We all know the economy is changing at warp speed. The ten jobs most in demand in 2010 did not exist in 2004. Even those who had the opportunity to align themselves with this new economy — recent college graduates — are finding it tough going. Some 9% of them are unemployed.
A college degree has long been considered the best insurance for avoiding the unemployment line. And while college graduates are still much more likely to have a job in his current economy than anyone else, a bachelor’s degree alone is no longer a guarantee of a job anymore.
Too many bachelor’s degrees recipients these days are coming out of college lacking the foundational skills needed to succeed in today’s fast-paced work environment.
Why?
In the last decade, traditional colleges have turned the latest hot career field into their newest major as a way to attract students: sustainability, gaming, homeland security, and sports management, among dozens of others. Indeed, since 2000, the overall number of majors on college campuses has grown by 21 percent, according to the U.S. Education Department.
But by narrowly tailoring degrees, colleges—and in turn their graduates—have shortchanged the valuable skills that employers seek: communication (writing and oral), creativity, adaptability, and critical thinking. In a survey released just today, half of hiring managers polled by the Society for Human Resource Management said this year’s college graduates lack basic English skills in grammar and spelling.
Many of these “hot” majors demand very little in terms of intense writing and reading. One study that tracked about 2,000 college students found that among those who graduated on time, half took fewer than five courses their entire college career that required at least 20 pages of writing in an entire semester.
If you’re considering college or still in college and want to stay off the unemployment line, keep the following suggestions in mind as you register for classes. Even if you have a degree or are thinking about going back to school, these tips should still be useful:
Rigor matters.
Take the toughest classes and focus on them in a rigorous way. Students who have the greatest gains in critical thinking in college are the ones who challenge themselves. Math and science majors, for instance, do well on measures of critical thinking because they spend the most hours studying.
Deep writing and reading matters, too.
Most students avoid classes that require lots of reading and writing. Don’t shy away from such assignments. Look for classes that require you to read more than forty pages a week or write more than twenty pages over the course of an entire semester. Such deep experiences writing and reading improve your reading comprehension and communications skills, both important markers for employers.
A chance to debate.
Seek out courses that give you an opportunity to engage in debates and constantly test your critical-thinking skills with peers and professors. In the workplace, you’ll need to persuade someone to come to your side or argue against bad ideas.
Seek a research project.
Look for opportunities either at work, in college, or internships to work on a team that is researching a solution to a problem. Such experiences give you a chance to practice the skills above, work in teams, and most of all, learn how to fail because often your first answer is not the final solution.
Photo by soukup/flickr
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Jeffrey Selingo is editor at large at The Chronicle of Higher Education and author of College (Un)Bound: The Future of Higher Education and What It Means for Students.
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