Preparing for college
This is the time where high school students are preparing for their graduation exams and parents are anxious about choosing schools for their children's education. About this time each year, I also receive many phone calls and e mails from friends and relatives asking advices for their children's college education. The most often asked question is why many college graduates could not find jobs. Almost everyone told me that they knew somebody who has college degree but still unemployed.
I explained to them that today a college degree is NOT a guarantee for jobs, especially in this fast changing market. The prospect of employment depends on the state of the economy, the job market, and the field of study. Today parents must understand these three factors and they need to discuss that with their children because college education is a major investment of time, money, and effort, and it must be planned carefully. Among these three factors, you cannot do much about the economy or the job market as these are not in your control but you can select the right fields of study and the right university and it requires some careful investigations. Selecting the wrong field or the wrong school could have devastating effect and hinder the career development of students in the future.
There is a research that survey sixty thousand college students who graduated from 2005 to 2010. The author asked these graduates a simple question: “Looking back to when you went to college, is there anything you would have done differently to be successful today?” The answers were unanimous: Over 72% of graduates said they would be much more careful about selecting the field of study as it determines their future. Many expressed regret that they did not know much about career planning or job market trends but followed a “False belief” that they can get good jobs just by having a college degree. About 68% of graduates said that they would focus more on getting an internship or summer jobs to gain work experience. 54% said that they would look for job earlier during their fourth year rather than wait until after graduation. 48% expressed that they would have taken additional technology or computer classes to prepare for a career rather than select easy classes. And 36% said that they would choose a different university if they know more about the education that they get from their own university.
The major regret among college students was their selection of field of study with more than 76 percent saying they wish they had chosen a different field of study. When asked, if they can choose it today what would it be? A majority of them answered: Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) with 62% said Information Technology or Computer Science.
The second regret among graduates (68 percent) was that they should thought more about internships and summer jobs to get experience rather than just spent the summer enjoying. Several expressed that when looking for jobs, most companies were asking for working experiences that they did not have. This seems accurate as industry data showed starting salaries for graduates who has some working experiences (intern or summer jobs) were about 15 percent higher than for people who did not.
About 54 percent of student mentioning that they should have been looking for job early during their last year in college. By waiting after graduation, they missed the opportunity. Several students said that most of the good jobs were taken by active students who found jobs early; even some were not as good as them.
About half of graduates (48 percent) said they wished they had taken additional computer and technology classes. Several students added that even they studied other fields but today information technology is in almost every field and without the technology knowledge, they could not compete with others who have the skills.
To some students and parents, most universities look the same as they all offer similar degrees and training. But in reality, there are top universities with well known faculty and training programs and average universities with lesser qualified faculty and poor training programs. Of course, it is not easy to know the difference unless there is benchmark comparison. In the U.S. most parents and students are relying on the reputation and the ranking of universities from sources such as the U.S News and World Report, Times or Forbes magazine's ranking. One of the key discriminator when selecting school is whether it has the most “Up to date” training programs and the number of graduates that found jobs relate to their field of study. For Computer science or Software engineering programs, one of the key factors is whether the school has Capstone project in the fourth year, where students are working on real projects given to them by outside companies.
Top schools in the U.S. (2013 ranking) http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities
Top computer schools (2013 ranking) http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-engineering-schools/computer-engineering-rankings
Top schools in the world (2013 ranking) http://www.usnews.com/education/worlds-best-universities-rankings/top-400-universities-in-the-world
Sources
- Blogs of Prof. John Vu, Carnegie Mellon University
