NOW TO MAKE
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DECISIONS...
ET US go over some of the ratters that will concern you uring your course of study, nd, indeed, for the rest of our career in transport.
Moral musings are no substine for the discipline of ict-finding when a matter omes to judgment. As you rogress in your career you will icreasingly be called upon to xercise your judgment. We annot decide according to our rishes, especially in examinaens!
The point at issue in any idgment is whether it is upported by facts. Good decion-making is impossible if you ave made up your mind before iarning the' facts necessary to n enlightened conclusion. You annot investigate searchingly a latter which is not openly xamined.
We must not be docile in the ice of facts. Every person has a ght to his opinion, but no one as a right to be wrong in his icts.
The difference is this: facts re subject to verification and till be the same no matter who uotes them, whereas opinion is private matter in the mind of a erson, and is not within the aach of proof.
So during your studies be areful and diligent in marshall-ig your facts. Transport tatistics should be carefully ssessed, and sources critically xamined.
lead widely
You must make the maxiurn use of all the libraries vailable to you — local, ollege, and, in some cases, rofessional institutes. They are laces where you go to take ounsel with all that have been use and great and good and lorious among the people who ave gone before you.
It is uplifting to sit down in a orner just being aware that -iese authors, with their accu-. lulated wisdom and knowlede, are waiting for you to open a onversation.
Reading a good book makes you feel warm and comfortable inside. Your mind is cultivating appreciation of the excellent. Therefore, read as widely as you can in your course subjects.
As time goes on through your course you will reach a stage of personal "take-off" where you will think things over, ponder on what you have studied, and begin to formulate your own ideas and judgments. This can be a most rewarding stage where confidence seeps in and you feel you are mastering the subjects.
Better results
At this stage marks for homework and tests should begin to improve.
You will be applying also your common sense, and, hopefully, improving it. According to Field Marshall Lord Slim it "is neither dramatic nor glamorous; it is merely rare." Make sure you have some and that you are among those rare people who are capable of adding practical sagacity to your knowledge.
The process for straight thinking was summarised by Stuart Chase in his Power of Words (1953) as follows: "Use warning signals: • etc, to remind us that some characteristics of the subject or event have been left out;