What UChicago taught me best: Top 2 lessons that stuck

I got an “F” on the first paper I wrote as a first-year student at the University of Chicago. Believe me, it was a shock to my system.

I had been chosen to participate in a special course called “Liberal Arts One,” which was quite an honor. The assignment was to write a short essay explaining why a certain story had been included in a Greek history text. The professor had advised us to look into the text for the answer. I looked into the text and could find no mention of the reason for the story’s inclusion. So, I wrote something along the lines of, “The way to discover why an author has included a story is to look into the text. Since the author does not give us a reason, we cannot know why he included it.”

New word, top takeaway

Along with the failing grade, the professor included this comment: “You do not have to write your paper in the form of a syllogism.” Besides having to figure out what a syllogism was, the really important lesson from this experience was “don’t be a smart aleck.”

The second lesson came from this same course. Later in the semester, we were assigned to write a five-page paper on a topic I no longer remember. We got the paper back with some comments and were then instructed to rewrite it in three pages. You can probably guess where this is going. The next iteration was to write it in one page, and the final round was to write it in one paragraph. 

Learning to be brief

The paring down of this college paper taught me brevity. Years later when I wrote a newspaper column, I could tackle difficult and complex psychological topics in just a few sentences. When I write psychological assessment reports, I include a one-paragraph executive summary.

In business school, my fellow students sometimes brought me copies of incredibly long and detailed assessment reports they had received in their jobs. They asked me what they should do with the reports, and I recommended using them as doorstops. Privately, I wondered whether the report writers were charging by the ton!

My four years at UChicago were incredibly valuable to me in many ways. But just those two early lessons—don’t be a smart aleck and be brief—were worth the cost of my degree.

P.S. This post was about 50% longer before I tightened it up. 

If you want to learn how to communicate briefly and without being a smart aleck, get in touch with me at ggolden@gailgoldencosulting.com.