editing an FS

I don’t know where the two groups of students from Surigao del Sur State University [SDSSU] got the gumption to ask me to edit their feasibility study [FS] a week after they had defended it before a panel. All I know is that I agreed, which should put to rest the widely-shared perception that I’m expensive.

[Actually I am. But I’m open to negotiation. Hahahaha]

When asked who their instructor and defense panel were, the students mentioned names of former MBA students of mine in the same school. I could get lynched for this, but I’ve been teaching at the graduate school of SDSSU long enough to declare boldly that requiring masteral students to prepare even a barely passable FS is the height of academic sadism. In fact it’s like squeezing blood from stone!

Now: How could one require this from undergrad students?

First thing I did with the manuscripts was to write on the cover pages this line: “Edited as to form only.” It was intended for students so they would know the scope of my engagement. But in essence, it was a memo to myself not to commit an act of editorial ultra vires.

As far as the form and the substance [taken here separately] of the FS were concerned, I had zero expectation. But even if I was hired to improve readability only, I felt excited to know how the panel had torn the FS to pieces and what input they had given the students for revision.

Everything turned out to be wishful thinking on my part.

When I was done two days later---- I work fast, you know---all pages dripped with red ink one would think a contingent of girl scouts used the sheets after running out of sanitary napkins on the third day in the boondocks. Yes, it was that bad that if not for civility, I’d call it pure garbage. And so let me just use a cliché and say it was not worth the paper it was printed on.

Knowing myself, I expected the editing process to be an exercise in self-restraint. And true enough, I was itching the whole time to redo everything because the students had the contents all wrong, using grammar they had beaten black and blue.

A confession: I did edit the substance in one of the voluminous pages but caught myself in time to save the manuscript from total carnage. As penance, I prayed the Act of Contrition seven times and finished the job that day just before Noli de Castro boomed---Magandang Gabi, Bayan!

I shudder at the thought of how much these students had to spend for “ghost writing,” editing, printing, and honorarium, including meals and snacks of panel members just to produce a shamefully worthless document.

Why am I writing about this? Okay, listen. I may have the reputation of being stringent but I can be pragmatic, too. If I were the instructor, I wouldn’t require my students to submit a full-blown FS that they would defend before a panel at the end of the semester. Doing so would be to exhibit my insensitivity and cluelessness. Simply put: Why frustrate yourself by asking for the impossible?

Here’s what I will do instead: I will discuss thoroughly all sections of an FS and after every discussion I will make them write that section of their chosen FS in the vernacular; then I will critique their output and discuss with them areas for improvement. This is called hand-holding students and walking them through the whole learning experience.

The sorry outputs of students revealed this is not being done. Or, if at all, not effectively.

The dean can riddle my flabby carcass with bullets but I couldn’t care less if FS is one of the course requirements. I’ll be a happy and contented instructor if at the end of the semester my students possess an appreciation of FS and a working knowledge of its writing process.

I'm toying with the idea of sending the instructor, a former MBA student, a text message to volunteer as guest lecturer next semester to discuss with her students FS preparation in the most practical and effective way. Or maybe, just maybe, recommend to her to require students not FS but a simple business plan. After all, in the real business world, nobody prepares and uses an FS [or even a business plan for that matter] unless he's Henry Sy. Entrepreneurs nowadays rely so much on intestinal fortitude that children of a lesser god call guts.

Ask me for the difference between an FS and a business plan and I'll shoot you.