Yes, I’ve seen this in the last decade. Kids want to get these uber high paying jobs but don’t really think about the competition or skills needed to obtain them. It’s odd to me when I hear kid wants to be something very specific but doesn’t often know details of the work involved or have the all important soft skills to fit into the field. To me, having a really narrow focus out of college is tough. What if you can’t get that specific job?
I guess some students might benefit from a “get comfortable with college” semester…(sorry, my words, not yours)…but I actually feel more students would benefit from getting exposure to their major, earlier rather than later.
My kids graduated from UIUC’s Gies College of Business. I think most business students benefited from immediate business-related instruction, guest speakers, mentors and group projects. Business 101 is a required freshman course on professional responsibility. The sections are led by upperclassmen and women. The early exposure on professional dress, communication and networking is an opportunity to see college as a place to explore your interests/major…instead of feeling like an extension of high school. I think it fosters a sense of community.
Is admittance by major perfect? No…of course not. There are late bloomers and those who are truly capable, but undecided when applying to schools, for whom this might be unfavorable. I feel for them, especially since transferring into the college sophomore year is not easy.
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Another thing I’ve seen is an unrealistic notion of what a “first job” is likely to be. We’ve interviewed too many college seniors who, while we’re discussing the very position they’re applying for, say that they want to be Project Manager. We then gently explain the sort of knowledge and experience one would need in our industry before they would be qualified for that role.
One particular candidate I’ll never forget. They brought in samples of a project they had done. It was related to one specific aspect of our work, and was nice enough but rather superficial and simplistic. After explaining their project they stated, and I quote, “Since I already know everything about XYZ, what else can your company offer me?”. They didn’t get the job.
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Those types of schools still exist. Notre Dame is one of them.
I don’t remember any 100 level business courses when I went to college. All Business Sophomores took Acctg, Finance, Mktg & Mgt both semesters. Then sometime that year you declared what area of business you wanted to take.
I agree 100%. We both hire. One of the most glaring things is the know-it-all ism found in many young kids. They don’t think they need to learn about the business and start from the bottom. Their salary expectations are also often very off base compared to their skills sets.
I think it tracks back to giving everyone a trophy for showing up. Went to a BBQ the other day and overheard my husband talking( really listening) to someone in their early 30s. The guys tone, and expectations around what he offers a company were so off base. Really, really off base.
My husband has 30 years in the field and didn’t say a thing. Meanwhile, he’s building a team right now in the specific area that guy wants to be in and it’s fully VC funded and backed by a lot of power players. It’s exciting stuff but that guy missed it due to his attitude. The person throwing the BBQ told the guy later who my husband was and what he does and the guy was embarrassed. My husband has been in lots of magazines and speaks at a lot at tech conferences. He’s very well known but very low key. Had he come up for air or to have a conversation, the guy might have landed a better position. Instead, he spent 1/2 hour bragging about himself. Those people don’t end up getting hired.
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If you mean colleges that do not admit by major and make it easy to change majors, lots of schools follow that model, including a large portion of the HYPSM… type privates that are frequently discussed on this forum. Wealthier privates are more likely to be able to accommodate however many students want to take pursue that major. Such colleges often have quadrupled CS enrollment or more in recent years and show regular swings in major enrollment from year to year depending on economy, current events, or whatever happens to be hot…
In contrast, other colleges, including many publics admit by major, make it difficult change major, have selective admission to major among matriculating students, etc. This can result in some interesting patterns in major switching. Some specific numbers from UCLA are below for the period from 2013:2018.
Computer Science at UCLA is a highly selective major. Nobody who is admitted to CS switches out, but many switch in.
- All 275 students who were admitted to CS graduated as CS majors
- An additional 512 students switched to CS from another major.
- 237 CS & Eng switched to CS
- 108 Elec Eng switched to CS
- 86 Undeclared switched to CS
In contrast at HYPSM… type colleges with less restricted major enrollment, lots of kids switch in and out of CS. It’s common. CS often has a fairly high attrition rate, possibly because a significant of portion of students avoid math-heavy classes.
I cannot speak on what is common at most schools, but one of the reasons Gies appealed to us is that by accepting so many AP credits (Econ/stats/calc etc) my kids were able to take classes in their eventual majors early. Besides BUS101 which is required I believe they both took a finance, business admin and an accounting class freshman year.
They graduated in 4 yrs, both took a semester abroad and double majored. I don’t want to brag, (they have friends who did the same thing) but I wanted to show that if kids are allowed to focus they can accomplish a lot. We’re very happy with the education they received.
I definitely know what you are talking about. Many elite schools limit AP credits. My D came to college with 47 credits. Some weren’t too useful. In the end she will double major and have two minors. So I know that game for sure.
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I saw their taking lots of AP courses in high school as a way to test their aptitude, capacity, interests etc…while at the same time utilizing their hard work to strategically plan/maximize their college experience.
Such application methods, or barriers to changing major later, are typically due to capacity limitations of the more popular majors. Very wealthy private colleges with relatively small total enrollments are less likely to have such capacity limitations. Less selective colleges are less likely to have such capacity limitations in engineering majors or CS, because the rigor of the course work “naturally” weeds out enough students at less selective colleges. However, nursing tends to be overloaded everywhere, with either competitive secondary admission, or direct admission that is more competitive than admission to the college, often with high college GPA weed-out policies.
But also note that, even if there are no capacity limitations on the majors at a given college, some majors require starting the prerequisite sequences in the first semester, so a student who is exploring but may be interested in (for example) an engineering major needs to stay on track with the engineering major courses in order to ensure on-time graduation if that is the eventually chosen major.
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@htas and @lettiriggi, I see the same thing in terms of entitlement, but have seen it for at least 10 and maybe 15 years. I work hard to find people who are a little humbler and recognize there is a lot to learn. I also find folks coming to my firm with good experience elsewhere think that they will be immediately good at what we do. It takes time.
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Yes, this is not an entirely recent phenomenon.
I do have some sympathy for the kids looking for their first job, which is why we try to be gentle when explaining our company’s reality. They don’t yet know what they don’t know. Though it would be nice if they reread the job description before the interview. In other words, we weren’t looking to hire a Project Manager. 
I have much less patience with arrogance, at any level of experience.
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Very helpful summary @nyc10023.
As I think I said earlier, I thought my job as a parent was to help give my kids the tools and mindset to be able to have productive, satisfying, meaningful adult lives. Part of that is about career and part about relationships.
I conveyed to them over the years something that I have since put into my talks on career choices. Most people spend that majority of their adult waking life working. Some folks just look at this as “I do a job for money and use that to fund my hobbies, retirement etc.” That may work well for some people, but as Thoreau said, “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation." I counseled my kids (and others) to think about how they would judge a successful work life (whether career, job or calling). In particular, I would think about looking back at age 60 or 70, how would you know you had a successful work life. I think looking back, I think one is successful if:
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One wakes up each morning excited about doing what one is going to do that day. As someone said, all jobs have crap in them. (I could live a long and happy life without doing another performance review). In the extreme, we have Doc Edgerton (MIT professor and inventor of strobe photography, I think), who said, “If you don’t wake up at three in the morning and want to do something, you’re wasting your time.”
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The world treats one well by however one defines being treated well. Different people will have different definitions that can include money, prestige, autonomy, having great colleagues, etc. Different career choices will likely change one’s perception of what it means to be treated well.
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One is good at what one does. It will be hard to meet the morning wake up test if you are not good at and confident about what you do. Depending upon the career path, it may be hard to be rewarded in that ways one desires, but in some, being decent is good enough.
Some people will focus on the intrinsic excitement and others on the extrinsic rewards (though having good colleagues and autonomy may be intrinsically valued as well). I tend to think that if someone plays to their strengths in an area where one can find meaning (e.g., I am exceedingly good, it turns out, at finding ways to reduce taxes legally but this is sort of a hobby and I would not find meaning in this as a career), one will find areas that will become exciting and about which one will have a kind of passion.
So, I suggested that they think about what they were good at (which isn’t always obvious at first) and then to play to their strengths in areas that felt like they could find meaning and in which they would find the rewards attractive. So far so good.
As to the person who said that passion fades over time in careers, that may depend. I don’t find it for me or many of my peers, who continue to be excited about what they do. But, I look at many of my corporate colleagues/friends, especially those who are CEOs or EVPs. They tend to be scheduled from 8 AM to 8 PM and then have excellent EAs who are trying to cram other 15 minute blocks for meetings on which decisions are needed immediately into a completely packed scheduled. They don’t have time to think and most of them are not unhappy retiring, although they prefer doing something (angel investing, mentoring, board memberships, etc.) to just playing golf and skiing (although they probably do that as well). In contrast, I have a lot more autonomy (and probably less money) but have no interest in stopping what I do.
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I remember when my kid was leaving high school, the school organized a session where they run a transition to college program for half a day. The kids were asked the question as to which of them anticipate being in the bottom half of the class. The three people that raised their hand were the val, sal, and the third person in the class. The rest of the class thought they’d be in the top half of the class. This is the Dunning-Kruger effect.
At the same time, I think humility perse is over rated. The lack of humility is not arrogance.
Hah, very interesting.
Off-topic a little but some have said above how hard it is to get kids to listen to advice, follow rules.
I am not free-range but I am far from being controlling.
Interesting anecdote from soon to be fresh"girl" - she found it rude that her classmates were unable to not look at their phones at a smallish thank you luncheon that their school had arranged. She thinks it was our influence! We have never allowed looking at phones at dinner table. One has to ask for permission to look up something if it moves the convo along.
I told her it was likely other things have rubbed off too but just don’t know what they are.
I think this could be one way to engage kids. Keep the messaging simple and consistent. The college and life guidance not as simple as cellphone etiquette, unfortunately!
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Were the three students who raised their hands all heading off to “reach” colleges, while the rest were all heading off to “safety” colleges?
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In my son’s case he wasn’t being unnecessarily modest. In his case he was going to Princeton, and thought that he was likely to go into Math as a possible major. Then it is more than reasonable that he will be below the median of the class. The math cohort is known to be exceptional. In college most kids move beyond these labels because many kids are each on their own path. The other two kids were going to Harvard and Yale.
I’m not quite sure what you mean by this statement. As for myself, I don’t think I’ve ever specifically sought out humility in a job candidate. But I do consider arrogant someone who walks into a job interview, for an entry level position no less, and says they already know everything there is to know about the job. It begs the question “why the heck are you applying for it then?”
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If someone knows what they are good at and what they are not, and behaves appropriately, they won’t come across as being “humble”. At the same time they are not arrogant. There is a neutral stance here that often gets ignored in discussions.