Week 6, Chapter 17

The concept that stood out most to me from this chapter was Hirokawa and Gouran's "Four Functions of Effective Decision Making" (requisite functions). They are problem analysis, goal setting, identification of alternatives and evaluation of positive and negative consequences. I enjoyed reading about their experience of searching for the "perfect candidate". It made me think of my own experiences when it came to decision making.
For me, an important decision had to be made about where I wanted to move and go to school. I had quite a few options of where I could go to school so it was hard for me because I am so indecisive and impulsive. My analysis of the problem was that I could not go to the JC anymore because I graduated and it was time for a change, and to go to a four year institution. I know I wanted to go to a large city and a well respected school. Yet I also wanted a a sense of community feeling at the school because I knew I was going to live on campus.
My goal was to of course, work towards my B.A. But I also wanted to go to a school that had a good Social Sciences department, clubs on campus, and athletics. I had about seven options of where I wanted to go. At first, my heart was set on Mills College, an all women's private school in Oakland. Even though I was totally set on wanting to go there, I identified my alternatives and kept on exploring other CSU's. I made a list of pros and cons about Mills and realized that the cons about Mills stood out a lot. Yet Mills was 40k a year.. and I was not eligible for scholarships or financial aid. Also, it was a private school. If for some reason I did not like it, it would be very had for me to transfer to a CSU. So after evaluating the positive and negative characteristics about school, I realized that a CSU was for me and SJSU was a great school that could give me what I wanted. Even though it didn't seem appealing at first because my attention was focused somewhere else, I realized that it was the best school for me to go to.