Your undergraduate college experience is intended to prepare you for the “real” world. You supposedly acquire skills that will enable you to prosper in your future workplace and maintain decisiveness in the face of tough circumstances. We rarely come into contact with such decisions in a classroom setting, but for Boston University’s School of Management, tough decision-making has been integrated into the curriculum. According to an article published in The Daily Free Press today, the Organization Behavior 221 course includes an activity requiring students to select and rank hypothetical patients based on who was most worthy of a liver transplant. Students were given an activity packet that included race, gender, religion, names and personal biographies of patients. A patient may have children, different jobs and subscribe to different ideologies. Only some patients could be “awarded” a liver transplant, and it was the job of each student to rank their need.
Due to the emotional gravity of the situation, it is easy to assume the activity would be controversial. Having people’s lives in your hands and having to save them based on your own personal criteria could raise questions about whether or not you’re comfortable with how you make such a decision. Furthermore, it enlightens students on whether they feel they can exercise adequate decision-making skills under pressure. Whether you agree with the ethics of the exercise or not, it’s definitely a fascinating insight into bringing learning out of conventional comfort zones. Students who were interviewed about the exercise weren’t offended by it; instead they agreed it offered insight into what is required to make such an important decision, even if this one is imaginary.
Some may claim that decisions on a business operations level are nowhere near as serious as granting someone life or death. There are numerous other examples of class exercises that promote team building. However, there is no doubt many of us will be facing equally tough decisions in other fields at some point in our careers, or even in our lives as a whole. There is no correct answer to an activity of this nature, but evaluating hypothetical patients can be incredibly revealing about priorities both known and subconscious in real students.
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