The professor pulled his notes from his pocket and began speaking. He started with all of the things a student should not do: work, focus on too many extracurriculars, or take classes outside the main curriculum. He ended with a heartfelt plea to study as much as possible, focusing intensely on one’s GPA and the CPA exam, excluding anything outside those narrow boundaries.
On stage with the other speakers, I fought to hold back a grimace – or even interrupt. He was a dedicated professor, giving nearly 30 years to the University and its students. And he just wanted them to succeed. There was only one problem. His advice was dead wrong.
I’ve hired graduates that took his advice literally. They can dissect a textbook with incredible ease, but struggle to apply the principles to real world situations. They can aptly recite the tax code and other granular facts, but aren’t sure when that fact applies. Most concerning, they often don’t know how to communicate with clients or peers.
Ten years after my own graduation and dozens of hires later, I decided to compile my own list of suggestions for college students.
- Get real-world experience, and pay attention. It doesn’t matter whether it’s in your field of study. In fact, it may be best if it’s not. Work as a server in a restaurant? Great, polish up your communication and selling skills. Pay attention to the trends in your average tickets, noticing which promotions work best.
- Travel. Develop an understanding of the world beyond your own backyard. Whether your journey is across town or around the world, focus on identifying natural assumptions that don’t stand up to the challenge. That increased awareness can lead to tremendous personal growth. And, if you enjoy learning languages, now would be a great time to do that too.
- Become interested – and interesting. View the plethora of student groups as a real-life passion test. Look into and visit several groups, particularly those outside your normal scope of activities. You never know what you’ll discover. (I was fascinated by a parkour group practicing at my daughter’s college last semester.) At a minimum, you’ll broaden the range of topics you’re familiar with. And you may even discover something you’ll want to devote your life to.
- Experiment with building a business. During this period in your life, you likely have the least to risk. In most cases, you don’t have a family to support or a mortgage to pay. Use that flexibility and low overhead to test out business ideas. Even if you don’t hit the grand slam like Dell, Gates, or Zuckerberg did, you’ll learn very valuable lessons along the way.
- Recognize that you live in a fishbowl. This doesn’t mean that you can never make a mistake or need to always worry about what’s online. But it does mean that you’ll leave digital footprints all around you. Share your experiences, live with integrity, and enjoy life.
What do you think? Did I miss any other critical advice for the college years?
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I’m still not convinced on the whole travel thing. Maybe that’s just because I hate it. BEING at new places can have it’s moments, but the going there always sucks.
@Jenny
I think that if you aren’t learning what you need to succeed in school (college or any other level), you aren’t taking the right approach. You go to school to learn how to think (and I don’t buy Seth Godin’s argument that school teaches you how to think a certain way) and to learn the facts that you need to know to succeed. Although facts are much maligned these days, let’s face it, you can’t be a successful geologist if you can’t identify a sedimentary rock, a successful java developer if you don’t know java, or successful writer if you can’t string together a well constructed sentence. Everything else needed to succeed can’t be learned, only developed.
@Roman
“some literature and philosophy I’ve studied in class has changed my perspective in dramatic and important ways! Though I rarely made it to the class discussion of them”
I think discussion is the most important part of education, at least in humanities-based courses as opposed to fact/science based courses like economics, physics, and statistics (although discussion has it’s place there because knowing a fact is almost useless if you don’t know how to use that fact). But in courses where its all about broadening or changing your prospective, why would you skip out on the part where you get to see others prospective of a shared experience?
And sure, grades are partially about doing something a certain way, but they are also about measuring your comprehension of a topic. Regardless of the subject, I recall a lot more and a lot better the content of courses I got A’s & B’s on than I do the ones I earned C’s or D’s.
Maybe even worse than not asking to what end are you working is knowing what that goal is, at least at first. That’s why you need varied experiences, to provide a fall-back. For several years, I had no doubt what I wanted in life – to teach. That was almost my entire focus, preparing to become a teacher. Until I started putting in time in front of a classroom. It turns out I am missing one critical trait, being able to maintain discipline. I dropped out of college for 5 years trying to figure out what I wanted to do if not teaching.
I completely agree. Growing up everybody place so much emphasis on getting a college degree, but the things you learn in college aren’t necessarily things that will help you succeed. I really think traveling allows you to find your passion and learn about yourself. Then, you can figure out what to do.
@Edward – Great article and comment, as always. Only thing I think the NYT article is missing is the entrepreneurial angle, but that’s certainly a bias on my part.
@Hugh – Love the Chris Guillebeau reference. He’s one of my mentors, and I absolutely agree on the alternative MBA approach. And I have a 12 year-old too, but trying to explain why normal isn’t the best choice is tougher than I would have expected. That is definitely my biggest challenge.
@Roman – Thanks for stopping by, my friend. Your philosophical questions definitely contributed to this post.
@Craig – Touche on the accounting part. That kind of creativity can definitely be a problem. 🙂 Thanks for the kind words.
Hi Kendra,
What a nice post. One problem with that class was that it was accounting 🙂 Thinking outside of the box in accounting got companies like Enron into trouble.
With that said, your advice is right. Students should experiment in college, take DIFFERENT courses, and explore different situations. If possible, they should trouble. If not possible, they should find a way to get someone else to pay for their travel!
They should try new things AND work at their studies. Sociology classes won’t give us a job, but they are hella interesting. They are actually helpful if we read the papers 🙂
Much love
CG
I like this post a lot, mainly because I share the attitude almost exactly. There are plenty of people who go to my university that are grade-hungry and won’t be very useful outside of a corner in a closet when they get out of here. But I’ve always been of the mind that education isn’t about A’s, B’s, and C’s, but about life experiences and relationships you build with people. Of course, academic knowledge shouldn’t be entirely shunned—some literature and philosophy I’ve studied in class has changed my perspective in dramatic and important ways! Though I rarely made it to the class discussion of them. The list also excites me because I’ve done all of those! Even experimented with a business (almost a few even).
I just think most students don’t ask themselves what their end goal is, what they’re even working for. What do they want out of life? They don’t know. The longer they stay swimming in the fish bowl, the less they have to think about it.
The Sunday NY Times published an Op-Ed piece on this topic.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/26/opinion/26gradstudents.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=ditch%20your%20laptop&st=Search
The basic gist of the article is that college students should experiment with different things – different groups, different friends, different dates – and explore the world and town around you outside of campus. Participate in research (maybe my biggest regret about college), take time to unplug, and relax!
This is an awesome post. I was the college student who strove to get an A on every paper, every exam, and every class. I didn’t get too involved with extracurriculars because I wanted to focus on my school work. I learned a lot and did very well in school, but…Seven years after graduating, I look back and a) don’t remember much of the material that I actually learned, and b) don’t care what my grades or GPA were.
Right now in my business I consider my most important skills to be (in order):
1. Ability to communicate effectively
2. Ability to see real problems, analyze them, and solve them
3. Knowledge of marketing. I find marketing and human persuasion fascinating and a never-ending study.
Related: I just finished reading Chris Guillebeau’s book, The Art of NonConformity. In it, he outlines a sort of “alternative MBA” process that is a heck of a lot more productive and less expensive than the traditional route. I highly recommend it.
In 20 years when my first kid goes off to college, I will urge him/her to follow advice such as you have outlined in this post and Chris has in his book.
OK, that’s enough rambling for one day!