September Enewsletter Responses

The following are responses to the Question of the Month in the September 2005 edition of What's New @NU:

What could Norwich do to better prepare its current and future students to be useful citizens?

  1. Every engineering student should take a class from Dr. Don Wallace. He taught me how to think.
  2. Every engineering student should take a statistics class. The idea that nothing should be left to chance is bogus. When everything is left to chance and the odds are known to be favorable you'll be more successful.
  3. Every student should learn how to volunteer. We learn to think, how to act and understand what to do as engineers and soldiers, but when you volunteer, you're more of a human.

~Bill Clark ’71

One class would have been helpful: Personal Finance and Financial Planning

Starting out with a plan, even if it is simply to pay your bills on time and build great credit, takes both discipline and a practical and attainable plan. Important things to consider include choice of city or town, career, type of housing, utility options, transportation, and countless other possibilities. Building your savings is also essential, and every dollar saved during the first years following graduation will likely increase 1600% by the time you retire. It isn't about how much you make, it is all about what you make of it.

Topics could include:

Getting and managing credit - finding the best rates and programs, borrowing for personal use like mortgages, vehicles, and high-dollar items.

Creating and maintaining a savings program, making it work for you when you wish to make a major purchase such as a home, investment options, diversification, portfolio management, and savings instruments.

Creating a lifestyle that fits your budget - prioritizing according to your interests, needs, and desires.

Housing and transportation options including commuting, renting versus purchasing, leasing versus buying, lease options, hidden costs, renters' issues

~Patrick Harmon ’71

My organization uses interns as a means to evaluate future employees. This has the effect of training students for real science & engineering positions in the Dept of the Navy. See http://www.awu.org/onr/ for further information. Norwich is the only Vermont institution that can participate.

~Jack Price ’76

I think for me a course on "Coping" would have been great. Just budgeting a pay check, paying bills, saving money in the bank, a basic economic course without the math formulas for non math people (so I would know how this great economy of ours works) and updating work skills on the outside once I graduated so I could stay employable was not something I ever thought about at Norwich. The real world was a huge shock to me. I thought as long as I had a diploma, everything would be fine, and it's not like that. It's a very competitive world.

~John Willis ’92

One possible answer is describe the organization and role of local government and the chance to be a good citizen soldier. Opportunities for serving at home exist in ones' own community as a member of a local municipal board or committee. Planning, zoning, and historic preservation are organizations made up of volunteer residents appointed by the elected officials and responsible for recommending how the home town is operated and controlled. A great place to be useful and apply the leadership skills taught at Norwich.

~Charles Topping, '54