College students notoriously have overwhelming schedules. Many balance going to school full time, having part-or full-time employment, living on their own, and maintaining relationships. In the whirlwind of the college lifestyle, students can lose sight of how college should support and propel their career, and instead become only focused on grades and graduation day.

Many college students are lining up internships for the summer months or the coming semester. Some college graduates are also getting internships to further their professional experience after college and possibly get their foot in the door in careers and fields they have recently narrowed to match their interests and abilities.

An estimated fifty-percent of college grads in 2008 held an internship,¹Â and the number has only grown since the beginning of the recession.  Unpaid internships have received bad press in the last few years because some companies have taken advantage of interns, asking them to work late at night or run errands to get coffee for staff members.  These isolated situations don’t take into account the many companies who provide valuable experience for interns, often helping them to gain enough experience to land their first job. The payment issue with interns is a mixed bag. Many companies aren’t willing to take a risk to pay someone they consider unskilled and yet many students can’t get a job and improve their skills unless they have “experience”.

Internships provide students, graduates, and professionals with experience they can only get through being on the job. This experience can solidify their passion for the field or company. It can also do the opposite, and show them they might be ill-suited for the “idea” of their perfect job or that they have skills that are better fit for another field altogether.  Whether the experience is a good fit or a bad fit for their career, most internships teach students something about the team dynamics, leadership, and levels of responsibility they require to be effective in any career.

At LifeBound, we have interns who are referred to us from local universities who are managed and monitored by their university’s internship coordinators. These students receive grades and school credit for their professional experience. Many interns have found a part or full time position after graduation at our company. We’ve also had interns who came to us thinking they wanted an editorial career, for example, who in a few different instances found their real passions in marketing or film. The “wrong” internship turned out to be just as valuable, if not more, for these students as they were given the chance to explore their interests in a professional environment for the first time.

The school year is coming to an end, and that means some students will be advancing to another grade, others will be going into college, and others will be graduating into the workforce. Whether you are a student, educator, or parent, there is one word that can help you and yours make a successful transition into the summer and the new year: grit.

Grit is the follow-through we all need to succeed. Professionals need grit to get through a busy week at the office, take classes on the side to improve their skills, network with those who can help them, volunteer for worthy  causes, look for a new job, and find balance in life.  Students need it to find the intrinsic motivation to keep studying, deal with friends, stand up to bullies, keep going in the face of disappointments, defy the odds, and follow their dreams.

Kim Gilmer, Esq., recalls her days of training for a triathlon in her article “Getting Grit.” She invested hours into running, cycling, and swimming to fulfill her goal of completing a triahlon, and in the end, she had many bumps and bruises, but her biggest transformation came from pushing her boundaries, both physically and mentally.

In Kim’s triathlon example, her journey of getting to the finish line implies great metaphoric significance for achieving other dreams in her life. However, grit is also a practical skill that can change academic, personal, and professional lives. Richard Rusczyk is a former Math Olympiad winner who believes he knows why a staggering amount of students who enter college with the intention of pursuing a STEM career change their major, according to the article “Does Our Approach to Teaching Math Fail Even the Smartest Kids?“

Rusczyk went to an average public school that didn’t offer many advanced math classes, which lead him to joining math clubs and competitions in K-12 to challenge him. When he arrived at Princeton, he was surprised to see his peers — some of which attended prestigious high schools — struggle and give up in their math classes. In fact, according to the article, what he witnessed wasn’t rare. STEM attrition rates are higher in selective schools compared to public schools.

Where is the disconnect? Rusczyk says: “They were taught [math] is a set of facts, not a process.” When his classmates didn’t get 100 percent on a test, they thought they had failed and moved onto another major, whereas Rusczyk was familiar with the unpredictable nature of math from his competitions. “…Math required more than rote learning — it required creativity, grit, and strenuous mental gymnastics.”

As you enter the summer, ask yourself how you can live with more grit. How could grit help you train for a summer  race, teach a non-native speaker English, finish the last few weeks of school strong, or be more focused at work? How is messiness related to grit?  How willing are you to live in the mess that it takes to create and see things through to a fulfilling conclusion?  How willing are you to dig deeply and earnestly to challenge yourself in order to discover your own “true” grit?

Some college students might be anxiously anticipating their holiday break, while others are becoming overwhelmed with countdown to their last holiday break and beginning of their last semester. A new class of graduates may be asking: What lies ahead? Will I get a job in my field? Will it make me happy? Did I pick the right major?

Mitchell Zuckoff recently shared a few words of encouragement in the NPR story “For Nervous Seniors, Some Pre-Graduation Advice” that his graduating journalism class is usually only privy to.

He says, every December, most of the seniors “hijack” the class and start spilling their hopes and fears for their entrance into the world of work. He believes a good time to have the conversation about what lies ahead is six months before graduation day, rather than the days leading up to it. His class receives the following advice:

• “Imagine a ladder whose bottom rung is about 6 feet off the ground. That’s the reality in most fields, where the perks — be they prestige, excitement, money, or best of all, meaningful work — attract more applicants than there are jobs. It’s always been this way, I explain, and they should embrace it rather than complain about it.” He goes on to show them they have two options to get to the rung: get a boost or learn the skills to get up their on their own.
• He also suggests they start “weaning themselves from the good life and the safety net many of them enjoy.” When they enter the world of work, they won’t have the support system, flexible hours, or general leniency they’re used to from their friends and professors. “…Accept the fact that being overlooked or underestimated is a part of life.”
• He closes saying: “Last, I tell them to keep in touch, because I know how good they are, and how much the world needs them, even if no one knows it yet.”

Did you receive any words of wisdom from a professor that helped you transition from college to the world-of-work? Did you hear anything you didn’t want to hear? Or, are you an educator who shares wise words with a transitioning class? Share your stories in the comment box below.

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Source:

“For Nervous Seniors, Some Pre-Graduation Advice,” by Mitchell Zuckoff. 12 December 2011. NPR. Accessed on 12 December 2011. http://www.npr.org/2011/12/12/143586972/pomp-circumstance-and-some-counsel?sc=fb&cc=fp