Saying “Bye!!!!” to UD
What made this moment a highlight of 2011 was not the fact that it marked my exit from the University of Delaware, it was that I gave my lecture entitled, “Bye!!!!: Tips for Life After UD.”
In creating this lecture, I asked myself a couple of questions:
What are some of the most valuable non-academic lessons you learned while in college? Which lessons would you have preferred to learn while in college instead of after?
I began teaching finance at the University of Delaware in 2003, immediately after completing the MBA Program. Many of my students were at most five to six years younger than me and being fresh out of college I could relate to what they were dealing with…cryptic lectures, massive textbooks, and the seemingly never-ending cycle of memorizing material for the sole purpose of regurgitating it on exams. Not all students felt this way, but sometimes I did. It was not always clear to me how the material could be applied in real life or my chosen profession, so I resorted to memorizing.
Over time, I had learned what I liked and disliked in a professor’s teaching style, and which methods really helped me learn best (being able to connect the lesson to a real world application is one of those methods). I also learned the importance of applying a balance of book smarts and common sense to life. So, each semester I opted to ditch finance for a day and devote one lecture to content that every student would be able to use at some point in their personal or professional life.
Many students have emailed or written in their evaluations that this lecture was either the best of the semester or the one they learned the most from. These are lessons that I wished someone had taught me in college or lessons that I wished a mentor had taught me early on in my career. Lessons I have learned over time by way of observation, participation or workplace victimization!
That may be a bit dramatic, but anyway I figured by sharing these lessons, perhaps I could shield my students from making costly mistakes or enduring the consequences of youth, ignorance and/or naivete.
Students who do not have a mentor or do not take advantage of supplemental programs offered by offices such as Career Services and Study Abroad or campus clubs and student organizations, can easily miss out on many valuable non-academic lessons. Let’s say “Bye!!!!” to 2011 with one such lesson:
Humble yourself, because no one likes a no it all.
This point was specifically targeted at my graduating students who were preparing to enter the workforce. I have seen some students actually leave thinking that by virtue of their degree, they know everything about a certain subject. It is not wise to walk on to a new job carrying this attitude. The truth is, when you start a new job the educational cycle resets. You are the novice, the new kid on the block and you will have to learn how to do whatever tasks your job requires.
My point is not to diminish the value of having a degree, but to help students understand its place along their career path. Having a degree means you have completed a course of study, it does not make you an expert nor does it mean you automatically know how to do any job in your field. In many cases, you may not see much application of your degree, if any, in your first job. And you may also see that although a college degree was a requirement for your job, it is not a necessity to perform your job.
The bottom line: By virtue of experience, your new manager and coworkers know more about the job than you do. Approach your first job with the understanding that you have more to learn. Go in as if you know it all and someone may set the stage for you to take a humbling fall.
