Such a loaded term, "success".

[flexagon]

Over at bluechromis's watching gymnastics last night, I found out that (for med school applications) she has to write a 1-page essay on "How will you evaluate your success as a doctor?"

I think it would be a really fascinating exercise to do the same for other careers that might happen to apply. For example, how will I evaluate my success as a software engineer? How do you evaluate yours? (At least 4 people on my friendslist are also software engineers.) How do you evaluate your success as a teacher? How do you evaluate your success as an admin? How do you evaluate your success as a copy editor?

Obviously these questions beg a lot of other questions, but that's part of why it would be interesting. I don't know if I could even DO it without going all meta. I think the word "success" is intrinsically linked to my favorite word in the English language, "enough". I also wonder if success as a whatever is worth anything at all, beyond the meaning we give it.

Comments

[a-kosmos.livejournal.com]

Interesting question. I am officially a section coordinator, but more specifically I am the coordinator for graduate student recruiting. My section seems to be in a state of flux, and I've been thinking about this a lot. Our enrollment has been consistently up.... that's good, but I know that isn't 100% the result of my efforts. I get nice letters from people (which I helpfully pass on to my deans...) I've helped.