CLTP A Unique Program for A Unique School
As I sit here writing this blog, Founder’s Day has just finished up. When our founder, Roger Babson, created the school, he wanted Babson to be one of a kind. And that is most definitely true. Not only is the school unique in its process of educating the students, but programs that is offered to the students as well.
On Thursday Night I took part in the program CLTP. This acronym (almost everything at Babson is either abbreviated or put into an acronym) stands for, The Coaching for Leadership and Teamwork Program. Every Babson student will go through the program twice while attending here, first in their freshmen year while in FME and then during their Junior or Senior year. The goal of this program is to teach students what their strengths and weakness are in a team and leadership environment.
So instead of just telling you just about the program, I thought it would be fun to explain it as it took place for me! Let start from the beginning…
For this event we had to wear business attire (if you are a prospective student to Babson, be sure to invest in some business clothes. You WILL have to dress up at least once a month). As a girl this can be tricky since it always seems like you have a lot of clothes but NOTHING to wear! Anyway, a big reason on why we had to dress up is we would be interacting with professionals (mostly alums from Babson) so we had to look like we ourselves were professional. But more on the professionals later…
Once we got to the event, we had to sign in and have an orientation to the program. At the orientation we were all given room assignments around campus. I was put in Tomasso 102. Five people were assigned to the same room; these people were my team for the activity. Once in the room, the team was given three cases to read, discuss and figure out. These cases were cases that were somewhat controversial among the group and often had to do with ethical problems. As we worked on these cases we were being watched by adults.
These adults are called Coaches. They are professionals (the ones mentioned above) who had taking time to come to Babson and help the students. The range in backgrounds, but are all trained on what to do as a Coach. The coaches in my room ranged from having a science background, to being a professor. So like I said, they watched us as we performed the tasks. As they watched they took notes on various things (during the cases I had no clue what they were writing down). After the cases we learned who are personal coach was.
Each student is assigned a coach for the program; however as we did the activities we had no clue whose was whose. Our coaches even gave us the opportunity to guess and I totally guessed wrong. We were given a break from the activity and were given a time to meet up with our coaches again. During this break pretty much everyone went to Reynolds to eat. College students really enjoy eating. As we ate, the coaches of each room sat together in Knight Auditorium and talked about the students in their room.
Due to the weather, there were only four coaches in my room and my coach was paired with one other student besides me. I was supposed to go at 9:45 and the other girl was supposed to go at 9:30 but my lovely friends decided that we should get there really early (Like 9:00 early). When I got there my room’s coaches were all still talking together. But luckily when they finished, I was there when the other girl was not so I got to go first!
Now meeting with the coach was a really great thing. During the cases, the coaches were grading us on six different competencies: leadership, teamwork, decision making, listening, oral communications, and ethics. Recently in FME we learned that getting feedback is KEY. No matter what the situation or the job is knowing what your strengths and weaknesses are allows who to grow as a person. I received really great feedback from my coach and I really am thankful for this opportunity I was given. I learned so much the other night and I feel that by following the advice of my coach, I will become a better leader and teammate.
It is amazing that a small school like Babson is capable of having a program like this. But I think the main reason why it can, is since the alumni really care about the future of the school and the current students at it. Babson offers such amazing programs like this for their students, and I feel it shows how the school is staying with Roger Babson’s vision for the Babson.