Global Career Compass
Leveraging Education Abroad for Student Career Development & Employability
A Students’ Place in the World
In the cycle of life, it’s that time once again. Students are graduating from colleges and universities across the country and for many, the unanswered question is: Now what?
Shortly, NAFSA: Association of International Educators will conduct its annual international conference in Denver. And one of its major speakers is NY Times columnist, David Brooks. In thinking about graduation and what “place” lies ahead for millions of youths, I re-read his September 8, 2014 Times column, “Becoming a Real Person.”
Brooks references three different missions of the current university: commercial (preparing for work), cognitive (acquisition of information & knowledge), and moral purpose (building an integrated understanding of self). Of course, a week later, the Times published several letters to the editor from campuses around the country. The gist of these responses was that students should not have to choose one path over another.
A good follow-up to the Brooks column is an essay in the March 9, 2015 Chronicle of Higher Education by Lisa M. Dolling, “To Help Students Succeed Professionally and Personally, Teach the Art of Being Human.” Her essay discusses the “false dichotomies” which she sees behind the ongoing debate about the purpose of college – or perhaps the ROI – and she states:
“Either you believe the purpose of going to college is to be able to secure a (preferably high-paying) job, or you think there is something more intrinsically valuable to be gained from the years spent earning a degree. My question is: When did these become mutually exclusive?” Exactly.
And I’d circle back to what I usually focus on in this blog which centers on the value of international experience in the life of an undergraduate. And yes, how such experioence can add value to and become essential to a students’ employability as they seek entry into the workforce. The above value questions relate to this goal — as a co-curricular “activity,” study-service-or work abroad adds a dimension to a students’ life experience with unparalled potential for personal growth and development of critical skills and competencies. Such experience complements classroom learning and provides invaluable perspective to their studies.
Whether in the community around campus or in the wider world community, I’ve always believed that experiential learning provides a laboratory for students to test themselves, challenge their values, and learn how to become more adaptable and flexible colleagues and members of a community outside their comfort zone.
My advice to members of the Class of 2016? Keep challenging yourself. Keep communicating with your network of friends and mentors.Take risks as you move through your first jobs – be that person who says yes when there is a new task to be done. Travel if and when you can. Be persistent in your job search. It’s hard work. The search process can be very humbling and even humiliating. Stay with it. Rely upon the hard skills you developed in the classroom and those softer skills you honed outside in the community. You need both to succeed.
It will take awhile to “find your place.” Actually, that’s a given.
How Study Abroad Supports Graduate Employability
Well, it’s almost a year later since I wrote this post – and graduation time is upon many seniors. So I thought, why not re-blog this essay? The point stands: there’s no question that for that relatively small group of students who have studied-worked-served or interned abroad, the experience offers great value to enhance a students’ employability. So my advice is the same: campus academic/study abroad & career advisers need to get the word out to seniors —use your international experience to deepen your job profile. Figure out the best way to articulaste why and how your time abroad strengthened BOTH your soft & hard skill sets.
Higher education maven, Jeffrey Selingo, just published a new book: There Is Life Aftr College – What Parents and Students Should Know About Navigating School to Prepare for the Jobs of Tomorrow (Morrow). Unfortunately, the index does not include any reference to “study abroad” or “international.” BIG mistake. InternatIonal experience is one of the most important ways to prepare a student for navigating the global workplace that awaits…
The full essay appears in the AIFS study abroad advisor newsletter, International Perspectives: http://www.aifsabroad.com/pdf/perspectives_2015.pdf
We’ve recently witnessed a spate of new books authored by policy wonks which aim to re-examine the mission of the university in the United States and whether we need to “unbundle” how we educate students. Their titles are provocative, like The End of College, and they consider rising tuition and debt which burden large numbers of students and their families. Although we’ve left the worst of the recession behind us –especially with a sharp rebound in the unemployment figures which always favor job seekers with college diplomas – there is a lot of attention being given to new thinking regarding the linkage of higher education to the global workforce and the so-called “return on investment” of a college education. What does this challenge to the traditional value –and return on investment -of a college degree have…
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Making the most of opportunities
I had the pleasure of meeting Ms. Fakunle in DC as she was preparing to attend an international research conference. I’m re-blogging her post because it makes an important statement for international professionals – especially those unaccustomed to the value placed on networking by Western professionals – about “how far” they may need to stretch to build new connections. Rememmber that Robert Frost poem about the road not taken?
Might sound like a cliche, but I believe that good preparation precedes taking meaningful advantage of opportunities. And opportunities sometimes lurk at unexpected corners. My main point in this post is linked to recent experiences as a research student – an aspect of my life that I am always delighted to discuss – though that had not been the topic of most of my posts here on my personal blog.
Just over a month ago, I wrote an email to a mentor much admired from a distance until when I decided to at least contact this person. To my sheer delight and joy, I got a response followed by hugely beneficial advice on my research area and continuing exchange of correspondence. It was a first for me to communicate with an important figure in my field whom I had never met before – and what a priceless experience it’s turned…
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Elon University’s Purposeful Plan to Link Education Abroad & Student Career Development
I’m pleased to share this guest post by Kristen Aquilino, International Career Fellow in the Elon Student Professional Development Center.
Elon is one of the many campuses I cite in my publication for AIFS: “Campus Best Practices Supporting Education Abroad & Student Career Development (2014): http://www.aifsabroad.com/advisors/pdf/Tillman_AIFS_Campus_Best_Practices.pdf
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Elon University’s Strategic Plan highlights eight main priorities, each with ambitious key objectives. The first priority is “an unprecedented university commitment to diversity and global engagement.” This commitment calls for a holistic approach, and there are innovative efforts from across the university contributing to its growth and success. Elon truly engages from an “it takes a village” perspective. From offices such as International Admissions and ourKernodle Center for Service Learning and Community Engagement, to our National and International Fellowships Office and individual programs such as Periclean Scholars, there is no shortage of a team mentality when it comes to fulfilling this objective.
With the momentum of this university-wide charge, the Student Professional Development Center (SPDC) and the Global Education Center (GEC) have been working together to discover areas where we can harmonize efforts to better support our students in their career and professional development across study abroad and international student services. While we are just getting started with implementing collaborative projects, so far, we have focused on the following areas: website resources and databases, pre-departure and “unpacking” programing, vetting third party internship organizations, and general staff training and information sharing. As our website changes are currently underway, here are a couple of other collaborative highlights we have implemented over the past year…
We’ve taken a new approach to our re-entry and, in collaboration with NC State colleagues, are implementing a program called, “Understanding your Global Engagement Experience: Learning how to effectively communicate relevant experiences to employers.” This re-entry program is hosted by the SPDC career advisors alongside our Global Ambassador student team, within three different Schools at Elon (Arts & Sciences, Business and Communications). We are working together to prepare our career services team to work with globally-oriented students, helping them reflect on the skills they learned abroad and articulate them in an effective way. This is also an opportunity to support the work of the GEC in recognizing the importance of wider university participation in the re-entry process.
In addition, both offices are working together in learning about and vetting third party international internship organizations that express an interest in working with Elon students. There are many times that Elon will be contacted by organizations with which we are not familiar, or that an Elon student will find an organization independently and contact either office for advice. So, we are working on a way to streamline the process to use the professional expertise of the SPDC and the global experience expertise of the GEC.
We are excited about these developments among other shared tasks and responsibilities, and look forward to continuing to explore additional areas where we can better support our students by working together. We have learned so much from colleagues in the field, like Marty, and would appreciate any feedback that you have on these types of inter-office collaborations supporting students to integrate their international experience with their career development goals.
Write to Kristen at kaquilino@elon.edu
On the Mission of the University
And the debate continues…see this essay in the Chronicle of Higher Education: ” To Help Students Succeed, Professionally and Personally, teach the Art of Being Human” — http://chronicle.com/article/To-Help-Students-Succeed/228281/
When I attended grad school in the late 60s, the student protest movement against the Vietnam War largely pushed those of us interested in working in higher education administration to [re]examine the mission or purpose of the university. The draft meant that you HAD to think about why you were in college since it was literally a lottery as to whether or not you could graduate and start a career or see what was out there in the workforce -or go fight and perhaps die in Southeast Asia. Some choice to think about every night and day in your senior year…
Which leads me to the choices students face now which are not deeply existential (am I or am I not a conscientious objector to this particular war or all wars), but rather focused down on practical and pragmatic economic consequences (how am I to repay my $30-50-or more thousand…
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Closing the Expectation Gap Between Students & Employers
There are several important international education conferences held annually in the U.S., but, only one – will focus down on Career Integration and campus strategies for both employers & international education staff: details at http://careerintegration.org/
On the NAFSA: Association of International Educators blog page, I wrote: http://blog.nafsa.org/2015/04/24/closing-the-expectation-gap-between-students-employers/
Overview of results from a January 2015 survey by the Association of American Colleges & Universities pointing to need for all campuses to creatively innovate and create a campus culture fully integrating career development with curricular offerings and with co-curricular opportunities – like study abroad and international internships.
What is the purpose of a “higher”education in the 21st century?
A UK perspective, https://www.timeshighereducation.com/blog/its-time-rethink-what-social-mobility-means, by Graeme Atherton: head of AccessHE and director of the National Education Opportunities Network. His new book, The Success Paradox: why we need a holistic theory of social mobility, is published by Polity Press.
He writes:
“Concentrating solely on economic progression is pushing social mobility into a corner, and may be doing as much harm as good. Social mobility is in essence about what you think success is. The big issues that are coming to dominate the early 21st century are not compatible with a view of success that is cast purely in economic terms, which is what the present view of social mobility is doing so much to cultivate…”
Yes and no. Although written, obviously, with the UK’s current policy debates in mind, it made me think a bit about its application in the U.S.
I’ve written widely on the issue of linking international education experiences – especially study abroad- with student career development; and I’ve focused on research findings which show a high correlation between such experiences and graduate employability.
Of course, I’ve never meant to infer or imply that students must, in every case, only choose to go abroad solely with this instrumental outcome in mind and in the forefront of their decision-making…But, I do believe that campuses which place a high value on internationalization of their curriculum and co-curriculum (i.e. off campus international programs) – in fact, who purposefully integrate these two facets of the undergraduate experience – have an obligation to provide students with the resources needed to understand the value-added of such experiences as they transition to the workforce. This also means campus policy-makers need to support their international education and career service offices with the staff resources they need to properly advise students before they leave campus, while they are abroad and upon their return.
Students need all the tools and skills made possible through their undergraduate years to successfully enter the workforce (domestically or internationally). And while I strongly believe in the value of a liberal arts degree, many many students – especially those with limited family resources – have little time to lose when they graduate. They need to get a job; they need to earn an income to pay back the debt they’ve incurred.
I see nothing wrong -nor anything morally repugnent – if higher educstion leaders acknowledge their part in creating a campus culture which assists students to successfully navigate their way out of the classroom. The days of yore – whether in North America or Europe – when getting a degree, in and of itself, was the goal, are long long gone. Never to return (well, perhaps that will never change for any nation’s upper classes).
A vision of “higher” education in this century must include acceptance of the university or college’s role as an agent of social & economic mobility for all students – regardless of class or race or country of birth.
Intelligence is NOT Enough
And now, after Brussels…we may be at a loss for words, but, the need to act remains for all of us in the field of international education. How do we re-define what we do as peacemakers? As educators who strive to open a window on the world for all students – and to not build a wall to hide them from the realities of the moment. And since most Americans abroad for study are in Europe, we need to be courageous in holding fast to our educational values, while at the same time, being realistic about threats to the safety of our students. This is no easy task. There are no easy answers.
I’m going to try to pull together my thoughts this day following on the horrific attacks in Paris.
I’ve been an international educator for over 40 years. I’ve had to make sense of 60s student protests, the Vietnam War, the assasinations of two Kennedy brothers, of M.L King, of the murders of Israeli athletes in Munich, of two intifadas, of apartheid, of 9-11, of the deaths in Iraq & Afghanistan, of a sniper randomly killing citizens in Washington,DC and the suburbs, of the murders of children and college students, of police brutality –and now, of the murder of innocents in Paris.
And I’m feeling tired of all this killing and death. Of all the words in print and on TV and radio trying to think it through – to explain why. To rationally analyze our way out of the fog of unbearable loss of life.
And so I was drawn back…
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Global Career Compass 