

Lunch, Nap, Vodka

Lunch, Nap, Vodka. These three words can be the answer to many questions posed to college students: What are your plans for the weekend? What are your hobbies? How do you spend your time? What activities are included in your perfect (sometimes typical) day? What are three words you would use to describe yourself? How would your friends describe you?

Quite possibly the three most important words to a college student. When all three occur in the same day, that is the day against all other days are measured for perfection in collegiate life. Lunch, Nap, Vodka is without a doubt the perfect combination of activities for a great day. A problem, however, occurs when “Lunch, Nap, Vodka” is your plan for everyday.

I have known far too many students who have had a Lunch, Nap, Vodka day and become addicted. While it is important to be able to relax and unwind every once in a while, you need to keep yourself busy enough to have a reason to de-stress.

The days of Lunch, Nap, Vodka are infinitely more rewarding when you know you have done something to deserve it!

The message I want to leave you with here is something like the old adage of “work before play.” Collegiate life can leave you with much more time than you know what to do with. My advice is to finish your work before you hit the bars or hit the snooze button. I know, that sounds like something your parents told you when you were younger: “You have to clean your room and do your homework before you can go to the movies with friends.”   The difference now is that you are not living under your parents’ roof, and you no longer need to follow their rules. You have an entirely new set of rules for how you live your life. Who makes the rules now? You do!

I suggest you take that responsibility seriously and make some rules for yourself, or at the very least some guidelines. I can remember my first Lunch, Nap, Vodka day – it was glorious! Wake up too late for breakfast or even brunch, eat something delicious, take a nap so you can rest up for the evening ahead, then go out and have a good time (any memory of those “good times” is optional). You wake up the next day and all you want to do is repeat the cycle.

College students who repeat the Lunch, Nap, Vodka cycle regularly, or even every day (and you all know someone who does), will not be as successful in the “Real World” as students who learn to abide by discipline and moderation early on. 

It’s a pretty simple and proven philosophy; now, all you need to do is decide whether you subscribe to it or not. What is your ruling on Lunch, Nap, Vodka days?