My First Don Rag

Don-Rag :

The ultimate roast, courtesy of all your instructors.

Don Rag. The term is derived from the Oxford system. Traditionally, A Don is someone who is your mentor, an instructor of sorts. In the Oxford system about 100 years ago, each student would meet with their respective instructors (i.e. Don’s) individually. The student would sit quietly, and listen to their instructors discuss them in the third person, while getting “ragged” on about the instructors’ perceptions of the student as a learner. At that time, the rag was much more like a large roast, about how incapable a student was.

But Make School has decided to modernize the concept, and make the Don Rag a quarterly event where students can reflect on their progress from the eyes of their instructors, so that they can see what they can improve, and what the recommended next steps in their education and career are.

I honestly I had no idea what a Don Rag was up until I started attending Make School Product University. I was scared out of my mind for my Don Rag, literally thinking “Oh man, I am going to get royally roasted.” Little did I know that I was about to enter a room where I’d receive some of the most constructive feedback that would actually become the foundation of how I approach this next quarter of school that is essentially my life.

Now I won’t say much of what was said during my Don Rag, because it feels like a very personal 15 minutes of feedback. But I will tell you something said by Adam, my Product: Education instructor, that really stuck with me during my Don Rag.

He said:

“And you can think of Elon Musk. First you build PayPal, then build SpaceX and Tesla, you don’t build SpaceX and Tesla first. ”

Build something that matters.

Since hearing this, I have started strategically planning how I execute any project. As an aspiring software engineer, I’d rather build 1 really good thing that generates an impact, rather than 10 really okay things that together, generate little to no impact, and can’t completely solve the problem.

Do one thing, and do it well.

If there is anything I’ve learned from a Don Rag in general, that I feel the rest of the world would be incomplete without knowing, it's that a Don Rag isn’t just meant to point out all of the things a student isn’t doing well. It’s not intended to be a giant roast fest where your instructors smash your hopes and dreams into the ground. A Don Rag is a wake up moment, to tell you you’re capable, you’re doing great, but you can do better. You can always do better.