Branches

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?