Why Students Should Work
Introduction
Real world work is an important part of the college experience.
From my own experiences, those of my children, and others, I see that working a real job while in college has tremendous benefit, for both the student and the employer.
Every college student should regard work as an integral part of their education and career advancement. Come up a plan which integrates work into your college education.
School is Nothing Like Work
College and work are really nothing like each other.In school your schedule is pretty open. You have classes, usually 3 or 4 a day, and the rest of the time is your own. It's a wonderful freedom that most workers typically do not have.
(School also comes at a time of life when that freedom is most valued and most useful. Later in life, when given the freedom to do what I want all day, I just choose to work anyway.)
School also, especially in the first few years, involves a disconcerting breath of materials. In the same day I would study calculus, physics, and chemistry, and maybe take a break with some reading, if it was one of the terms where I was taking some humanities course.
With work, on the other hand, I get to focus on one topic for years at a time. I don't have to spend *any* time on anything not directly related to my task. With greater focus comes quicker mastery, and a more comprehensive understanding, which makes my work more enjoyable and rewarding.
School also was a time of relative poverty. Although student jobs were very helpful (see below), they did not come close to matching a real salary job.
As an engineer, I can say that I certainly prefer work to school. I did enjoy school, but like most engineers, I became an engineer to *do* something, not to learn more about how to do something. I prefer work to school because work means I am doing something, creating something useful and new.
Workplace Skills
One consequence of the difference between work and school is that different skills are required to succeed in each area. Professors value some abilities, and employers value others.Skills valued in academia:
- Cleverness - can learn new material quickly.
- Adaptability - can switch topics quickly.
- Test-taking - can perform well on tests.
- Independent Work - working with others is cheating!
- Self-Motivation - students are not paid, not supervised.
Skills valued in the workplace:
- Determination - works through failure to get to success.
- Focus - can work on same problem space for years.
- Providing Value - giving your bosses what they want and need.
- Collaboration - working with others is required.
- Reliability - must show up, day after day, all day, for years.
Like any skills, these are best learned with practice. I don't know what kind of engineer I would have made on my first job after getting my degree, if it were not for all the years of real work that were also included in my education.
The academics gave me the immense gift of distilling generations of science and math knowledge into just a few years of my early life. I have benefited from that knowledge in so many ways - I cannot imagine what I would be without it.
But that was not the knowledge that allowed me to start my first day of my first job with confidence, ability, and knowledge of how to get things done in the real world.
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