Who Really Knows at 18 What They Want to Be?
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We go to college for four years and then get our diplomas and ask, what in world do I do next? We have these professors that are brilliant and have degree after degree after degree. So that makes them qualified to teach us a specific subject theory, but what about real work experience?
The day that we get into high school, it seems that everything is all about getting into college. All our parents and teachers talk about is getting the right grades so that we can get into the best schools. The day that we get into college it is all about choosing a major.
The thing is, who knows at 18 years old what they want for the rest of their lives?
I prided myself on being one of those 18 year olds. I wrote my entire college essay on how I knew that I wanted to go into Public Relations. So, when I got to college at Tulane University in New Orleans, I automatically declared a communications major.
In August 2005, just as I was about to start my sophomore year of college, Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans and I found myself back in New York attending community college. I had to put my major on hold and take basic liberal arts classes but I also was able to get an internship at a high-profile entertainment PR firm in New York City.
As I sat and read Star and OK magazines all day, waiting for things to be given to copy, I listened to the conversations the PR reps were having on the phone. I watched the tasks they had to complete everyday. I thought, this is what PR reps do? I decided, that was entertainment PR, it couldn’t all be like this. So I lined up another internship at an even larger corporate PR firm for the summer. As I made phone calls about upcoming land auctions and prepared reports on Land Use Moratoriums, (which is just as confusing and boring as it sounds) I thought, this is what these PR reps do? So I decided, maybe as an 18 year old, I really didn’t know what I wanted to do at all. To know what you want to do as a career, means really knowing what that career is all about. That, they can’t always teach in a college classroom.
I know I was lucky to have parents who encouraged me to get those internships early on in my college career. If not, I would be where most of my good friends are right now, looking for jobs in the only fields that they know exist; public relations, advertising, marketing, education and finance. Everyone else is in law school or medical school. When I say that I am in grad school, everyone always assumes it is for education and when I tell them I am in graduate school for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, they look at me like I have three heads. Because, who knows what that is?
We go to college for four years and then get our diplomas and ask, what in world do I do next? We have these professors that are brilliant and have degree after degree after degree. So that makes them qualified to teach us a specific subject theory, but what about real work experience? After all, real work experience is really what will get us jobs when we go on interviews! I learned about I/O Psychology when it was just one of the slides on a power point presentation in a psychology class. I had to do all of the research on the field myself. College is supposed to prepare us for a career in the future, but there are so many other careers out there that we never even discuss in a college course and really don’t know that they exist.
As an intern at Leviton, I am interning in Benefits and Compensation. The only reason that this job caught my eye was because it was part of the Human Resources department. I never knew that all of the jobs people have here existed. There are so many different parts to working in HR and having this internship has opened my eyes to that. This time, in a much better way than my previous PR internships have. Although my original goal was to work on the other side (human relations) of human resources, I have been given the opportunity to explore a whole other field. Most people in their job search are looking for a specific career. But why not look for open positions and let your career find you?
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Grad School Zone
UVA (Darden) MBA Admissions Deadlines for 2010-2011
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The University of Virginia's Darden School of Business recently published its application deadlines for the coming admissions season. Here they are, followed by our comments in italics:
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Great article Mara. It really is amazing how much emphasis and pressure is put on 18 year olds to find the perfect major which they are made to believe will lead them to the perfect job. At 18 I had more than one idea of what I wanted to do with my life and the only way I was able to weed out what was truly right for me was not by taking a bunch of college courses but by actually working in those fields. Books, television even personal sources will give you a distorted view of what your career interests really are like and the only way to know whats fluff and whats not is to actually get in there and do it for yourself. Like you stated, no amount of college courses or degrees replace or equal real world experience.
And I couldn't agree more with your idea of having a carpe diem attitude toward your career. You never know what might ultimately turn from a career to passion.
Wishing you much success at Leviton!
Here's an idea - don't go live on a campus at a 4-year university as soon as you get out of high school. Honestly, it's just four more years of prolonged adolescence and financial dependency on your parents. Drunk camp for rich kids. You may end up with a degree in something unemployable, or employable but something you hate, and you will be stuck with thousands of dollars of debt, which just limits the options you have in life.
Instead, live in a city with educational opportunities and get a full-time job. Get roommates, if you need to, but work, and then start taking college classes part-time. It will take you longer to get that four-year degree, but here's a secret - those kids who have four-year degrees at the age of 22 don't use them for a long time anyway. They will be getting the same entry-level jobs you will. You'll actually be ahead, because you will have several years of work experience and possibly your foot in the door at a company. They may even help you pay for some of that education. Plus, you'll be socializing with people you meet through work, of all ages, instead of a bunch of kids within a couple years of your own age. Your social life will be a lot more cool than drinking beer bongs at some frat party.
Well, everyone is different. Some careers are easier to learn about through college than others. I learned a lot of useful computer programming skills in college that helped me become a programmer when I graduated.
College also helped me grow up. WHen I first started I was a bit panicked because I had to actually PICK MY CLASSES! Gasp! You mean.. they don't tell you what classes you have to take, like high shcool? That was a big wake-up call.
And I had to learn to get myself out of bed in the morning and to class on time. And I had to remember to start those semester papers early and study for tests and do my homework because my parents weren't ther to bug me about it all the time.
I'm sorry, but the entry level job you get with a high-school diploma is NOTHING like the entry-level position you get as a college graduate. As a college graduate I got hired as a computer programmer. As a high-school graduate, I could have been hired to 'maybe' work in the mail-room of the same company, or clean the toilets. It would have taken me at least 4 years to get out of those positions, and I would have had to take classes after work anyway.
4 years of college isn't for everyone, but neither is it useless.
posted November 6, 2008 12:46 pm
Mara, I think a lot of people can relate to this blog post. I read once that 80% of college students change their major at least once, and on average, college students change their major three times over the course of their college career.
It's very hard to know what you want to do at 18, up until that age you were doing what your parents and teachers told you. It wasn't until after high school that I started to have a mind of my own and started working real jobs, learning about Corporate America and what I liked or disliked in a profession.
It's a great idea to have a job or internship while going to college. You can get a better understanding of the jobs that are available and what you may really want to do for the rest of your life. It's like food...you don't know what you like unless you try (taste)it. You also need to start building your resume for when it's time to interview.
I think everyone should get a college education. I know that tuition rates are sky high but I went to a community college my first two years and it only cost me $2,000.00 a year, which I was able to pay myself while working.
The problem is that people look at community colleges as another high school and it doesn't have the same prestige as a 4 year college, but I learned more at the community college than I ever learned at the 4 year college, and I had better professors. Everyone has to start somewhere. Just like your job.
Pirate Jo,
I appreciate your comment but I have to disagree. I don't think that college is "drunk camp for rich kids." I think that at 18 we still have a lot of growing up to do personally and professionally. Going to a 4 year college gives us that transition period that I think most of us need. A lot of universities offer credit for internships and make it very easy to get internships during the year or over the summer. I am not sure that jumping into the work force and taking classes later is the best idea. I think that we can do both at the same time and maximize our education. A college education is definitely necessary but it has to be supplemented with work experience.