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Do most people feel like college adequately prepared them for their career? I don't.
I majored in accounting at a top school and did REALLY well. I even got my masters in 1 extra year. Everything seemed to be going well until I actually started working and felt like I slammed into a brick wall. It turned out that I lacked some very important skills that were never tested in school. I know this could happen in many fields but I was surprised because accounting is such an academic profession that there shouldn't have been this massive skills/personality gap. I guess I can blame this on multiple-choice tests and term-papers, where I excelled.
After several years I've earned enough experience to side-step into more general management roles that are a better fit, but I still struggle.
Looking back I would have preferred some kind of screening-out exam where they told me from the beginning to major in anything else. Or at least have given us classwork that more accurately simulated what we'd really do on the job.
I received my degree in accounting as well. I went to a mid level school and did okay (around 3.0 GPA). I do feel that my studies prepared me fairly well for my career. Don't blame multiple choice tests or term papers (which I never did for any accounting class) as it's up to you actually understand the concepts you're being taught. If you do I don't see why you'd feel you ran into a "brick wall" when you first started working, unless you're talking about just getting used to working in an office environment and dealing with coworkers. Naturally your first job out of college will be a big adjustment. Sure, there are certain subjects that aren't covered as well during school as others (Ex. government accounting) but a lot of what I learned is from on the job training. Your education is just a backbone for you to build upon. For myself I have no complaints about what I learned in school. The biggest challenges for me was dealing with other people.
I started off in college studying one discipline, grew up a lot, expanded my mind, and switched to another. I deliberately chose a university with a good reputation for preparing students for this "new" career and that provided the coursework required to be eligible for entry level jobs in it.
College coursework laid the groundwork; the baseline knowledge you need to have walking in the door on your first day. That's what I expected, and that's what it provided. The jobs and their work got me further than that. No formal college education should or could teach you everything about a career, or about how well you will live within it. To expect that is ridiculous.
The most important skill you need to learn is how to use your brain and your innate abilities (that were hopefully in evidence before you hit a college campus) most effectively, and college may or may not provide that.
If you discover you are lacking in some critically necessary skills, get them. Your professional education doesn't stop just because you start getting a paycheck.
Last edited by Parnassia; 01-12-2020 at 06:20 PM..
University will never succeed about teaching the ins and outs of a job. To be fair, University isn't supposed to be set up to do this. It's supposed to build your learning skills, and ability to adapt. That's why historically many employers didn't care what you majored in, because they would just train you, and a degree showed you were smart and amenable. University still operates on this historical model. Whereas in the modern age, employers want you to major in a specific subject related to the job in question, as they expect University to provide the basic training. Universities don't do this, with maybe the exception for nursing, law school, medical school, and engineering.
In my field of the environmental quality industry, you generally have three general types of jobs: Scientist/mathematician, engineer, and policy/compliance. While my major did talk about this, I would say it mostly focused on the history of why certain Acts were created (Clean Water Act, CERCLA, Food Code, Superfund, etc.), and the science that supported the creation of those Acts. My major did not go into the science behind modern topics of discussion (for example the Safe Drinking Water Act has been studying and looking into PFAS regulation, Flint led to increasing regulation onto Lead and Copper, etc.) and how they get discovered tested and approved for regulation, and since we weren't an engineering major, didn't go into the engineering side of it. As someone on the policy and compliance side of things, I would have benefitted from my major classes focusing on different rules and regulations written in certain Acts and how they get translated into practice and enforcement. I would have benefitted in developing observational skills and being able to recognize violations. I would have benefited from focusing on different environmental components (food, water, air, land, etc.) and what private sector does in those industries to ensure compliance with current environmental regulations, learning the technical equipment behind those operations, and how State and Federal agencies work to develop practices to enforce those regulations while still working in cooperation with private industry. I would've benefitted from taking a class on learning how to read legalese and interpret it's enforcement.
I don't blame my major for this. My major gave me a qualification that got me in the door, and provided me the basic background of the field. My employer still trained me in how to conduct enforcement, and taught me practices that the public sector does in coordination with environmental quality acts. Now with these skills and internal knowledge I can go into the private sector and develop policies and how to always be in compliance, or I can stay in the public sector and develop better practices or maybe even help to develop regulations. Would I be better off if I got a head start on that? Yes, but I wasn't expecting this anyway.
There are no jobs that require no experience, except sales and Mcjobs. College/university does not help one get around the catch-22.
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It turned out that I lacked some very important skills that were never tested in school.
What skills were you apparently missing?
Each company has their own different accounting system, no college university can cover every accounting system out there.
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I guess I can blame this on multiple-choice tests and term-papers, where I excelled.
I don't recall writing term papers in my accounting program's major classes, and the only place multiple choice tests I saw in my program's major courses was in one auditing class. The rest had tests where you had to do actual work to find the answer - like math and reasoning.
Perhaps this was in your gen-ed and non-accounting classes - but you should have learned the basics of accounting in your degree program's major classes.
The goal of college isn't to prepare people for a career. A college education teaches the information and courses as listed in your degree program. That's it.
When you begin working, you will see what it takes to succeed in each individual job. No college can teach what is to be learned by actual living, working, and experience.
That's not a defect of education. You just had unrealistic expectations.
I got an Associate of Science in Fish Technology in 1979 and got a job working at a fish hatchery in Oregon in 1980. I turned that into a 31 year career, retiring in 2011. The school I went to in southern Idaho included a working fish hatchery and I learned a lot of basics about raising fish that served me well.
As important as technical job skills are, having a good attitude, getting along with co-workers and bosses is extremely important. You don't work in a vacuum unless you work in space! (Ha ha)
It depends on what you mean by "prepared for a career." College isn't supposed to prepare you to do a job. It gives you the fundamental knowledge to learn how to do a job. Basically it's a college degree is a license to learn. It's step 1, not the top of the learning ladder.
Do most people feel like college adequately prepared them for their career? I don't.
I majored in accounting at a top school and did REALLY well. I even got my masters in 1 extra year. Everything seemed to be going well until I actually started working and felt like I slammed into a brick wall. It turned out that I lacked some very important skills that were never tested in school. I know this could happen in many fields but I was surprised because accounting is such an academic profession that there shouldn't have been this massive skills/personality gap. I guess I can blame this on multiple-choice tests and term-papers, where I excelled.
After several years I've earned enough experience to side-step into more general management roles that are a better fit, but I still struggle.
Looking back I would have preferred some kind of screening-out exam where they told me from the beginning to major in anything else. Or at least have given us classwork that more accurately simulated what we'd really do on the job.
It definitely did for me.
I majored in accounting. Minored in IT. I'd not have the career I have been in for 35+ years if I did not have that education.
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