Jonathan Loesberg
Jonathan Loesberg
I agree with this completely.
NWR: Searching for a College
- Thread starter Bill Lundstrom
- Start date
I agree with this completely.
Jeff Grossman
Jeff Grossman
How many did you do in 2011 ?
Jay Miller
Jay Miller
I and almost all the fellow English majors I kept in touch with ended up working with computers in some form or another. That is a lot harder now as a much larger percentage of companies will require Computer Science degrees (weren't many of those around back in the days when we transported our punch cards by pterodactyl). And on the job training has been going the way of the aforementioned pterodactyl.
Plenty of good suggestions here, but kind of left out in the discussion is the importance of the college counselor. I'd have a discussion with him/her, several, actually, over the application process, to get their assessment of what type of schools would be best for your daughter given her interests, personality, work habits and geographic preference and what schools are realistic to get into given her grades, extra curricular activities, test scores, etc. Once you have a list, as someone else mentioned, it's important to visit as many campuses as possible. You can only learn so much looking at a brochure or website.
Finally, I think it's important to note that an education is what you make of it. Yes, going to a school with a great name can certainly open doors later in life, but it's entirely possible to come out of a great institution unprepared and come out of a lesser regarded school like gang busters depending on one's experience and how one applies oneself in school.
Finally, I think it's important to note that an education is what you make of it. Yes, going to a school with a great name can certainly open doors later in life, but it's entirely possible to come out of a great institution unprepared and come out of a lesser regarded school like gang busters depending on one's experience and how one applies oneself in school.
Bill Lundstrom
Bill Lundstrom
this has been enormously helpful. thanks to everyone.
we have visited university of richmond, george washington and american. soon we will head north for visits.
the one thing that suprises me is how competetive some of these schools have gotten. our state school, university of delaware, is difficult for in state students let alone out of state applicants.
schools i thought would be accessible for average to above average students, university of richmond, northeastern, for example are not easy to get into, and then it cost like $50k a year.
edited to add: the campus visits and information sessions we have been to have been very well conducted i thought.
we have visited university of richmond, george washington and american. soon we will head north for visits.
the one thing that suprises me is how competetive some of these schools have gotten. our state school, university of delaware, is difficult for in state students let alone out of state applicants.
schools i thought would be accessible for average to above average students, university of richmond, northeastern, for example are not easy to get into, and then it cost like $50k a year.
edited to add: the campus visits and information sessions we have been to have been very well conducted i thought.
Jonathan Loesberg
Jonathan Loesberg
The current best practice of finding one's way from a humanity degree to a job, at least where I teach, is through internships. Our philosophy department has doubled its majors, in part by developing channels with organizations downtown in which their students can intern, for academic credit, and those internships do frequently lead to entry-level jobs. This happens with some frequency in literature. I don't know if this method will last forever, but for the moment, it tends to make VLMs picture of comp. lit. majors going literately hungry not entirely accurate.
To get back to the original question, to the extent that Bill and his daughter have such impure preoccupations as gainful employment on their minds, they should definitely take sidetrips to the Career Centers of places they visit and to the departments in which she is thinking of majoring to ask where their recent graduates have gone and how they have gotten there.
Tom Glasgow
Thomas W Glasgow
This method I would expect to work well in DC and probably similar Metro areas. It's supportive of choosing a larger Metro area in which to study if those are the majors you'd like to pursue.
Yes, and we also might want to get more information from Jonathan about the 'organizations' where these people are finding work.
Still, even if for college graduates in today's economy, any job is a good job, I suspect that another rub in the DC area is that on average American grads suffer from prestige and networks effects relative to GU, GWU and JHU.
Tom Glasgow
Thomas W Glasgow
Development of ethical guidelines? Surely no shortage of potential opportunity in that town.
Sharon Bowman
Sharon Bowman
Talk around the water cooler?
Sharon Bowman
Sharon Bowman
Quite a symposium.
Bill Lundstrom
Bill Lundstrom
rahsaan, just wondering, why do you feel state schools aren't the best for developing professional and social networks? i would think large state universities are great for networking both professionally and socially just because the student bodies are so large.
Much depends on the particular person and the particular goal. And as college counselors are all too fond of saying, there is way too much focus on the top 10-20 schools in the US. You can 'succeed' or 'fail' in a thousand different ways from a thousand different schools.
That said, assuming you are interested in conventional forms of success, the high-end privates are more densely populated with the nation's current and future elite than even the top state schools. Hence their advantage for that kind of networking.
But yes, in the grand scheme of things, students at strong state flagships have lots of opportunities available.