Answers to Your College Questions

Far too many college students think that preparing for a career starts the second semester of their senior year with a trip to their career services office. Many others never even make use of this crucial campus resource, believing that good grades are all they need to get a job after graduation.

Although earning a high GPA in a major that suits your strengths and interests is a good start on the college-to-career pathway, in today’s tough economy, good grades are not enough. Here are some steps that you should be taking as early as your freshman year to ensure that your job search will be successful:

The New York Times recently published an article that follows the stories of three low-income students who, having participated in a college-readiness program and succeeded in being admitted to excellent colleges, were not able to make it through to graduation. These students dealt with issues ranging from feelings of insecurity and not fitting in the environment to financial hardship. Some of these struggles were intertwined.

It has been my experience that the issues of insecurity and not fitting in are detrimental to low-income, first-generation, and minority students entering college. They do not understand that asking questions is a sign of strength, not weakness. This seems especially true when the students do not yet know the language, rules, players, and customs that are key to navigating college life successfully. These students are afraid of being seen as deficient, so they do not take advantage of tools and resources—such as advisers, tutors, career counselors, and even faculty—that are there to support them, paid for by their tuition dollars. This also means that they don’t have the conversations they need to have regarding financial considerations, often causing them to wait until things are dire. College preparation for these students needs to teach them that these resources are available, that there are students like them who have dealt with these same feelings, issues, and concerns, and that utilizing these resources can help them succeed in college.

The first year of college can be overwhelming. First-year students are facing a lot of new things and are forced to separate from familiar territory. They have to make new friends, learn new spaces, live or hang out with different people, eat unfamiliar foods, discover new ways of learning, and follow new rules. That is a lot of new at one time.

Many studies show that freshman year is the time when students are most likely to drop out of college, and many consider transferring (though most don’t). There are various factors at play: many students are dealing with homesickness—missing friends, family, and the familiar—while others struggle academically or socially. But this is just a part of the college experience. Typically, by second semester, they surface just fine.

Today’s job market is a fast-changing, information and service-based environment. To thrive in this setting, companies have become less focused on finding employees with specialized expertise as they once were. Instead, they look for skills that are applicable to all areas of the workforce—particularly in critical thinking and communication. This means they typically hire good team players with excellent people skills who can learn quickly. Luckily, many areas of study will enable you to develop those skills.

For example, if you major in people-centered subjects—such as anthropology, sociology, or psychology, to name a few—you will learn quite a bit about human behavior. Studying human behavior will help you to build people skills that will be useful when collaborating with colleagues in the workplace.

Good grades are very important for your future, whether you decide to work after college or to go to graduate school. However, that does not mean you should be spending all of your time in the library. It is also important to balance your schedule with social and extracurricular activities that you enjoy.

First you need to be sure you understand the basis of the grade. Recheck the syllabus to see how the grades are determined.

First, you should understand that college training has a much greater significance today than it did earlier. More than a century ago, work most often involved physical labor. As the twentieth century progressed, however, more and more work became administrative or managerial, though physical skills were still in demand. Following World War II and in the 1950s in particular, as a bigger share of the population had access to free public high schools, workers developed skills more exclusively suited for office work. At present we are clearly in a service- and knowledge-based economy, where the skills developed through a college education are the ones driving both economical and personal growth.

But is now the right time for you to attend, and what schools might best suit your circumstances? Getting through college successfully may actually depend on your being at the right school in the first place. The College Board, the preeminent organization connecting students to colleges, lists nearly four thousand accredited colleges and universities. The options are nearly limitless. You should choose based on who you are and what is right for you (not on what your parents did or didn’t do, or what your friends are doing).

The term actually refers to colleges offering a degree in a course of study comprising the arts and humanities, natural sciences, and social sciences (which may not have direct vocational relevance).

The social sciences generally relate to the study of human experience, society, and social behavior. They include psychology, sociology, anthropology, history, political science, and economics (fields of study are sometimes called disciplines).