I’m going to need a little help on this one.
Recently, I registered with the Alumni for Public Schools, an organization that connects Chicago Public Schools with the volunteer arms of local college alumni clubs. I signed up on behalf of the Northwestern Alumni Club, a group that’s been hooked up with local heavyweight Lincoln Park High School. A couple weeks ago, they sent me my first mission: speak to the high school students as part of their career day. Or, as they’re calling it, “Meet Your Future—Career Motivation Morning.”
If I was in high school, and saw “Meet Your Future Day” on my calendar, and couldn’t find a way to fall down a flight of stairs or contract a 24-hour cold the night before, I’d use that morning’s commute to steel myself against the onslaught of irrelevance and banality that was about to fill my day. Which means that even if, as an invited presenter, you come with good intentions and possibly even a message chock full of meaning, you’re going to start off against the ropes and down a few points.
Despite all that, I said sure, I’d be happy to show up and play the part of the kids’ future. That was a couple weeks ago. Now it’s three days before C-Day, and I’m still stuck figuring out what to say. The invitation email encouraged a sort of theme: “The content of your twenty-minute informative/motivational/inspirational message should incorporate the value of post-secondary education and how a career unfolds.”
I’m assuming a few things:
- Dressing up as a Wal-Mart employee, prisoner, or cadaver will be looked upon unkindly.
- When they say “value,” they actually mean “positive value.”
- The bar for what stands for inspirational to high schoolers climbs ever higher, and a twenty-minute soliloquy by a computer nerd talking about his stirring rise from post-collegiate ASP programmer to 31-year-old PHP programmer isn’t likely to drive anyone to break out the SAT study guide over lunch.
- When they say “twenty minutes,” they don’t mean “four minutes on your job and sixteen minutes debating who’s the best ottoman humper.”
Right. So of course, college is valuable. Happy to preach it. And for most high school kids, especially those at the 47th-best high school in the country as rated by Newsweek, absolutely I’d recommend going to college if you’re the slightest bit interested. I’m just wondering how to make that message interesting to a class of high school seniors without talking down to them or telling them things they already know.
So I’m soliciting advice. What do you wish someone would have told you about college and careers when you were a senior?
Responses to “Career Day”
November 26th, 2007 at 11:35 am
Here are two possible tacks you could pursue in your presentation:
College is a chance to explore learning for pleasure. In most high schools, students are expected to follow a prescribed path. Rarely is a high school student given the chance to explore their academic interests. This leaves college as the first chance they have to really start exploring their interests without other concerns.
The corollary point to this argument is that locking oneself into a major early is unnecessary and counterproductive. There is no need to be afraid that a degree will lead to nothing.
While your professional career, for example, is tangentially connected to your CS degree, it is your freedom to move beyond and away from your academic background that seems to be the lesson of your experience.
College is about exposing oneself to as much as possible in and out of the classroom, not about aiming at a career. Yes one should study something like biology if one KNOWS that one wants to be a doctor, but this is the exception to the rule.
We all know literature, history, philosophy, politics, and anthropology students who’ve gone on to do a wide range of work seemingly unrelated to their undergraduate degrees. In my case, my background in politics, philosophy, history, and gender studies taught me how to think and articulate my ideas clearly. Few lessons are more valuable than that!
November 26th, 2007 at 11:44 am
1) If you know what you want to do in life, college will be good for you.
2) If you don’t know what you want to do in life, college will be good for you.
3) If number two is the case, pay attention to the things you like to do. Drawing leads to a career in graphic design, computer nerdery opens all kinds of doors, etc, etc.
4) You can leave college still unsure of what you’d like to do. I thought you were supposed to come firing out of college on a clear career trajectory, and then discovered that your mid-20s are perfect testing grounds for trying out new things.
November 26th, 2007 at 7:42 pm
Easy – ask them what they want to talk about. If they’re shy, you can give them a few topics.
-what college was really like
-how to prepare for the real world (have as many internships/jobs as possible! Your major matters for shit!)
-how much $$ different professions make
- why college is better than high school (freedom)
If I was in the class, I would want to know more about . . .
money.
I’m guessing these kids come from money and lead a nice lifestyle. I would ask them questions about what they know about making money. Tell them your salary. That’s never talked about, and kids love taboo shit. I wish someone had explained how you need a job to make money. It sounds stupid, but it’s true.
And tell them to never take early morning classes freshman year. BIG mistake. Good luck!
November 26th, 2007 at 11:02 pm
Best advice I’d give is actually what I’ve been trying to get my teenage cousin to understand – ultimately, the relationships you make with people are as (if not *more*) important to your career as your formal education. Especially given your current trajectory, you could give them a totally alternative “origin story” of your career that focuses entirely on the people you’ve met and how those relationships have influenced the opportunities available to you.
In short, networking networking networking.
No teenager thinks this is how the world works, and they’ll mostly think that this is “cheating” in some way, but ultimately this is the best lesson you could (at least try to) impart.
November 27th, 2007 at 8:03 pm
I think you should talk about your path to starting your own business. It would be inspirational for kids to hear that you can do it if you just take incentive and learn what you need to know, in order to get where you want.
You could highlight how education was important to you, and how it enabled you to teach yourself how to do things, and in doing so start your own business. I think it’s inspiring, especially for nerds or artsy types that may feel like there aren’t typical career paths out there for them.
Good luck! I’m sure you’ll be fine. You are a great storyteller/speaker.
November 18th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
[...] numbers. The second: money, money, money, just like Lilli predicted. When I told them I charged $5000 to make a website, their eyes lit up and I swear for a few [...]
November 26th, 2007 at 10:54 am
i got to job shadow a journalist once while i was in high school. college was a foregone conclusion for me, but what she talked about that got me excited about it was just how amazingly fun it was.
she talked about pranks, she talked about friends she’d made, she talked about how the academics & the degree were of course important, but she also talked about how the social lessons she learned in school really helped her to succeed in her career.
perhaps a bit off topic for you, but it’s just a thought. also, remember that time nikki & i wrote “toilet paper, 5 cents” on every square of a massive roll, and stuck it in the two-blue bathroom? i totally stole that idea from this woman.