How to Apply Yourself
what do you want to be when you grow up
which college are you going to
what’s your major are you going to grad
school
where are you going to work after
graduation
these questions might mean well but
they’re distracting
my talk today is on what these questions
are getting in the way of
and how to fix it my perspective comes
from professional experience for example
college and career counselor working
with students also as a professor
but it also comes from personal
experience in high school and college i
was
fixated on the career itself not on the
life that came with it
and whether that life was what i wanted
and that was a mistake you know how
parents like to tell students to find
their passion
well my passion was to be a news
reporter i was obsessed with
it and i chose my college mostly for its
journalism program
when i got this fabulous internship at
nbc in new york city the summer after my
freshman year
i could have powered manhattan with my
excitement
but several weeks in i overheard a phone
call between
the reporter i was interning for and her
children
she was kind of tucking them into bed
over the phone because she wasn’t going
to be able to make it home in time
and that was very obviously a routine
my heart sank i never really articulated
it before but
i always knew that i wanted to be a very
present mother one day
and so in that moment i just felt the
rug being yanked out from under me
this was the wrong fit and it was really
devastating
so i looked at college and i thought
it would just be a waste to stay here so
i graduated early and just
left the problem is millennials like me
and gen zeirs are searching for more
fulfillment and more meaning out of life
but they’re not getting it in our
high-speed world we are just staring at
what is immediately in front of us
putting out the fires of college apps
and job hunting and it is stressful and
it is overwhelming
and to me it is no wonder why mental
illness on high school and college
campuses
is now an epidemic there’s so much to do
but what’s the point and college should
be this
remarkable awesome purposeful time in a
person’s life
but for many students today it can be a
huge letdown
we are spending more money and more time
on higher education than ever before
and we’re getting worse results clearly
we have not been adequate in guiding our
students
so what’s the solution we need to coach
our students on applying themselves
but the emphasis should not be on
applying the emphasis should be on
applying themselves
their values their goals their lives
when going through the college and
career planning process
and i’m not just talking about career
interest inventories and aptitude tests
i’m talking about more
as parents educators and mentors we know
there’s a much bigger picture to who
these students are
and we can do a better job helping them
identify
who they are what makes them unique what
makes them happy
what their personalities are like how to
define
success and work-life balance according
to them
tell your students don’t just apply to
college
see how that college applies to you and
so
rather than being at the mercy of the
application process
young adults can be empowered they can
feel grounded and in control of their
own lives
and that can be on campus and at work
they’ll be living with purpose
we shouldn’t just be asking students
which college are you getting
into or what line of work are you
getting into
we should be asking also what are you
going to get out of this
i wish i had guidance like that when i
was in high school it would have saved
me a lot of strife
but at least it’s what drives my work
today and
that really has become my new passion i
hope you’ll join me in helping students
adopt a healthier
more holistic perspective one about how
colleges and careers fit into their
lives
not the other way around thank you