It seems like colleges start earlier and earlier each year — but in the Midwest, at least, a number of colleges and universities started this past week or will this coming week (I know many schools back East and on the West Coast start after Labor Day). And with the beginning of the fall semester comes the transition for thousands of students from high school to college. Currently, I am working with a number of families and I have several friends who have students in this life stage.

Given that I went to college for ten years (four years bachelors, two years masters, and four years of doctoral coursework) and that I have taught undergraduate and graduate level courses, I think I am pretty qualified to talk about those behaviors that lead to success in the classroom. So let’s look at habits and choices which lead to academic success in college.

1. Go to class (and show up at least five minutes early). This is a no-brainer, but many students who are transitioning from high school are looking forward to the “freedom” of college — that they don’t “have to” go to class and no one is checking up on them. Successful students go to class. And showing up early does a number of things — it allows some for something to go wrong and still get to class on time, it shows the teacher class is important to you and you want to hear everything they have to say, it provides the opportunity to interact with other students and build some friendships, and it prevents you from coming in late to class, interrupting the instructor and irritating them (not good if you are on the bubble at the end of the semester between a C/B or B/A).

2. Stay awake in class and pay attention. Going to class and sleeping is little better (and for irritating the instructor, its worse) than not going to class. So this means you either need to get enough sleep (a major challenge for many college students) or loading yourself with enough caffeine to stay awake. Take a hint from an instructor — what the professor says in class is what is important to them about the topic and is much more likely to be on the exam. Plus, if you use the words and language the instructor does, you are more likely to get points on an exam.

3. Keep current in your reading. Besides not going to class regularly (especially those 8 a.m. “gen ed” classes), getting behind in your reading assignments is probably the next big error students make. A professor’s lectures are usually focused on the reading for the day — so to get the maximum benefit of the lecture, it is helpful to have some idea what she or he is talking about. In high school you may have been able to coast and just get the material from the lectures; in college, trying to learn without doing the reading is asking for trouble [trust me, you can believe me now or you can believe me after you get your first D or F in your life on an exam.]

4. Review your class notes at least once a week. (For those students who are really serious about learning, review and correct/clarify your notes after each class.) Exams will cover and emphasize material covered in class. Keeping familiar with the information and reviewing it periodically will make it significantly easier to remember for tests (as opposed to cramming 20 pages of notes the night before the exam). This habit is probably the one that will be new to most students, and also which will be most helpful. Many tests in college are not just “regurgitate the material”; they ask you to think about and synthesize the concepts. So to be able to do this, you have to know the basic information “cold”. For example, instructors are no longer going to ask you to “cite the four major political events leading up to the Civil War” but they may ask you to “compare the major political events which led to the Civil War with parallel political issues in our culture today.” If you have trouble remembering the facts, you will struggle with coming up with an answer that makes sense.

5. Take care of yourself — physically, socially and emotionally. Sleep deprivation + eating mainly junk food (with no fruits or vegetables) + no exercise = foggy thinking, poor memory and a high likelihood of getting sick or depressed. Studying all the time (or playing computer games by yourself for hours) and never hanging out with friends leads to not having friends, being viewed as weird, and loneliness — increasing the potential (significantly) for you dropping out of school. You don’t have a mom around anymore (hopefully!) — telling you to go to bed, fixing vegetables at every meal, and making you turn off the computer and go outside. If you don’t take care of you, no one will.

6. Study in ways that maximize your time and effort. Research demonstrates that most people’s core attention span and ability to focus is between 10 minutes and 20-25 minutes after they started studying. The first 10 minutes is sort of “warm up” where you are getting into the material. The next 10-15 minutes are high intensity concentration. Then your ability to concentrate and learn wanes. Usually, after 30 minutes on a subject (e.g. reading history), your learning impact is low and you are wasting time. To maximize your study time, it is best to break your study sessions into 30 minute segments. Study subject A (history) for the first 30 minutes. Then switch not only subjects but the type of task (e.g. do math problems) for the next 30 minutes. Take a 5 minute (not 15, 30 or 60 minute) break — get up, walk around, get a drink, go to the bathroom. Then do two more subjects, for 30 minutes each. THEN take a longer break — go get some exercise, eat a meal, hang out with friends. This approach to studying will help you accomplish a lot more than studying the same subject for 60, 90 or 120 minutes at a time.

So, there you have it. If you want to do well academically in college, go to class, pay attention, keep up in your reading, review your notes, take care of yourself physically, and study in short segments. As a professional learner, if you do practice these six habits, I guarantee you will maximize your opportunity for success (I would feel dishonest in guaranteeing pure “success”).

p.s. I do have other tips for taking tests which I can share later in the semester.

Recently, I am working with more and more young adults who are finding it difficult to find jobs in their desired career path. And it doesn’t really matter what area they are in – business, education, computer science, marketing, graphic design. Some are recent college graduates (as in 2007), while others have been out of school for a while. Some of these individuals have taken short-term (e.g. one or two year) positions and now they want to ”move on” in their career. And I am hearing reports back from numerous young people across the country that “finding a job is “harder than I thought it would be.”

Interestingly, I am finding flecks of this theme in various articles and books. One nationally syndicated newspaper column, entitled “How Liberal Arts Grads Can Find a Good Career” encourages liberal arts students to “think beyond grades” and to get involved in internships, either paid or unpaid. Probably good advice, but it usually falls on deaf ears – the college environment screams the importance of grades to students and many liberal arts colleges don’t provide much assistance in landing internships. Besides, once you have graduated, it’s a little late to work on these issues.

In her book, Generation Me: Why Today’s Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled – and More Miserable Than Ever Before, Dr. Jean Twenge ( psychologist) states that “more and more young people in their twenties will be disappointed that they cannot pursue their chosen profession.” She states young people are starving for good advice in career paths. Partly, she believes because although young adults are goal oriented they really don’t have realistic ideas of how to achieve their goals. As Adam (age 22) stated, “ Getting a degree does not guarantee a stable job.”

Another column put out recently by the Cox News service, was entitled, “Boomer Parents Hover Even in Kids’ Job Hunts”. The author, Tammy Joyner, reports that some parents of young adults who are applying for jobs are: a) trying to sit in on their children’s job interviews; b) rescheduling interviews for their child applicant: and c) calling prospective employers to find out the status of the job offer or d) asking why their child didn’t get the job!

OK, so what seems to be the problem here? Well, I think there are a number of factors that are contributing to the challenge of young college graduates being able to find a job:

1. Employers are looking for someone who has practical work experience, not just academic training. Most employers I talk to would rather hire a person who is not a college graduate but who has some practical work experience in the industry, rather than a college graduate with no experience (aside from coursework).

2. Young people today tend to believe that external fators (luck, chance,) have more to do with life success than personal effort. (See Dr. Twenge’s book for research that documents this viewpoint) As a result, they tend to “wait to see what happens” rather than be proactive in their application process.

3. Young people tend to have unrealistic expectations about the world of work (and it is not all their fault). They have been told for years that they are smart, great, brilliant and anyone would be lucky to hire them (welcome to the results of self-esteem training).

They also typically haven’t worked much and expect a higher paying position and higher level job than their experienced warrants. So they often are offended (or at least, not interested) in some “lower level” jobs offered to them.

So my advice to young people who are looking for jobs today includes:

A. Do something. The default for many in this generation is to be passive and “wait”. Time will get you nowhere without action. Put in applications (in person), call on jobs in the newspaper, send in your resume to monster.com This does a couple of things – it lowers your anxiety level, and it lowers your parents’ anxiety level. And it increases the probability of you finding a job.

B. Talk to people. Networking is still the best way to find a job. Talk to people (not just your friends) – adults in the work world. Tell them you are looking for work. Ask them if they know anyone you should talk to (just someone in the field, not just someone who is looking to hire.) Talk to your parents’ friends, call people, visit them at their workplace, or meet them for lunch.

C. Get some kind of paying job – any job. The world has changed. It no longer looks bad to take a “scut” job that is not related to your career field (this is true for most young adults starting out, but not for older adults who are already in their career). Employers want to know that you are willing to work. Most employers will be impressed that you are working part-time at Starbucks just to pay the bills or you have a full-time position at Best Buy while you are looking for a “real job”. They understand the financial demands you are facing and you will gain “points” in their minds for being responsible and proactive.

D. Be willing to take a job in your career field that you think is “beneath” you. In a recent article in Fortune magazine, James Bell, the CFO of Boeing, Inc. states, “ A lot of young people think they know a lot more than they really know.” Many companies are willing to hire college graduates in entry level positions and quickly move them up the ranks as they show competence and willingness to work hard. A word of advice: don’t expect to be offered a position where you are supervising others, until you have proven yourself first.

E. Have a plan and work it. It doesn’t have to be a grand, master plan – just a plan for the week: who you are going to call, where you are going to apply, who you are going to meet with. The key to success is twofold: persevere and always ask people if they know someone you should talk to – and do it.

Our culture is information saturated.  In fact, I would say many of us are information addicts.  We think we need to know more, or at least the latest information, before we make a decision or act.  The problem is — there is so much information available and it is coming at us so quickly, we really can’t know everything on a specific topic. 

In thinking about why we feel we need so much information, I reflect on a parenting principle I often share with families.  Children are not in control of much in their lives (especially younger children).  We pick where they live, make their meals, buy their clothes, and dictate how much of their time is used.  But people of all ages like to feel they are in control of their lives.  One way children gain a sense of control in their lives is through predictability.  They tend to do better when there is a pattern of routine in their lives which gives them a general ability to predict what is going to happen — around mealtime (when/where they eat), bedtime, a favorite TV show they watch, or what the family does on Saturday mornings.  They really aren’t in control but they have the illusion of control through predictability.  This is fine and actually healthy.

I believe a similar dynamic may occur as we get older.  I believe the rapid changes in our world create an overall anxiety in our lives — we are less able to predict what life will be like because so much is changing so fast.  Gasoline prices fluctuate, our favorite restaurant goes out of business, our son or daughter gets a new job and is moving out of town, our largest customer is bought by another company and may not continue to buy from us, there are new cell phones and service options coming out monthly, the capabilities of digital cameras increase every few months.  And on it goes.

One way we try to manage this change (and our anxiety — that is, our fear of making a mistake) is to keep informed — listen to the news on the radio, visit our favorite news website at least 2-3 times a day, read our mail/email/newspaper/magazines/professional journals, watch the “talking heads” on TV at night, search the Web for the latest reviews on products.  And, to a point, this is appropriate.

However, in working with individuals, business managers, and families, I find many people become paralyzed in making decisions or moving forward with a plan of action because they are constantly re-evaluating the situation and feel driven to gather more information.   At some point, though, enough is enough.

I think we need to be asking ourselves some questions, to help us determine if we need more information, and if so, how much more information we need, and where we will gather the information (to make sure it is accurate, an increasing problem in our information overloaded world.)

If you find yourself (or one of your colleagues) continuing to put off making a decision or taking an action step because “we need to get some more information first”, I would encourage you to ask yourself the following questions:

1) What more information do I need, really?  What specifically do I need to know that I don’t know now?  How will having this information affect my decision (or will it)?

2) What information do I need just to start the process? (Often the plan of action is a series of steps, and more information will actually be gathered along the way as you go through the process.  Usually, it is impossible to gather all of the information desired up front, because the data will change depending upon decisions made in the process.)

3) What are the risks (realistically) of proceeding with 80% of the information (versus having 90%+)?

4) What, besides my perceived need for more information, is prohibiting me from moving forward in achieving my goal? 

Potential factors:  fear of making a wrong decision, letting the “urgent” details of daily life squeeze out the “important”, really not wanting to deal with the issue, fear of conflict which may result from the decision.

Let me give you some practical areas where I see this issue raise its ugly head:

  a) staffing decisions.  Needing to hire for a new position, or more frequently, procrastinating in letting go someone who is not good for the business.

  b) long-term planning decisions.  Sitting down and starting to put together your personal estate/wealth transfer plan.  Avoiding making decisions about business succession - both ownership succession and management succession.

  c) personal career direction. What college should I go to?  What major should I choose?  Should I change career directions and pursue another area of interest?  Should I really start looking for another company to work for?  Should I get some training in another area because my current job is a dead-end?

  I am sure there are lots of other areas where this issue applies.  The key question I think we need to keep asking ourselves is:  What more information do I need, really?

As I said in today’s earlier blog, the issue of college costs will continue to be a point of discussion. And so the evidence comes. The lead cover story for today’s (11/14/2006) USA Today addresses the need to have measurable indicators of the benefits of a college education – and the reaction to this from the educational establishment. The issue is that of trying to evaluate the comparative value of different college’s education in comparison to their costs.

U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings wants students and parents to be able to compare the value of a college education and used the analogy of gathering data when shopping for a car. However, one university president bristled, stating that the value of college can’t be quantified – it is more like choosing a spouse.

Nonetheless, some interesting data is presented in the article.

*For every 100 ninth-graders in school:

There is then much data thrown around regarding:

For me, the “take away’s” are the following:

1. Let the buyer beware. You may not get what you think you are paying for.
2. Don’t base your financial decisions on the assumption that your student will complete college in four years. This is the exception rather than the rule.
3. We need to broaden our thinking about career development. The equation: “College degree = Professional career” is far from an automatic result today.

I continue to argue that the best career preparation young adults can be doing today involves working (anywhere possible), talking to professionals in areas you are interested, do volunteer work or internships in career areas you are considering. These steps will help sharpen your focus and decision-making for career direction far more than taking an introductory survey course in your field.

A very frequent topic of discussion, books and articles today is the question: “Is the cost of college worth the investment?” Often proponents cite historical data of the cumulative increase in income a college graduate earns over their career in comparison to high school graduates.

This then leads to a variety of issues addressing variations or derivatives of the global issue, such as the high cost of private colleges and arguments that state colleges are a better value, or rebuttals that private colleges provide more “value” and the real cost for graduates isn’t that different (partly because many students attending public universities take five years to complete, while private college students are more likely to complete in four years.)

Another related topic is that of debt – whether parents or students should fund college education by taking out loans. Dave Ramsey, a conservative popular financial advisor, strongly opposes this path. Others such as Eileen Gallo, who advises wealthy families, comes from a different point of view – discussing whether wealthy parents should pay for all of their students’ college education or not. And then there are the rest of us who value higher education, and are asking, not if, but: “How much debt should we (or our child) take on?”

I believe this discussion will continue for several years. And the questions are not easy to answer. The problem is: I believe, that we are asking the wrong questions (at least, initially).

Anytime a question of “value” or “worth” is being raised, there is a deeper set of questions which need to be asked (and hopefully, answered) first. Questions such as:

*What are the risks associated with the process (i.e. the process of going to college)? What are the risks associated with taking out X amount of debt to pay for their college (risks for us as parents, risks for them as a young adult)?

*How can these risks be minimized?

*Who should be involved in making these decisions?

*How will we communicate with each other (parents, student, grandparents, others) about our beliefs, thoughts, feelings, observations – especially over time as circumstances in life change?

Now, let me offer some of my thoughts and responses to some of the questions.

First, I believe using historical data from the 70’s, 80’s, & 90’s to justify investing in college today can lead to erroneous conclusions. The world has changed. A college degree no longer, in and of itself, leads to higher wages or a more successful career. Take a quick look around you and note how much college graduates are working in entry level jobs not related to their field of study. (For financial types, this is similar to using past performance of a mutual fund manager to predict future success – it really depends on the manager, the period of time you are comparing to, and other market factors.)

If the degree is from an inferior institution (on-line “buy your degree” colleges, and some community colleges) or in an area with minimally marketable skills (how about a B.A. in“general studies”?), the time and money may be wasted. There are many ways to obtain skills and knowledge today not possible in the past, (including the Internet.) I have met many young entrepreneurs who are starting their own businesses in real estate, landscaping, construction, or buying franchises, who are not college-educated but who are being trained in alternative ways.

Second, as Thomas Friedman has written in The World is Flat, one of the areas of continued need economically will be service occupations that need to be provided locally. This includes many skilled trades (electricians, plumbers, carpenters, auto mechanics, home builders) for which a college degree is not the way the profession is learned. We have a major problem in our culture in that our educational system is biased heavily toward verbal skills and processing information. But there are millions of individuals who are talented in the visual-spatial, mechanical, mathematical, musical, artistic areas that are not being trained well – and there is already a shortage of these types of professionals in our country today.

Third, it is important to note that, for many, the purpose of college is not limited to developing a marketable career skill. Many also argue that the college experience broadens the person, exposing them to different types of people, different ways of thinking, and new life experiences that will shape them for life. I personally hold to this view – and incorporate this into the “value” I believe college brings to individual’s lives. (The more cynical viewpoint is: “What do I value about college graduates over high school graduates? They are usually older.”) Others (Bob Copeland in Ten Things Employers Want You to Learn in College) have written about the life skills that can be obtained through the college education process (for example, written communication skills, the ability to work with others, asking and answering the right questions.)

Finally, probably the most important issue is the factor is that young people today know virtually nothing about the world of work. They do not know what careers are out there and have only a cursory knowledge of what a professional really does (ask them about civil engineers, occupational therapists, actuaries or an insurance adjustor). The world of education and the work of work are largely in two separate universes today. And young people have little exposure to the world of work – either by working themselves or by seeing what their parents do.

So, in my opinion, (and I will be writing more about this) if parents want to help their children succeed in finding a career they should focus more on educating them about various jobs, careers and industries, and spend less time and money on SAT/ACT preparation courses and finding the “right” college. Where one goes to college is clearly secondary decision compared to having a general sense of one’s life and career direction.

Yes, college is expensive. But to answer the “is it worth it?” question, parents and students need to think through some more foundational issues first.

Given the time of year – early fall, with classes starting up at many colleges and universities – it is time for the media blitz on “the college question”. Different media sources frame the question in different ways.

Foxnews.com has had a series recently on the topic, including “Is college worth the money?” and “Choosing a College: Liberal Arts vs. Professional Training”. Time magazine’s August 21, 2006 cover asks the question “Who needs Harvard?” with a subtitle of “How to find the right college for you”. And there are numerous columns in newspapers addressing the issue (“How to fund your college education”).

The problem is – the questions are framed incorrectly.

No one can genuinely answer a global question “is college worth it” for all the individuals considering the question for themselves. The questions need to be framed more specifically:

*Is going to (insert college/university name here), taking X, Y & Z courses, a good direction for you this fall, given your current financial situation and your current career goals?

There are lots of variables that need to be considered:

-the cost of the educational experience (tuition, housing, books, food)

-how the costs will be paid (you, your folks, scholarships, loans)

-the quality of education and training you will receive

-your current career direction (do you have one?)

-your (and your parents’) values regarding education

-your (and your parents’) tolerance for risk (in this case, debt)

-what would you be doing if you didn’t take classes (work? play video games?)

The reality is – the answer is going to be different for most individuals, and even the same person at different times. However, I will offer one general principle with regards to career exploration (a fancy name for the process of determining “what am I going to do with the rest of my life?”). It is easier to figure out where you are going on a trip if you’ve seen a few places, and it is really hard to turn a parked car.

Generally speaking, I think it is best for people to choose to do something (take a class, go to school for a semester) than not do something. A pattern I am seeing among young adults today is the tendency toward passivity – waiting, putting things off – rather than taking action and being proactive.

I believe it is better to learn what you don’t want to do by having a negative experience than not to learn anything because you chose to do nothing.