After the responses generated by Unengaged, I started thinking about additional resources that could have left me better equipped to begin life after college. We can bemoan apathetic students and the shortcomings of the university system all we want, but that energy would be better spent on developing and implementing a few simple ideas that would benefit both parties.
1. Career planning should start at college orientation.
Universities seem to assume that students attended a high school in which they were exposed to a wide range of career possibilities. In my high school, the “business” courses consisted of Keyboarding and Accounting (we did, however, have Small AND Large Animal Science). I’d never [knowingly] met anyone who worked in marketing in my life.
When I attended my orientation at UW-Madison, it seemed as though fully half of the students I met declared they were “pre-med” or “pre-law.” At the time, I felt I was bound for a career as an OB/GYN. I bumbled through my freshman year, still confident that I wanted to be in healthcare…until I encountered Organic Chemistry. It was a wake-up call, to put it mildly. I hated chemistry. And physics. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized that a career in healthcare really didn’t capitalize on any of my personal strengths, nor did it hold much appeal to me outside of a lucrative salary.
By commencing career planning before students begin their first day of class, universities would immediately reinforce the idea that college is a period of preparation for what’s next, not four years of papers, projects, and all-nighters. Students should complete a simple online personality test at orientation, like the MBTI. It’s short, painless, and the results could be shared with both students and their career office. Advisers would follow-up during the student’s first semester. Not only would this provide some concrete information to guide the adviser’s recommendations, it would get students thinking about how their personal strengths relate to their intended major…well before they’re in the last semester of their senior year and realize they have no idea what they’re going to do with a double major in Religious Studies and Global Cultures. I’m not advocating that students should immediately decide on a career path, but having a better sense of their unique abilities could encourage them to explore options they’d never considered. Compared to what I now know about myself, at 18 I had the self-awareness of a sea urchin, and could have used some direction.
2. Offer a general course in personal financial management.
Given that two-thirds of undergrads leave college with student loan debt (the average of which is $23,000) and have a median credit card debt of over $1,600, it goes without saying that we need to take control of our personal finances. We know this, and we’d like some guidance: 84% of undergraduates want more education regarding financial management
“Over half of 20-somethings don’t contribute to retirement accounts. Forty percent don’t even deposit money regularly in a savings account,” says Ramit Sethi, author of I Will Teach You To be Rich.
While we’re not alone in our lackadaisical saving habits (roughly half of all Baby Boomer households have little or no retirement savings), we’re set up to draw the short straw. Kimberly Palmer points out that Generation Y seems “…likely to pay higher taxes and perhaps receive lower benefits from these entitlement programs [Social Security and Medicare]. The Social Security trust fund, for example, is scheduled to run out in 2037. After that point, if no changes are made, there will only be enough money from tax revenue to pay about 75 cents for each dollar of scheduled benefits.”
When you’re confronted with a barrage of fund options for your 401(k), advice about Roth IRAs and factor in student loan payments, insurance co-pays and a milieu of other new financial responsibilities, it’s easy to go into system overload and put off financial planning. Our first real exposure to these instruments and other financial management tools shouldn’t come in the midst of a major transition.
3. Foster stronger relationships with recent alumni and emerging businesses.
Don’t sever ties with recent alumni and look to rekindle them 10 years down the road when nostalgia has kicked in and the paychecks are meatier. Recent grads have more to offer current students than can be accounted for by a financial contribution from an entry-level salary. We know what the job market is like. We sympathize. And we’re doing something about it – many of us are going out into the world and starting businesses on our own.
While many schools seem content to relegate their alumni to a directory containing minimal (and often outdated) information, the online career center of Williams College puts their alumni in the limelight. The center features a wide array of alumni profiles, encouraging students to establish contact with and seek guidance from those who have gone before them. Not only does it make the prospect of reaching out to a complete stranger less daunting, it illustrates that many graduates end up in a career entirely unrelated to their major, and shows how individuals have leveraged the skills (and not necessarily the specific knowledge) they acquired in college to establish a successful career.
It’s our responsibility to provide constructive feedback about the challenges of the college-to-career transition to our educational institutions, and to make the most of what they currently have in place. We can’t expect them to make significant investments in creating more programs if what is currently available is largely ignored. And, if we get what we ask for, we need to show up.
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What are your suggestions for improving the transition? Is there something that your university does particularly well that others could learn from?
