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Participating in student government is another way to enhance your 'real world' skillset. You can get a lot of exposure to politics, bureaucracy, meetings and budgets in a relatively low-risk environment.
Another reason why I'm skeptical of the college system here. What exactly are they teaching you....and you're paying above inflation prices for that?
-College seems to really de emphasize "soft skills". Whether it's public speaking. Presentations. Creativity? Is that ever broached upon?
How about different personality types. Wouldn't that be useful to cover or analyze in a college class? What kinds of people are there in the world? How do you deal with them?
Very difficult to beat treachery and old fashioned backstabbing. But with experience you can learn.
Yes, agree. I think this reply answers the question best. College professors really cannot teach much about "real life" at corporations. I think relevant internships are the closest thing for learning to navigate the "real world" or some job experience for the student outside the hallowed walls of academia.
Yes, agree. I think this reply answers the question best. College professors really cannot teach much about "real life" at corporations. I think relevant internships are the closest thing for learning to navigate the "real world" or some job experience for the student outside the hallowed walls of academia.
I think internships are old sold as a way to get a feel for the corporate world. Pretty much every friend or relative I have were very disappointed in their Internship. They spent most of their time at the copy machine, filing, and doing research projects in a back cubical that was similar to the work they did in college. It would have been more helpful to be invited to executive meetings to see the senior managers snarl at each other and try to discredit their fellow managers. And then have their manager try to explain what happened.
I think internships are old sold as a way to get a feel for the corporate world. Pretty much every friend or relative I have were very disappointed in their Internship. They spent most of their time at the copy machine, filing, and doing research projects in a back cubical that was similar to the work they did in college. It would have been more helpful to be invited to executive meetings to see the senior managers snarl at each other and try to discredit their fellow managers. And then have their manager try to explain what happened.
Not all internships are created equally. We get one intern every summer where I work and they are fully integrated into staff and expected to WORK. Even if that is not the case, every internship is going to teach you SOMETHING about your future career even if it's the fact that yes, you do need to show up on time and how to interact with other workers.
I left college just full of enthusiasm, energy, drive and technical skills in my career.
But once I hit the corporate world I was caught flat footed. I didn't have a clue how tough it is to make it through the political minefield I have experienced. 45 Semester Hours in Business Administration classes and not one course really taught me how to survive in corporate America. What a shame!
If you read my other posting on the Employment Board about the difficulty I am facing getting the assistance of a tough "take no prisoners" Executive Senior VP, you see that my college training did not prepare me for the corporate rat race. How can college Business Administration Programs teach students the soft skills we really need to survive Corporate America?
Colleges can't teach students about the real world. The politics, the racism, the bull.sh.it, the favoritism, the attitudes, the backstabbing, the lies, the fraud, thievery, harassment, violence, and all the other "isms." All things one must learn on by oneself as those are not exactly scientific, pc or polite.
I left college just full of enthusiasm, energy, drive and technical skills in my career.
But once I hit the corporate world I was caught flat footed. I didn't have a clue how tough it is to make it through the political minefield I have experienced. 45 Semester Hours in Business Administration classes and not one course really taught me how to survive in corporate America. What a shame!
If you read my other posting on the Employment Board about the difficulty I am facing getting the assistance of a tough "take no prisoners" Executive Senior VP, you see that my college training did not prepare me for the corporate rat race. How can college Business Administration Programs teach students the soft skills we really need to survive Corporate America?
Outside of nursing and perhaps a few others, I honestly do not believe college can, nor will, teach you the realities of working in the "real" world. Academe is a very unique and peculiar culture.
Outside of nursing and perhaps a few others, I honestly do not believe college can, nor will, teach you the realities of working in the "real" world. Academe is a very unique and peculiar culture.
And we wonder why we are told to get a degree to have a better life and then when we get it wonder why we cannot get a job to have a better life...
If college is no where as relevant to most jobs (I would put finance and accounting in with nursing.) Others have some like engineering, computer science and computer information systems for instance.
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