Got lonely waiting for all my students to come back so figured I’d post this little PSA. Thanks for lisrening to my TED Talk 😁 #student #dukestudents #professor #firstdayofschool #fdoc #betheweirdkid

On the very first day of my entrepreneurship class, I give all my students a $5 bill. I divide them into random groups and I send them out to spend the first hour getting coffee and meeting each other. The reason I do that isn't because I'm like the nicest teacher in the world. I do it because I've been teaching for 10 years and I've learned that classes that like each other, that enjoy seeing each other, end up working out so much better and everyone learns so much more than classes where nobody ever really knows each other. Now, you don't need a professor to do that for you. You can actually do it yourself and you do it by changing your behavior on the first day of the semester. Find someone you haven't met before, sit by that person and introduce yourself. When you do that, incredible things start to happen. First of all, you're gonna have more friends in the class. It's gonna be a better learning environment for you and for other people. Second, you have no idea who that person is going to become. Maybe 20 years from now, they become the CEO of some big company and they wind up giving you an incredible job. Maybe you fall in love and that becomes the person you marry. The point is, none of that can happen if you don't take time to get to know someone new. Walk in, be the weird kid, sit next to someone new, make a friend, you'll thank me for it later, I promise.