One of the big problems for the future of the work is the need to find our college graduates jobs. Right out of college it is very difficult to get a job especially if you had no internships or work experience during your college experience. Many employers believe that the graduates are not exactly ready for the work force, and that is most likely why they end up having trouble finding a job. More than half of the college graduates under the age of 25 are either unemployed or out of work. 48% of the college graduates that have a job are employed at places that only require less than a four years degree. What these people are doing before searching for a job is inadequate. What they all are doing is going to college, and it appears that college is not the best way to guarantee you a job anymore.
The way we fix this is by changing the college system so that it does better to prepare their students for job. One of the big things that people to do to improve their resume is take internships in their field of interest or get a job. Having this kind of experience in a job like setting would make the students more appealing to employers. To get students to acquire this experience, schools should make it a requirement that students get an internship. If schools had the requirement of an internship for graduations, many students would look much further ahead and start searching for this. To make this truly effective colleges would have to require their students to obtain a paid internship rather than an unpaid one. Normally, one would thinks that an unpaid internship is enough for one to get a job, but that is not the case. There is only a two percent increase in those offered a job between those have had an unpaid internship and those who did not. 63% of people with paid internships receive a job, which is 23% higher than those who have a regular internship. The colleges would not even need to do so much more than they do because they are already finding various internship opportunities for their students.
One of the bigger problems about college is the importance of tests. Tests tend to assess one’s test taking abilities and memorization. Students lack who in either of these skills start with a big disadvantage. On top of that, when these students go to work these skills will almost never come of use. Students would really benefit from various projects that are related to the class. While many classes do offer projects on occasion, the majority of a student’s grades are attained from a multitude of exams. Changing these projects will actually train students to take the things they learn in the classroom and apply them to an actual idea. This is what is usually done in a work like environment. Having these two changes in colleges could reduce the number of people out of work right out of college.
Sources:
http://deepexistence.com/how-school-trains-us-to-fail-in-the-real-world/
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/06/do-unpaid-internships-lead-to-jobs-not-for-college-students/276959/
I agree with your statements that internships are a huge factor in employment in the future. Everyone should get an internship but schools should do a better job in general for helping students acquire these internships. Schools currently just post openings but really anyone can randomly find a few common jobs and put them online. Schools need to attempt to accommodate internships for most of their students and not make it a free for all where students are competing against each other as well as the rest of the world. Currently, internships seem to be the deciding factor that separates people from the crowd so giving everyone internships will just force companies to find another, harder way to judge job candidates. A potential solution to alleviate this is for schools to hook up internships for say the top 20% of the class so education is valued and there is an incentive to go to college. Perhaps Macaulay should do something like this to reward scholars who attend and incentivize more people to attend to increase the reputation of the institute.
Shawn, I agree with you 100% in your last argument regarding the importance of tests. Neil deGrasse Tyson once tweeted, “When Students cheat on exams it’s because our School System values grades more than our Students value learning.” I find that as we progress through college, everyone is so caught up on a number that is seemingly lingering over our heads for four years. That number is known as a GPA. Students are willing to take cuts on knowledge in exchange for better letter grades. Midterms and finals don’t necessarily assess our knowledge of the subject but rather our ability to take a written exam. Through my own personal experience, I can say that when I’m forced to do a project related to topics learned in the classroom, I get a fuller understanding of that content. On the contrary, often times after I take a midterm or final exam, I have crammed so much that I forget the majority of what I had learned. If students were forced to do more projects related to their classes and majors, this would better prepare them for their future professions. This would allow students to become masters of applying learned knowledge to real-life scenarios.
I completely agree with your point that colleges focus too much on test grades. Students are too focused on improving their GPA to actually understand the material they are being tested on. The system favors people who are able to take tests well rather than those that can apply the knowledge in their field. This also leads to the rising problem of grade inflation where professors give out higher grades more easily to their students. Giving high grades doesn’t tackle the main problem that you also mention, lack of experience. Students are simply not prepared for the workplace because they didn’t have an internship or job throughout college relating to their field of study. Your idea of making people get an internship in order to graduate gives students that extra incentive to go above and beyond what they learn in the classroom and actually apply it in the real world. I feel like the ultimate solution would be to not force everyone to go to college when they are in high school. There are other options available such as trade school where people can hone their skills and still be successful in life.