In her AuGuest post on Monday, Diana Antholis uses her experience in graduate school as a backdrop. Having never been to graduate school myself, I can't relate to this aspect of the post. Yet one of the reasons I liked this post so much is that the perspectives she provides in same are applicable to many situations in which one might find themselves overwhelmed, alone, or afraid.
For her it was graduate school. For you it may be a new job. Or you decision to move across the country, or start your own business. Whatever it is that made, or perhaps still makes you feel a bit paralyzed or afraid, let's take a look at the five things Diana mentioned which helped her "avoid insanity" while attending graduate school.
"I had to learn to learn to not become so emotionally involved in school."
Emotions are a wonderful, important and natural thing for a human being to experience. Unlike some success gurus of the current generation, I feel this includes anger, sadness, and fear. We mustn't punish ourselves for feeling emotions. Yet at the same time a large undertaking sometimes cannot proceed if we attach those understandable emotions to them and allow them to define the experience too much. Even when something is very important to us, there is a time and place for the emotion of said experience.
Consider emergency room doctors. Dedicated professionals who obvious have an intense passion for healing and medicine. But emotional investment in each patient, procedure and judgement call is impossible. Such people would be destroyed in short order. To best serve their passion, they must create a certain emotional distance on a day to day basis. Not become robots, but rather stage coach drivers. Holding the reigns and making sure the powerful horses go where they are supposed to go.
"I had to learn to create a balance between school and personal life."
I have learn from my previous conversations with Diana that she is an extrovert, and unless you are visiting Too XYZ for the very first time right now, you know that I am an introvert. Yet it is crucial for both types to maintain a personal life. Diana may have gone out on a Saturday night during grad school whereas I would probably visit a single family and talk for a few hours. Yet the point is we must remember that personal time. Maybe yours would entail swimming laps at the YMCA once a day, or reading a book all by yourself with your cats. Personal time is exactly that; personal. What it consists of is 100% up to you, but the key is you have to honor its value.
Some of the hardest people to get to know, some of the hardest to love are those who are always sacrificing personal time in pursuit of a degree, a job, a house. Or even a spouse. If we are investing so much in an endeavor that we become convinced there is no time to be had away from same, we have already become immersed too deeply. The old Chinese proverb says it is the space between the bars that holds the tiger in. In other words we can offer more to our mission when we remember there is more to our life other than the mission. We step away for a while and come back to it refreshed, and ready to tackle even more. The alternative is burning out, and that suits nobody.
"I had to stay calm."
"Keep calm and carry on" was a phrase on posters plastered all over London during World War II. An exquisite example of British simplicity and determination during some of the most trying time that nation has ever known, the phrase has recently made a bit of a pop-culture resurgence. Possibly it is nostalgia at work here, but I like to think that it is due to a slow but certain realization in our frenzied, uncertain, rapidly changing smart phone culture that remaining calm is more important than ever. Nothing can be accomplished from a state of panic. It may be part of our reptilian brain response to panic, but if we hope to get further than a reptile under attack would get, we must remember we are creatures of higher reasoning. We do this be keeping as calm as we can as often as possible.
You may not be facing the Luftwaffe, but it can feel like it when everything in your world feels like it is blowing up or falling apart around you. But if you keep calm and carry on you are far more likely to find either a solution to the problem, or an escape to another set of circumstances. Remaining calm reminds you that you are still alive, can still exert at least some control, and don't need to surrender to what appears at first to be chaos.
"I had to stay out of the drama."
I don't know if this one, or the previous admonition to stay calm is the most difficult for many of us. "Drama" in this context seems so seductive to so many people. I wonder why. Gossip, personal attacks, making a scene, going nuts. Squabbling. Backbiting and manipulation. Accusations. Even the best of us get sucked in to such a maelstrom at times. I theorize that being the center of such drama is a manifestation of a deep, latent desire for significance and attention we feel we lack. Participating in such drama from the outside I think is an indication that deep down we want to have influence on the world around us. I affect change, and not necessarily for the better.
Or maybe this is also a reptilian thing, and fighting and screaming is in our DNA. I only know this; that drama will happen. It too is a nature part of the human experience. Though some claim they "avoid drama" at all costs, I don't know how practical that is. Yet when we see drama we must be extra careful about becoming a part of it. It saps our energies, wastes our time, and, worse of all it has a bubble effect; when you find yourself in the midst of it your entire universe seems to be confined to the particulars of said drama. It becomes almost impossible to see, contemplate or engage in anything not connected with the drama. And if that happens, how do you move forward? How do you keep calm and carry on?
"I had to stay confident in my goals."
Forget trying to decide whether staying calm or staying out of the drama is more difficult. Staying confident in one's goals has both of them beat. I speak from personal experience.
There are so many expectations placed upon what we do with our time, our money, our talents. Even our love. These expectations come from convention, from society, from our churches, our friends, our families. Even from our television commercials. When we decide we have a goal, (or heaven forbid, a dream) that doesn't conform to any or all of these expectations, we hear about it right away. We here that it isn't traditional. That we need to settle. That the economy is too poor to start a business, or that we are getting too old to not be married. These sentiments can put us off of our personal vision for ourselves. Worse than that, it isolates us and makes us feel alone. All things are more difficult to accomplish when we feel we are alone.
Yet if we don't remain confident in our own goal in spite of all of that, nobody else can do it for us. Lack of focus on our own goals is a form of surrender to what other people determine about our lives. People who do no have the entire story, no matter how well they know us, or think they know the world. Goals change, yes, but that should only happen after deep introspection and revaluation based on what you truly want out of your life, as opposed to pressure from those who say it isn't feasible or goes against the status quo.
I hope I have demonstrated how Diana's approach to surviving graduate school is in reality a usable template for surviving most trials. What she did to keep her sanity in academia you and I can do to keep our sanity in our own lives.
Have you ever used any of these approaches? Would you add to this list? Tell me about it.
Showing posts with label college. Show all posts
Showing posts with label college. Show all posts
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Too XYZ Featured on Examiner.com
One of my previous posts, "College? Epic Fail" has been quoted by Sharalyn Hartwell in a piece she wrote for examiner.com. In it she comments on a recent survey, (conducted by COUNTRY Financial) about attitudes that the so called "millenials" are beginning to adopt in regards to higher education and it's expenses.
It's called "Millenials Question Value of College Education." It's a well written and concise piece. Please check it out.
It's called "Millenials Question Value of College Education." It's a well written and concise piece. Please check it out.
Friday, July 9, 2010
My Piece on IGrad.com
I was recently approached to write an article for Igrad.com. It got posted last night. You can find it here.
Igrad.com's slogan is "Your future...Our Focus." As it's title suggests it offer blogs, articles, (like mine) links and other such resources for the college student and recent graduate, but is valuable to anyone hoping to sharpen their professional image and knowledge.
My piece is about how living on a college campus is just one of the many ways that college actually postpones adulthood, as opposed to the commonly held belief that it is a stepping stone to same.
Check out the piece and the website. Let me know what you think of it, either here or over at Igrad. And while you are add it, go ahead and sign up as a member. It's free.
Igrad.com's slogan is "Your future...Our Focus." As it's title suggests it offer blogs, articles, (like mine) links and other such resources for the college student and recent graduate, but is valuable to anyone hoping to sharpen their professional image and knowledge.
My piece is about how living on a college campus is just one of the many ways that college actually postpones adulthood, as opposed to the commonly held belief that it is a stepping stone to same.
Check out the piece and the website. Let me know what you think of it, either here or over at Igrad. And while you are add it, go ahead and sign up as a member. It's free.
Monday, June 28, 2010
The Stigma of Frugality
Too many look for quick ways to judge the quality of something. The quality of people especially. They have a list to check off, and if something from that list is missing, they move on, whether it be blogs, music, jobs, applicants, or otherwise.
It's lazy.
Instead of investing the time to really understand what something or someone might offer, they want to follow some pre-conceived fad of a metric that has somehow garnered credibility. Often simply because that is the way it has always been. Or on the other side, because some guru blogs about it once or twice, somebody tweets that blog post, and 6 months later, bingo; a trend.
"Let me see here," says a hiring manager before making a decision. (Or a publisher. Or a Gen-Y blogger. Or you.) "Does it have this much talked about and cleverly named single quality which supposedly indicates a whole lot of information in an oh so subtle way? Nope, move on, nothing to see here."
There are many of these metrics. Almost none of them legitimate. I could, (and probably at some point will) dedicate entire posts to each of them. But for now let's talk about one such asinine metric: money invested.
This is a favorite of the lazy and short sighted. The argument being of course that proof of investing money is somehow proof of dedication. Of seriousness. Of quality. It may not surprise you to read that I have a few examples, followed by a total debunking.
To begin with, you don't have to leave this very website to find an example of what I am talking about. This blog is on Blogger. It has "blogspot" in it's URL, because I have not invested money in buying a domain name. So you find this blog at "www.tooxyz.BLOGSPOT.com.
Their response to this. (Believe me I have heard it multiple times.):
"Why would I ever waste my time reading the writings of someone that is too cheap to spring for a 10 dollar a month domain name? If he can't set aside 120 a year to create "TooXYZ.net", he must not be that concerned with the quality of his product. And if he isn't concerned about it, why should I be?"
My rebuttal:
I suppose you shouldn't be. Because the lazy,narrow-minded, sheep like conformist nature of your personality means you wouldn't get much out of what I would say anyway.
This blog has been featured many times on Brazen Careerist. Referenced on Twitter. Linked to. That doesn't happen with the snapping of a finger. And while I may not have 50,000 followers, (nor do I think that anybody who has those numbers really has that many dedicated readers), the traffic and comments I do get are because I think out what I am going to put on this blog. When I have ideas I write them down. I read other blogs. I spend time writing the posts, and editing them. I go through the effort of telling people I have posted.
In other words, I am dedicated to the quality of Too XYZ. I just don't express that dedication by paying a sum of money to buy a personalized domain name right now. Here, content is king. But nobody knows that if they see "no domain name" and assumes "no quality."
And even if I could set aside the money, I am not sure I would. You either like what I write, or you don't. But I am not going to buy a domain just to prove to you I deserve a chance. If you have read this blog more than once, taken the chance to get to know where I am coming from, and leave a few comments here and there, you already know this. And it is for that that I am grateful, because it means some effort has been taken.
Another example. Less personal but very prevalent today is renting a house as opposed to buying one.
Their response:
" It really makes no sense not to invest in a home. It is the American Dream, and you have to ask yourself what exactly it is people are afraid of who put off the ultimate statement in having grown up. What cord haven't they been willing to cut in order to own up and get a mortgage on something? Can a lifetime renter really be contributing that much, when they won't even put a down payment on home of their own? "
My rebuttal:
I actually don't have time for a full rebuttal on this one. Because there are somewhere in the area of a billion reasons why people don't want to buy a home. None of them relating to a fear of the so called "real world". Let's see, there are, shitty markets. Kids in college. Not enough money. A transient lifestyle. A lack of attachment to one location. An aversion to household repairs. A totally different definition of "The American Dream". (Which needs to be seriously redefined anyway.) All are possible reasons why people would rent instead of plunking down the larger some of money required to invest in owning a house.
But again, a truly probing, curious, conscientious person wouldn't care if a person rents or owns, beyond mere curiosity. If one isn't lazy, and looking for how close someone is to the Jones' as a metric by which to determine the worth of someone's contribution, one can see that the choice to rent is a choice born out of any number of factors. None of those factors need have anything to do with an unwillingness to invest. It may just be a preference. Someone's ambition then, shouldn't be measured by how much they spend on a house.
But of course, it is...
Let's turn now to education. College degrees, and even more so, college reputations are gatekeepers into society in some cases. You are in or you are out based on them. This of course is a crock for any number of reasons. (Read my recent highly controversial post to learn more on the potential uselessness of college.) But let's assume you do choose college. There are still plenty of lazy people who will judge the quality of your choice based on superficial factors.
And they go beyond the academic. People look at what you pay for the education as well. (Or what someone pays for it.) And if it is clear you didn't invest as much money in your education, there are assumptions made.
Their response:
" Community college is just high school with more parking, when you get down to it. The same with night school. You tend to get what you pay for, and let's face it, you aren't exactly paying a lot for the privilege of driving the 4 minutes from your parents' house to your local community college to take your two classes at a time. The truly ambitious, and those who want to be seen as taking their college education seriously will invest the money in a reputable and well known four year institution. Sure, debt will be involved, but it at least speaks more to your ambitions and dedication if you go 80,000 dollars in debt at an Ivy League school, then it does sending one Starbucks check at a time to pay for your community college associates degree."
My rebuttal:
I again refer everyone to my previous post, the one I linked to a few paragraphs ago, if you want to hear more about my overall views on college. But something I didn't say in that post which I will say in this one is this;
The strongest academic college experience I had was my year in community college.
Yes, I said it, and it is true. There was far less bullshit and a lot more learning and teaching going on at Frederick Community College than at the 4 year colleges I attended. I don't want to get into a discussion of community vs. four year colleges here. But the fact of the matter is that FCC was both the cheapest and the most useful college experience from a purely academic standpoint. It, like any college, had a lot of annoying crap that went a long with it, but I could go home each day and recoup from it. You can't do that at a four year school.
This all relates to this post because once again people take the lazy way out when it comes to community colleges. They see "community" in the title, and assume, since they are cheap, (or at least cheapER), that they must be a joke. Such people don't examine a catalog, talk to teachers, check out the library. Research into notable alumni. They just see a lack of huge monetary investment and assume a lack of quality. (Not taking the time to consider that part of the reason they are inexpensive is the fact that they leave out a lot of the extras of a four year.)
I could go on. And I almost did. The idea that community theatre must be crap because it's actors aren't paid. Or that a free concert in the park probably has lousy music. But you get the idea. The amount of money changing hands is not a reliable metric to determine the quality of something or someone.
Don't get me wrong here. Free/inexpensive things can suck. But expensive things can also suck. Dropping lots of money into something can certainly translate into an experience of the finest quality. Yet, a little research can yield high quality experiences that cost next to nothing, or nothing. It's all in how much effort you decide to put into understanding the nature of the person or the product.
Which in the end is my point. Put in the effort and find quality. Don't use "money invested" as a filter. You could be missing a lot of great stuff out there.
It's lazy.
Instead of investing the time to really understand what something or someone might offer, they want to follow some pre-conceived fad of a metric that has somehow garnered credibility. Often simply because that is the way it has always been. Or on the other side, because some guru blogs about it once or twice, somebody tweets that blog post, and 6 months later, bingo; a trend.
"Let me see here," says a hiring manager before making a decision. (Or a publisher. Or a Gen-Y blogger. Or you.) "Does it have this much talked about and cleverly named single quality which supposedly indicates a whole lot of information in an oh so subtle way? Nope, move on, nothing to see here."
There are many of these metrics. Almost none of them legitimate. I could, (and probably at some point will) dedicate entire posts to each of them. But for now let's talk about one such asinine metric: money invested.
This is a favorite of the lazy and short sighted. The argument being of course that proof of investing money is somehow proof of dedication. Of seriousness. Of quality. It may not surprise you to read that I have a few examples, followed by a total debunking.
To begin with, you don't have to leave this very website to find an example of what I am talking about. This blog is on Blogger. It has "blogspot" in it's URL, because I have not invested money in buying a domain name. So you find this blog at "www.tooxyz.BLOGSPOT.com.
Their response to this. (Believe me I have heard it multiple times.):
"Why would I ever waste my time reading the writings of someone that is too cheap to spring for a 10 dollar a month domain name? If he can't set aside 120 a year to create "TooXYZ.net", he must not be that concerned with the quality of his product. And if he isn't concerned about it, why should I be?"
My rebuttal:
I suppose you shouldn't be. Because the lazy,narrow-minded, sheep like conformist nature of your personality means you wouldn't get much out of what I would say anyway.
This blog has been featured many times on Brazen Careerist. Referenced on Twitter. Linked to. That doesn't happen with the snapping of a finger. And while I may not have 50,000 followers, (nor do I think that anybody who has those numbers really has that many dedicated readers), the traffic and comments I do get are because I think out what I am going to put on this blog. When I have ideas I write them down. I read other blogs. I spend time writing the posts, and editing them. I go through the effort of telling people I have posted.
In other words, I am dedicated to the quality of Too XYZ. I just don't express that dedication by paying a sum of money to buy a personalized domain name right now. Here, content is king. But nobody knows that if they see "no domain name" and assumes "no quality."
And even if I could set aside the money, I am not sure I would. You either like what I write, or you don't. But I am not going to buy a domain just to prove to you I deserve a chance. If you have read this blog more than once, taken the chance to get to know where I am coming from, and leave a few comments here and there, you already know this. And it is for that that I am grateful, because it means some effort has been taken.
Another example. Less personal but very prevalent today is renting a house as opposed to buying one.
Their response:
" It really makes no sense not to invest in a home. It is the American Dream, and you have to ask yourself what exactly it is people are afraid of who put off the ultimate statement in having grown up. What cord haven't they been willing to cut in order to own up and get a mortgage on something? Can a lifetime renter really be contributing that much, when they won't even put a down payment on home of their own? "
My rebuttal:
I actually don't have time for a full rebuttal on this one. Because there are somewhere in the area of a billion reasons why people don't want to buy a home. None of them relating to a fear of the so called "real world". Let's see, there are, shitty markets. Kids in college. Not enough money. A transient lifestyle. A lack of attachment to one location. An aversion to household repairs. A totally different definition of "The American Dream". (Which needs to be seriously redefined anyway.) All are possible reasons why people would rent instead of plunking down the larger some of money required to invest in owning a house.
But again, a truly probing, curious, conscientious person wouldn't care if a person rents or owns, beyond mere curiosity. If one isn't lazy, and looking for how close someone is to the Jones' as a metric by which to determine the worth of someone's contribution, one can see that the choice to rent is a choice born out of any number of factors. None of those factors need have anything to do with an unwillingness to invest. It may just be a preference. Someone's ambition then, shouldn't be measured by how much they spend on a house.
But of course, it is...
Let's turn now to education. College degrees, and even more so, college reputations are gatekeepers into society in some cases. You are in or you are out based on them. This of course is a crock for any number of reasons. (Read my recent highly controversial post to learn more on the potential uselessness of college.) But let's assume you do choose college. There are still plenty of lazy people who will judge the quality of your choice based on superficial factors.
And they go beyond the academic. People look at what you pay for the education as well. (Or what someone pays for it.) And if it is clear you didn't invest as much money in your education, there are assumptions made.
Their response:
" Community college is just high school with more parking, when you get down to it. The same with night school. You tend to get what you pay for, and let's face it, you aren't exactly paying a lot for the privilege of driving the 4 minutes from your parents' house to your local community college to take your two classes at a time. The truly ambitious, and those who want to be seen as taking their college education seriously will invest the money in a reputable and well known four year institution. Sure, debt will be involved, but it at least speaks more to your ambitions and dedication if you go 80,000 dollars in debt at an Ivy League school, then it does sending one Starbucks check at a time to pay for your community college associates degree."
My rebuttal:
I again refer everyone to my previous post, the one I linked to a few paragraphs ago, if you want to hear more about my overall views on college. But something I didn't say in that post which I will say in this one is this;
The strongest academic college experience I had was my year in community college.
Yes, I said it, and it is true. There was far less bullshit and a lot more learning and teaching going on at Frederick Community College than at the 4 year colleges I attended. I don't want to get into a discussion of community vs. four year colleges here. But the fact of the matter is that FCC was both the cheapest and the most useful college experience from a purely academic standpoint. It, like any college, had a lot of annoying crap that went a long with it, but I could go home each day and recoup from it. You can't do that at a four year school.
This all relates to this post because once again people take the lazy way out when it comes to community colleges. They see "community" in the title, and assume, since they are cheap, (or at least cheapER), that they must be a joke. Such people don't examine a catalog, talk to teachers, check out the library. Research into notable alumni. They just see a lack of huge monetary investment and assume a lack of quality. (Not taking the time to consider that part of the reason they are inexpensive is the fact that they leave out a lot of the extras of a four year.)
I could go on. And I almost did. The idea that community theatre must be crap because it's actors aren't paid. Or that a free concert in the park probably has lousy music. But you get the idea. The amount of money changing hands is not a reliable metric to determine the quality of something or someone.
Don't get me wrong here. Free/inexpensive things can suck. But expensive things can also suck. Dropping lots of money into something can certainly translate into an experience of the finest quality. Yet, a little research can yield high quality experiences that cost next to nothing, or nothing. It's all in how much effort you decide to put into understanding the nature of the person or the product.
Which in the end is my point. Put in the effort and find quality. Don't use "money invested" as a filter. You could be missing a lot of great stuff out there.
Monday, June 21, 2010
College? Epic Fail.
I have been exchanging messages recently on Brazen Careerist with Demetra Allen. (Find her website here.) We were both part of a thread about how going to college has helped everyone leverage their talents, and get to where they are today.
When I answered that it had not in any way helped me at all, she became very curious, because she had not encountered many people who responded in such a manner about their college education. She asked me if I might be willing to expound upon the issue. Not being able to do so within the character limits of a Brazen Careerist post, I opted to post a blog entry about it.
Yet where to start? When something fails to live up to so many expectations, and is so far off of the success curve of so many other people, it can become almost impossible to pinpoint all of the exact reasons. But I will make an effort to illustrate some of them through the use of broad categories. This isn't a thesis or a study, so the categories are informal. This is just me sharing some observations and thoughts with you, as always.
To begin with, let's talk about the degree itself.
The bachelor's degree in this country as a whole has been quite devalued over the last 30 years. I knew going into college I would never be able to walk up to my dream job, wave a diploma at them, get hired, and become rich and powerful. I was wise enough to avoid that delusion.
Yet I wasn't wise enough to realize that all of the time, expense, and work to get a degree might not ever open any doors. And it certainly did not for me. I thought that it would at least get my foot in the door of a mail room somewhere. Maybe a small cubicle on the first floor of someplace. Or at least get me some interviews.
I was given no full time job in 5 years of looking, and was granted only three interviews.
Having gone to a career counselor here and there, I was advised more than once to "hide the college experience." That when employers in my area see it they assume I am going to want more money than they can pay, and assume that my liberal arts background would make me restless and unwilling to sit down and do "real work".
As the years passed, the same advice was given because, "employers are going to wonder why someone with a degree has never been able to get a full time job."
So at first college was a drawback because I looked too smart. Later it was a drawback because I looked not smart enough. Same diploma.
Then of course many jobs advertise a need for people with a diploma. A diploma I did not have. A job I know I was perfectly capable of doing, but for which I was not qualified because I majored in the wrong thing. College graduation is not a reward in and of itself anymore.
So one reason college was a waste of time and money was the empty degree.
Another failure was the weak network.
I made friends in college. You almost have to. But that is just what they are. Friends. I don't want to get into a discussion of shallow friends and personal betrayals, but let's just say my friend pool from college was thinner than most. Even when friends bothered at all to keep in contact with me after college, they had no connections to any industry for which I would be qualified. Or they were going through similar post-collegiate employment difficulties. Or they all lived so far away that any connection they would have would prove to be of little use to me. Even if someone knows a guy who knows a guy in Oregon, what good would that do me in Maryland? Especially given that I had never made enough money to even think about moving to another state?
The career center at my college was not much more helpful. I went there once or twice before realizing they were not telling me anything I didn't already know. They would ask to see my resume, and advise ways to punch it up. They would offer, (though I declined) to give me a mock job interview and critique it. They would suggest things like, "Hmm, maybe if you look in the phone book under your interests and start making cold calls..."
Thanks! As obvious a tactic as that was, it was never going to happen. In other words, they had no personal connections to share with me. Half the point of a career center is to connect you with people that work with the college, or alumni of the same. But the only time the career center really had any thing to offer in that department was if you were looking for the corporate life. The business majors, or the PR people. Those looking to get into computer tech and that sort of thing. Want to get involved in community non-profits?
"Well, we don't really have anything like that at this time..."
Then there were the wonderful, life changing internships everybody always talks about. Lord how people love their internships. How they put them on the right path, and all that song and dance.
Not so much with mine.
It was a requirement for all political science students to have an internship. I figured I would go to my adviser, see the list of places with whom the college had relationships that led to previous internships before, and pick one that fit my style.
They basically had none. No relationships with businesses in town. My professor didn't know anybody. There was literally no sense of the college having established ANY community ties for internships. Nobody my professor could introduce me to. It really felt as though the department had never helped establish an internship before. It was as though students had always been 100% on their own in finding a connection and building an internship. I didn't know how to do that. I came to college because I didn't know how to do everything, after all.
It took over a year. A YEAR of looking for internships, with several falling through in my own home town during the summer. ("We really don't have anything an intern could learn here. We're such a small town.") Finally, I went with one of the few connections the college did have, which opened up locally near campus. An internship with the local Congressman's office.
This sounded exciting. Meet a Congressman maybe. Help people. Maybe get to go to some speeches.
The internship consisted of my sitting at a desk and cutting out newspaper articles that contained certain keywords. I would then fax them to another office where they would do all the interesting stuff with them. I would just cut and fax.
Halfway through the internship, the woman that ran the office started leaving early, letting me lock the place up. Most of the time I interned, I sat alone in an office, cutting newspaper. Never even met the Congressman.
Believe it or not, this didn't open any doors for me either. I didn't even bother leaving it on my resume for any more than two years after I graduated. What would be the point? Do you know how embarrassing it is to try to spin that into something worthwhile to a potential employer? I wasn't even buying it myself.
Alumni Association? There is one for my alma mater. But like the career center it caters to certain types of students. And they, like anybody else, want a proven track record and long resume before they will even touch you. It helps if you already know somebody important that you can leverage within the Alumni community, too. In other words, useless for someone like me.
Plus, as I mentioned in a previous post, no professor took any active interest in me. So I lacked the advantage of having a professor for a friend.
So college didn't exactly grow my network.
College is also not personal enough.
There are a lot of colleges out there, and I can't of course speak for every one of them. But based on what I have read, and what I have experienced myself, not enough of them are tailored to the specific needs of individual students. Yes, I know that is a favorite bit of copy included in virtually all advertisements put out by all colleges ("tailored to the individual student's needs") but in practice, nothing is tailored. Colleges of any size tend to subscribe to cookie cutter mentalities. They have declared, within their insulated sphere what an education is, and those who wish to stay on campus must conform to same. My college certainly did, and it was a disservice to me. I graduated, and did so with good grades, but only because it was the only game in town. That was the system. I bucked it a few times, and predictably only managed to piss off well ensconced and out of touch professors in the process. That "outside the box" thinking they were famous for was never to be applied to the college itself.
A truly personalized experience would allow any given student to form their own approach to what they want to do with their lives, and remain flexible as those goals change. Not free reign to be willy-nilly, but the freedom of a self exploratory education. With faculty that is focused on helping students find who and what they are, not digest the next exam's answers, promptly to be forgotten during spring break.
My college didn't make things personal in this manner, and I have realized, in the years since, that despite my dedication to my education, I didn't belong, and was not served by the standard educational model I just described.
That lack of a personal approach sort of dovetails into the final category. College failed to teach me how it really works.
Again, I wasn't naive, but I was caught off guard by how different jobs, job hunting, and leveraging my degree, (not to mention student loans and debt) worked after college, as opposed to how they appeared to work while there. Most colleges, not just mine, offer no training for what to do after college. There are no mandatory classes about networking, or job hunting, or debt control, or how to handle your loans. Being a business themselves, they avoid telling you how it really works, and instead let credit card companies harass you outside of the lunch line. (I didn't get one!) They have career centers that tell you what you already know, but nothing you WILL need to know. They laud heaps of praise on the importance of getting an education, and the prestige of getting it with them, but don't explain that such an advantage truly died off in the 1960's.
In other words, they are not preparing you for life. They are isolating you from it for four years. And while I knew that for the loftiest, prettiest claims this was true, I didn't realize it was true even for the most modest, every day, run of the mill claims, such as, "this will be useful to you when you get out there." It wasn't.
I could go on, but I really think the point is made. And I think that any other reasons I could think of pertaining to college's failure would basically fall within the four meta categories I laid out here; the weakness of a degree, a failure to make it personal, the lack of a built in network, and the failure to prepare students for any real life experiences.
Many people will suggest that really all it takes is the right attitude, and hard work to succeed, and that college is what you make of it. That may be true for some people at some colleges. And while I confess I may not have had the highest fire under my ass all the time in college, I will not succumb to the notion that the reason it did nothing for me was because I didn't want it enough. The fact of the matter is that college, as advertised and explained in this country today, is supposedly the place to go to become prepared to go out and do those things. It is the place where that fire is supposed to be set, not the place where you have to already be on fire from the get go in order to succeed on campus.
College isn't what it used to be. People like me need a place where we can be educated in ways that both suit us, and prepare us for what's ahead. We don't care about school spirit, the proximity to historical landmarks, or the famous people that went to this school before us. We care about learning. Learning in a way that will make it worth the time, money and energy in the end. Getting an education that will actually guide us towards success. Not education for the sake of having gone to college.
I don't know if any college really acts like that anymore, but that is what I needed, and did not get. And if nobody gets that from college anymore, the perception we have in this country of what college is should at least adapt to it's reality, so those who can be helped by it can go, and those who are Too XYZ can go elsewhere.
When I answered that it had not in any way helped me at all, she became very curious, because she had not encountered many people who responded in such a manner about their college education. She asked me if I might be willing to expound upon the issue. Not being able to do so within the character limits of a Brazen Careerist post, I opted to post a blog entry about it.
Yet where to start? When something fails to live up to so many expectations, and is so far off of the success curve of so many other people, it can become almost impossible to pinpoint all of the exact reasons. But I will make an effort to illustrate some of them through the use of broad categories. This isn't a thesis or a study, so the categories are informal. This is just me sharing some observations and thoughts with you, as always.
To begin with, let's talk about the degree itself.
The bachelor's degree in this country as a whole has been quite devalued over the last 30 years. I knew going into college I would never be able to walk up to my dream job, wave a diploma at them, get hired, and become rich and powerful. I was wise enough to avoid that delusion.
Yet I wasn't wise enough to realize that all of the time, expense, and work to get a degree might not ever open any doors. And it certainly did not for me. I thought that it would at least get my foot in the door of a mail room somewhere. Maybe a small cubicle on the first floor of someplace. Or at least get me some interviews.
I was given no full time job in 5 years of looking, and was granted only three interviews.
Having gone to a career counselor here and there, I was advised more than once to "hide the college experience." That when employers in my area see it they assume I am going to want more money than they can pay, and assume that my liberal arts background would make me restless and unwilling to sit down and do "real work".
As the years passed, the same advice was given because, "employers are going to wonder why someone with a degree has never been able to get a full time job."
So at first college was a drawback because I looked too smart. Later it was a drawback because I looked not smart enough. Same diploma.
Then of course many jobs advertise a need for people with a diploma. A diploma I did not have. A job I know I was perfectly capable of doing, but for which I was not qualified because I majored in the wrong thing. College graduation is not a reward in and of itself anymore.
So one reason college was a waste of time and money was the empty degree.
Another failure was the weak network.
I made friends in college. You almost have to. But that is just what they are. Friends. I don't want to get into a discussion of shallow friends and personal betrayals, but let's just say my friend pool from college was thinner than most. Even when friends bothered at all to keep in contact with me after college, they had no connections to any industry for which I would be qualified. Or they were going through similar post-collegiate employment difficulties. Or they all lived so far away that any connection they would have would prove to be of little use to me. Even if someone knows a guy who knows a guy in Oregon, what good would that do me in Maryland? Especially given that I had never made enough money to even think about moving to another state?
The career center at my college was not much more helpful. I went there once or twice before realizing they were not telling me anything I didn't already know. They would ask to see my resume, and advise ways to punch it up. They would offer, (though I declined) to give me a mock job interview and critique it. They would suggest things like, "Hmm, maybe if you look in the phone book under your interests and start making cold calls..."
Thanks! As obvious a tactic as that was, it was never going to happen. In other words, they had no personal connections to share with me. Half the point of a career center is to connect you with people that work with the college, or alumni of the same. But the only time the career center really had any thing to offer in that department was if you were looking for the corporate life. The business majors, or the PR people. Those looking to get into computer tech and that sort of thing. Want to get involved in community non-profits?
"Well, we don't really have anything like that at this time..."
Then there were the wonderful, life changing internships everybody always talks about. Lord how people love their internships. How they put them on the right path, and all that song and dance.
Not so much with mine.
It was a requirement for all political science students to have an internship. I figured I would go to my adviser, see the list of places with whom the college had relationships that led to previous internships before, and pick one that fit my style.
They basically had none. No relationships with businesses in town. My professor didn't know anybody. There was literally no sense of the college having established ANY community ties for internships. Nobody my professor could introduce me to. It really felt as though the department had never helped establish an internship before. It was as though students had always been 100% on their own in finding a connection and building an internship. I didn't know how to do that. I came to college because I didn't know how to do everything, after all.
It took over a year. A YEAR of looking for internships, with several falling through in my own home town during the summer. ("We really don't have anything an intern could learn here. We're such a small town.") Finally, I went with one of the few connections the college did have, which opened up locally near campus. An internship with the local Congressman's office.
This sounded exciting. Meet a Congressman maybe. Help people. Maybe get to go to some speeches.
The internship consisted of my sitting at a desk and cutting out newspaper articles that contained certain keywords. I would then fax them to another office where they would do all the interesting stuff with them. I would just cut and fax.
Halfway through the internship, the woman that ran the office started leaving early, letting me lock the place up. Most of the time I interned, I sat alone in an office, cutting newspaper. Never even met the Congressman.
Believe it or not, this didn't open any doors for me either. I didn't even bother leaving it on my resume for any more than two years after I graduated. What would be the point? Do you know how embarrassing it is to try to spin that into something worthwhile to a potential employer? I wasn't even buying it myself.
Alumni Association? There is one for my alma mater. But like the career center it caters to certain types of students. And they, like anybody else, want a proven track record and long resume before they will even touch you. It helps if you already know somebody important that you can leverage within the Alumni community, too. In other words, useless for someone like me.
Plus, as I mentioned in a previous post, no professor took any active interest in me. So I lacked the advantage of having a professor for a friend.
So college didn't exactly grow my network.
College is also not personal enough.
There are a lot of colleges out there, and I can't of course speak for every one of them. But based on what I have read, and what I have experienced myself, not enough of them are tailored to the specific needs of individual students. Yes, I know that is a favorite bit of copy included in virtually all advertisements put out by all colleges ("tailored to the individual student's needs") but in practice, nothing is tailored. Colleges of any size tend to subscribe to cookie cutter mentalities. They have declared, within their insulated sphere what an education is, and those who wish to stay on campus must conform to same. My college certainly did, and it was a disservice to me. I graduated, and did so with good grades, but only because it was the only game in town. That was the system. I bucked it a few times, and predictably only managed to piss off well ensconced and out of touch professors in the process. That "outside the box" thinking they were famous for was never to be applied to the college itself.
A truly personalized experience would allow any given student to form their own approach to what they want to do with their lives, and remain flexible as those goals change. Not free reign to be willy-nilly, but the freedom of a self exploratory education. With faculty that is focused on helping students find who and what they are, not digest the next exam's answers, promptly to be forgotten during spring break.
My college didn't make things personal in this manner, and I have realized, in the years since, that despite my dedication to my education, I didn't belong, and was not served by the standard educational model I just described.
That lack of a personal approach sort of dovetails into the final category. College failed to teach me how it really works.
Again, I wasn't naive, but I was caught off guard by how different jobs, job hunting, and leveraging my degree, (not to mention student loans and debt) worked after college, as opposed to how they appeared to work while there. Most colleges, not just mine, offer no training for what to do after college. There are no mandatory classes about networking, or job hunting, or debt control, or how to handle your loans. Being a business themselves, they avoid telling you how it really works, and instead let credit card companies harass you outside of the lunch line. (I didn't get one!) They have career centers that tell you what you already know, but nothing you WILL need to know. They laud heaps of praise on the importance of getting an education, and the prestige of getting it with them, but don't explain that such an advantage truly died off in the 1960's.
In other words, they are not preparing you for life. They are isolating you from it for four years. And while I knew that for the loftiest, prettiest claims this was true, I didn't realize it was true even for the most modest, every day, run of the mill claims, such as, "this will be useful to you when you get out there." It wasn't.
I could go on, but I really think the point is made. And I think that any other reasons I could think of pertaining to college's failure would basically fall within the four meta categories I laid out here; the weakness of a degree, a failure to make it personal, the lack of a built in network, and the failure to prepare students for any real life experiences.
Many people will suggest that really all it takes is the right attitude, and hard work to succeed, and that college is what you make of it. That may be true for some people at some colleges. And while I confess I may not have had the highest fire under my ass all the time in college, I will not succumb to the notion that the reason it did nothing for me was because I didn't want it enough. The fact of the matter is that college, as advertised and explained in this country today, is supposedly the place to go to become prepared to go out and do those things. It is the place where that fire is supposed to be set, not the place where you have to already be on fire from the get go in order to succeed on campus.
College isn't what it used to be. People like me need a place where we can be educated in ways that both suit us, and prepare us for what's ahead. We don't care about school spirit, the proximity to historical landmarks, or the famous people that went to this school before us. We care about learning. Learning in a way that will make it worth the time, money and energy in the end. Getting an education that will actually guide us towards success. Not education for the sake of having gone to college.
I don't know if any college really acts like that anymore, but that is what I needed, and did not get. And if nobody gets that from college anymore, the perception we have in this country of what college is should at least adapt to it's reality, so those who can be helped by it can go, and those who are Too XYZ can go elsewhere.
Friday, April 30, 2010
Who's Got That School Spirit?? Not Me. (A Featured Post on Brazen Careerist.)
In high school, I was voted the one with the most school spirit.
It was one of the greatest ironies of my life so far. I had no school spirit. I went to a terrible high school and took every chance to explain as much. To this day I am convinced that awarding me that superlative was a class joke on me, though I've never been sure who orchestrated it.
The point is, I've never understood the idea of school spirit. Not for it's own sake at least.
Starting from about 6th grade and continuing up through college, I had almost nothing of what they call school spirit, despite official pleas and efforts to establish same in the student bodies of which I was a member at any given time. My least favorite week of the year tended to be "Spirit Week", where everybody expressed their alleged school spirit by painting their faces, wearing school sweatshirts, or going to that most loathed of compulsory social events, (yes, we were MADE to go in high school) the Pep Rally. I never wanted to go to these damn things, and thankfully in college I could and did, opt out.
"But it's YOUR school," cheerleaders and even staff members would sometimes tell me. "That's YOUR team out there."
Is it? Does the win/loss record of the basketball team affect my personal reasons for getting an education in even the slightest ways? Does what I do in class in any way affect their game? No on both counts, so it is hardly "my" team. But back to school spirit.
There is much more to a school than a sports team. Yet pep rallies and school spirit are almost always centered around the sports. You hoot, clap and holler for all of the members of your school sports teams, whom you have not met, and probably will never talk to in most cases, while girls in short skirts shake things for them. And if you are a fan of sports, or do in fact know the team players, that's great for you.
Yet the cheerleaders, the athletes, and in most cases the staff and faculty would never be found at the opening nights of any of the school plays, or in the churches for the school choir concerts. Would they be moved to do so by a plea that, "It's YOUR chess team? It's YOUR debate club"? I am willing to bet in the negative in most cases.
Sports attendance in schools I think is merely the most convenient, public way for people to prove they are towing some kind of line. Which is why I think many staff and faculty members who haven't the least interest in sports end up at homecoming games and other major tournaments in such large numbers. And schools count on such a conflation between the excitement of sports events, and the overall quality of the entire school to distract people from actual pressing problems that are pertinent to the school's stated mission. Such distraction never worked for me.
But in the end it's not only about the sports favoritism that is inherent in almost all school spirit activities. I wouldn't fault a school for having an active athletic program, (so long as they are surpassed by the educational aspects of the school.) But for me to feel any kind of "spirit" for an institution, I need to feel that the whole is putting as much effort into my well being as I am putting into it. None of my schools ever did this, and I find it next to impossible to manufacture spirit ex nihlio for an institution that doesn't reciprocate the effort in anyway.
I was just a number whose problems were shoved aside, ignored, or mocked in some cases. Attempts to point out weaknesses with the system were met with censorship. Any attempts to innovate were squelched. Only half the time did the various staff members extend even an adequate level of energy to insure my educational experience was tolerable. At virtually no point did anybody go beyond their obligations to make my education memorable, even after repeated pleas from myself and others. It was, in most cases all about going along to get along, which a school, if nowhere else, should avoid. My schools didn't.
In short, my various schools never gave the slightest indication that they would bend over backwards to help students live better and learn more about becoming authentic citizens of the world. Yet most students still painted their faces, wore the sweatshirts, crafted the signs, and participated in all the requisite behavior that "school spirit" entailed. Even when I knew personally they were getting screwed by the administration in the exact same ways I was. Mind boggling then, mind boggling now.
"Think of all the school has given you," some former colleagues would say.
My response is that I never felt obligated to be grateful when my school managed to barely accomplish the very goals of a school; educating me. Something I paid them handsomely to do anyway.
I have heard the assertion that it does the individual good to show loyalty, (spirit) towards an institution of which they are a member, regardless of the circumstances. That the very act of expressing school spirit has positive effects for one's own spirit, and for one's reputation, within the institution. And there is no doubt that ass kissing gets certain people a certain distance. But I can't stomach it. Never could.Even if it is "just what you do" when you're a student.
In the end, I am not against school spirit as a concept. In fact one of my biggest regrets in life is that I never attended an educational institution that deserved my loyalty. I would love to know what it feels like to go whole hog in support of a community of which I am a member. I am astonished by people who continue to support their colleges decades after they graduate. Those who feel so moved by their experiences when a student that they go to the homecomings every year and visit their old dorm rooms. To have that much appreciation for a place is foreign to me. Probably why I am not a member of any alumni association. Probably why I have never been back to my college campus, and don't intend to go back anytime in the near future. The schools mean nothing to me now that I am gone. They barely meant anything when I was there. But not because I chose it to be that way. Rather, because I am no good at one way investments.
I like to hope that this lack of attention to students is not universal. That for me it was just a matter of bad luck that I always picked the wrong schools. Indeed, everytime I chose a school, literally, they announced some massive years long realignment plan that was designed to totally change or expand the school into something it was not. Perhaps if I had attended each of my schools in a time BEFORE they were struck with the notion to totally rebuild, I might have felt loyal to them. But it was not to be for me.
I hope that my children feel they can fall in love with their schools. It seems to be such a potent, rewarding feeling for so many that I envy in a way. Perhaps if I ever go to graduate school as an old man I can show school spirit for that.
But still no pep rallies. Too noisy.
Did/do you have sincere school spirit for your high school/college/grad school? Tell me about it. I want to know how it feels.
It was one of the greatest ironies of my life so far. I had no school spirit. I went to a terrible high school and took every chance to explain as much. To this day I am convinced that awarding me that superlative was a class joke on me, though I've never been sure who orchestrated it.
The point is, I've never understood the idea of school spirit. Not for it's own sake at least.
Starting from about 6th grade and continuing up through college, I had almost nothing of what they call school spirit, despite official pleas and efforts to establish same in the student bodies of which I was a member at any given time. My least favorite week of the year tended to be "Spirit Week", where everybody expressed their alleged school spirit by painting their faces, wearing school sweatshirts, or going to that most loathed of compulsory social events, (yes, we were MADE to go in high school) the Pep Rally. I never wanted to go to these damn things, and thankfully in college I could and did, opt out.
"But it's YOUR school," cheerleaders and even staff members would sometimes tell me. "That's YOUR team out there."
Is it? Does the win/loss record of the basketball team affect my personal reasons for getting an education in even the slightest ways? Does what I do in class in any way affect their game? No on both counts, so it is hardly "my" team. But back to school spirit.
There is much more to a school than a sports team. Yet pep rallies and school spirit are almost always centered around the sports. You hoot, clap and holler for all of the members of your school sports teams, whom you have not met, and probably will never talk to in most cases, while girls in short skirts shake things for them. And if you are a fan of sports, or do in fact know the team players, that's great for you.
Yet the cheerleaders, the athletes, and in most cases the staff and faculty would never be found at the opening nights of any of the school plays, or in the churches for the school choir concerts. Would they be moved to do so by a plea that, "It's YOUR chess team? It's YOUR debate club"? I am willing to bet in the negative in most cases.
Sports attendance in schools I think is merely the most convenient, public way for people to prove they are towing some kind of line. Which is why I think many staff and faculty members who haven't the least interest in sports end up at homecoming games and other major tournaments in such large numbers. And schools count on such a conflation between the excitement of sports events, and the overall quality of the entire school to distract people from actual pressing problems that are pertinent to the school's stated mission. Such distraction never worked for me.
But in the end it's not only about the sports favoritism that is inherent in almost all school spirit activities. I wouldn't fault a school for having an active athletic program, (so long as they are surpassed by the educational aspects of the school.) But for me to feel any kind of "spirit" for an institution, I need to feel that the whole is putting as much effort into my well being as I am putting into it. None of my schools ever did this, and I find it next to impossible to manufacture spirit ex nihlio for an institution that doesn't reciprocate the effort in anyway.
I was just a number whose problems were shoved aside, ignored, or mocked in some cases. Attempts to point out weaknesses with the system were met with censorship. Any attempts to innovate were squelched. Only half the time did the various staff members extend even an adequate level of energy to insure my educational experience was tolerable. At virtually no point did anybody go beyond their obligations to make my education memorable, even after repeated pleas from myself and others. It was, in most cases all about going along to get along, which a school, if nowhere else, should avoid. My schools didn't.
In short, my various schools never gave the slightest indication that they would bend over backwards to help students live better and learn more about becoming authentic citizens of the world. Yet most students still painted their faces, wore the sweatshirts, crafted the signs, and participated in all the requisite behavior that "school spirit" entailed. Even when I knew personally they were getting screwed by the administration in the exact same ways I was. Mind boggling then, mind boggling now.
"Think of all the school has given you," some former colleagues would say.
My response is that I never felt obligated to be grateful when my school managed to barely accomplish the very goals of a school; educating me. Something I paid them handsomely to do anyway.
I have heard the assertion that it does the individual good to show loyalty, (spirit) towards an institution of which they are a member, regardless of the circumstances. That the very act of expressing school spirit has positive effects for one's own spirit, and for one's reputation, within the institution. And there is no doubt that ass kissing gets certain people a certain distance. But I can't stomach it. Never could.Even if it is "just what you do" when you're a student.
In the end, I am not against school spirit as a concept. In fact one of my biggest regrets in life is that I never attended an educational institution that deserved my loyalty. I would love to know what it feels like to go whole hog in support of a community of which I am a member. I am astonished by people who continue to support their colleges decades after they graduate. Those who feel so moved by their experiences when a student that they go to the homecomings every year and visit their old dorm rooms. To have that much appreciation for a place is foreign to me. Probably why I am not a member of any alumni association. Probably why I have never been back to my college campus, and don't intend to go back anytime in the near future. The schools mean nothing to me now that I am gone. They barely meant anything when I was there. But not because I chose it to be that way. Rather, because I am no good at one way investments.
I like to hope that this lack of attention to students is not universal. That for me it was just a matter of bad luck that I always picked the wrong schools. Indeed, everytime I chose a school, literally, they announced some massive years long realignment plan that was designed to totally change or expand the school into something it was not. Perhaps if I had attended each of my schools in a time BEFORE they were struck with the notion to totally rebuild, I might have felt loyal to them. But it was not to be for me.
I hope that my children feel they can fall in love with their schools. It seems to be such a potent, rewarding feeling for so many that I envy in a way. Perhaps if I ever go to graduate school as an old man I can show school spirit for that.
But still no pep rallies. Too noisy.
Did/do you have sincere school spirit for your high school/college/grad school? Tell me about it. I want to know how it feels.
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