12 Comments
User's avatar
AReasonableMan's avatar

I was curious about this course, so I found it here: https://gufaculty360.georgetown.edu/s/course-catalog/a1oUH00000XKOeGYAX/badm110105?id=00336000014RXIUAA4

Here's the 'Section Specific Description':

Do you want to be the best? Why? And what does it take? Are your goals the right ones? Should you change the world or yourself? How would you know? This class investigates ambition from multiple angles. We’ll look practically at what it takes to succeed—skills like time management, dealing with people, and developing conscientiousness. But we’ll also critically examine ambition’s pitfalls: how it relates to the Dark Triad, why it leads some to lie or exploit others, and how chasing status becomes a zero-sum game. The goal is to help each of us become the best version of ourselves, in the best sense of “best.”

Mr. Ala's avatar

Frightful and, unless there is something here I totally don't understand, useless. It appears to be unpleasantness for its own sake.

You could just hit your big toe with a ball peen hammer. How did it make you feel? How did others react to you? Ask around among your friends and relatives as to how this affected their view of you. What did you learn about yourself? Will you keep doing it until you get better? What did you learn from pain and broken bone? Reflect: how hard was it to hit yourself with a hammer? Write a reflection about what this taught you.

Reader's avatar

Many of these sound terrifying! Those poor students! 😂

userLNGHAMH's avatar

This is the type of stuff you get paid to do, except in this case you're the one paying... what a terrifying world.

JOHN CHAMPAIGN's avatar

I asked three people who I kind of knew (Facebook friends, never met in person) to write a foreward to a non-fiction book I'd written. Each was an appropriate person to write this. All three said yes, then ghosted me and ignored subsequent messages =). Not sure exactly what take away I should have from that experience. Maybe that for most people it's easier to ignore someone than say no?

Mark's avatar

Ask me next time. I will give the task to Claude. - But sure, an excellent way to get rid of "fb-friends". Maybe even of a gf.

Dave92f1's avatar

Facebook friends are not real friends.

Mr. Ala's avatar

True, but real friends often act that way, too.

James Hudson's avatar

Fun stuff. But is this a course of study at a university?

John Palmer's avatar

A great set of thought (or real) experiments about trade offs, morality, and self-awareness. I would not want to do 4, 7, or 8 but thinking about them is still a good exercise.

Jari's avatar

I like this, if you had to add a couple more challenging ones which would you add?