For Students
Leadership Journaling
Structured self-reflection before your final paper isn't busywork — it's the work. Research from Haas shows students who journaled this way wrote their final papers with 23% less active time.
Why journaling before writing works
Pre-organized thinking
Journaling externalizes your thinking before the paper. You arrive at the final essay with your ideas already structured.
More efficient writing
Spring 2026 students wrote their final papers using 27% less total time—without any drop in grade quality.
Deeper specificity
Structured prompts push you past generic reflection. Journals coded for Spring showed higher specificity and course-concept integration.
Data from Jennifer Caleshu's Lecturer Teaching Fellows research, comparing Fall 2025 (n=217) and Spring 2026 (n=109) cohorts. See full findings →
"You will learn only what you do, not what someone else or something else does, no matter how beautifully that other agent does it."
Your Reflection Journal
Complete one entry for each of the three categories. You can return and complete them separately. These entries are saved privately and will help you write your final paper.
Looking Back
Explore your foundations
Guiding questions — respond to what resonates
Which people and experiences in your life have had the greatest impact on you? What are the moments when you say to yourself, "this is the real me"? What are your most deeply held values, where did they come from, and have they changed over time? How do your values inform your actions?
Be specific. Name real people and real moments. The more concrete, the more useful this will be when you write your final paper.
After you've completed all three
- 1
Read back through all three entries looking for recurring themes, values, or tensions.
- 2
Write your 3–4 page final paper synthesizing your journal entries with class concepts and the HBR readings.
- 3
The best papers go beyond the data you gathered—use storytelling, creativity, and genuine self-awareness.
Per the Spring 2026 assignment: submit your final essay via the Rumi tool in bCourses. Write directly in Rumi—do not draft in Google Docs and paste in.