In Chapter 9 Selingo discusses a very important skill that present day colleges don’t always teach to their students: cognitive abilities. Some examples of this would be problem solving ability or critical thinking skills. In other words, colleges need to do more than just prepare students for tests, they need to prepare them for real life experiences where solutions aren’t always very simple to find. Selingo therefore offers 4 activities that can “help develop the skills necessary to succeed in the workforce…” (149).
1) The first activity is to find passionate faculty members. Selingo quotes a couple of statistics that indicate that most students don’t have much of a relationship with a professor outside of class. However, he claims that “getting to know at least one faculty member well…improves the chances that students will get more from their college experience.” (150) Professors are knowledgeable and experienced people who could really offer advice that leads students in the right direction in school and in life. Many Georgetown students even told Selingo that a professor has had an important impact on their choice of a very crucial decision: their major. The potential issue that students may have with this activity is that professors can be more concerned with their own research than the development of one of their students. Therefore, it seems college kids may have to put in a lot of effort to find those professors who will aid them properly in their education.
2) The second activity that students should engage in is a research project. He claims that a proper research project can “[teach the student] a lot about themselves. about what they can do and what they can’t do.” (152) A successful research project shows potential employers that a student can write, reason and be successful. In other words, it gives students skills they will need for the workforce (i.e. critical thinking). Additionally, employers will notice these abilities in a student, leading to a greater chance of landing a decent job. David Lopatto, a psychology professor at Grinnell College, even believes that a research project can give students the feeling that they can better tolerate and overcome obstacles. In summary, a research project is something that can give students the kind of skills they need for the workforce.
3)The third activity Selingo recommends is to go on a “transformative global experience” (152). When students spends time abroad they can gain a better understanding of different cultures. “[They] take things in on a human level rather than the theoretical level of a class” (153). A positive experience abroad, argues Selingo, can even help students better understand global issues. This could make it easier for those students to help solve those issues once they become employed. The biggest obstacle students may face with this activity is a financial one. Study abroad trips can be very costly and not everyone has easy access to some kind of grant like we do at Macaulay. There are universities such as Duke that offer financial aid to students studying abroad, but overall many students from around the nation would struggle to pay for an overseas experience.
4) The fourth and final activity is to be creative, take risks and learn how to fail. An author, Daniel Pink, believes that the economy and society are moving away from the linear, logical attributes of the left brain and are instead moving towards the big-picture capabilities of the right brain. (154) He argues that colleges nowadays are turning students into vending machines for right answers without giving them a real ability to think for themselves or see the big-picture. He further argues that to truly be successful people need to be able to take a step back and recognize what life is throwing at them. This will allow them to be more successful in their careers. If colleges don’t give students these skills they will just be producing good test takers, but not good problem solvers. The way colleges can try to teach these skills would be to provide students with an environment where they can try to be creative and even fail without being penalized. Learning through doing or learning through failure or even learning through having fun is the most effective way students will gain the necessary skills for their careers.
However, it should be noted that present day colleges don’t seem fit to teach their students in this way. For a lot of people success in college is determined by high GPAs. When this is the case students do what it takes to get an A, but won’t necessarily learn any new skills that will be helpful later on in life. If colleges wish to truly benefit their students they’ll need to come up with some innovative measures to break students free from a focus only on GPAs.
The chapter also focused on how students should choose a major, Some of the students interviewed told Selingo that they wanted to pick a major that could lead them into a good job, while others claimed they didn’t really need any specific major since the economy is constantly changing. The latter group argues that all they really need is the ability to think critically, the skills set of a specific profession won’t matter as much. All they really need to do is major in what interests them. Richard Arum, the author of ‘Academically Adrift’, claims that “it doesn’t matter what these students focus on as long as they focus on it in a rigorous way.” (148) Once again Selingo returns to the importance of being able to creative and critical. However, this does prompt the question of how much his idea should apply. Some professions require a vast amount of textbook knowledge (doctors, accountants etc.). Critical thinking still matters to these professions, but to what extent can they forgo the opportunity to learn vital information in order to learn such a skill?
Overall students will be faced with many challenges in the future. However, if they truly want to gain the necessary skills and knowledge that will ne important in their careers they best be prepared to take on the appropriate challenges.
