Graduation Speech : The Goal Of Obtaining A Well Paid Job

The majority of first year college students are not sure what they want to major in. Thus, these students into college on an undecided major in order to venture through college and keep their options open for their future career. However, second year college student Charley began his path in college knowing exactly what he wanted to major in and what career options he wanted to pursue. As most college students, Charley is not sure of his future career goals just yet; however, he is sure that he does want to major in Computer Science.

To many high school students, college seems like a far away land, a mysterious place where everyone wants to be yet not many know how to get there. As children, our parents tell us how much time we have to think about college, and that it is too far down the line to think about. The truth is it is never too early to think about your future. I, like many people, put little thought into my future career and now am lost in an unfortunate mix of indecision and anxiety. Not knowing where you want to be in the future is a hard burden to bear. Many of us tend to find out that we only know what we do not want, not what we actually do want. Do we want to be poor? Absolutely not. Do we want a boring job? Of course we don’t. We all want our

All throughout school, students are ask what we want to be when we grow up. Many of us know or have a pretty good idea, but others have no clue what they want to pursue as a career in life, whether it be furthering their education at a university or attending a technical school. There are other students that plan to start work right out of high school. Either way we all have a plan, and the purpose of this paper is to inform you of mine. I personally struggle in making big decisions like deciding what to do with my life, but then I realized I have been asking myself the wrong questions. Instead of asking what I want to be when I grow up, I asked myself what do I want out of life? what are some of my goals that I wish to achieve? This led

College is an opportunity to truly discover who you are. Often enough, you hear people saying “You should really major in this field, I think you would really enjoy this career.” or, “Do you think you really want to study that? Have you thought about what you will be doing ten years from now?” filling your mind with self doubt, uncertainty, and the anxiousness of not knowing what you want to do with the rest of your life. Mark Edmundson wrote an article titled, Who Are You and What Are You Doing Here?, published in Oxford American addressing college students and their families how the most important thing college students should focus on is personal growth. When students take their courses seriously their engagement can help finding out who they really are and which future career will lead not necessarily to great financial success, but to a career and life that is very satisfying. Edmundson wants to inspire his audience and have them take what he is saying seriously. Edmundson uses satirical informal language and hypothetical situations to effectively persuade college students to focus on their personal growth in order to create a life and career that is deeply fulfilling.

Nine years ago, I never could have imagined I’d be writing this essay. I was a senior in high school, and, like the rest of my classmates, I was apprehensive about the future. Unlike my classmates, I felt like I had missed the proverbial “you need to get your life together” message. I watched my classmates apply to colleges, their majors already decided and their future careers mapped out. While I was an above average student, I felt I lacked the decisiveness my classmates seemed to have. I did not feel passionate about a career or even a field of study. I felt defective. This was compounded by the financial strain I knew attending college would have on my family. It seemed wasteful to try to “find my passion” at school while squandering

Consequently, my first two years of college were full of trial and error because I chose my own classes in search of a major, managed my installment plans through Student Services, and sent only vague updates to my parents in hopes of preventing any worry. It was not until this year that I realized an opportunity for me to graduate “on time” existed. Thus, my perspective towards on-campus resources matured into organizations willing to help anyone and everyone. Using the What-if report, I created my own 5-year planner with the rest of my requirements and went to a Psychology Advisor, Mark Van Selst, for validation which is when my 5-year plan became a 4-year plan. Financially, I learned how to afford college with help from those in the Financial Aid and Scholarship Office.

Is College Worth It? Is college really worth it? This is a question many students start to ask as the college cost increases and jobs are harder to get. Although getting accepted into a good college is a great start, the student needs to be motivated, talented, as well as creative. If a student has those qualities, that student will be successful in the future (Rouse, Cecilia E; debater 4).

A big concern in todays’ world for graduating college students is being able to find a job right out of school. More times than not, there are many problems that occur when a student chooses a specific career path. In the short exert “Why Focusing Too Narrowly In College Could Backfire”, written by Peter Cappelli, he discusses in his opinion, as well as many others, the right path students should be taking. The lead way students should be following to secure they get a job in a field they will enjoy. Many students have trouble picking a college to go to let alone what major they want to focus on. Students are told to pick a major and start taking the classes for it as soon as possible without realizing they might not even enjoy that field of work. There are many struggles in college with picking the correct classes and

It is a well known fact but there are many people including counselors, parents, teachers, and friends who resist saying it out loud for fear it will sound like discouragement and negativity: college is definitely not for everyone. The pressure on high schools students, especially those that excel, to attend a college or university is enormous. And in the case of a bright, industrious and motivated high school student, attending a college or university is an obvious career choice. For those students, it's only a matter of what university to attend, whether one's SAT score is high enough, and the availability of the money. Then there are the millions of high school students who are not really personally motivated but are being pressured by their counselors, teachers and parents should they attend college if they really don't care? This paper examines those issues.

Today, many students are settling for jobs immediately out of high school instead of furthering their education in college. Students should consider how necessary college actually is for their lives in the future. It provides one with a significant amount of opportunities, a greater knowledge about their career plan, and a better sense of responsibility.

For many, after graduating high school the next big step is college. I never asked myself why or if I even wanted to. Yet, since I was not yet ready to join the work force, and didn’t want to disappoint my parents, I simply followed the path that I was supposed to take. For a while I had no direction, but through the loss of my high school English teacher and my dream of making my family proud, I discovered that college was the place I wanted and needed to be.

One of the methods in which the Career Development Center counsels students is through “walk-ins”, where students can come in without an appointment and can engage in a casual conversation with a counselor about topics such as internship or job opportunities, resume critiquing and developing an intended career path. A majority of the students who come in through walk-ins have no prior experience of applying for internships/jobs and and are often conflicted about immediately going to graduate school or working once they graduate. More often than not, these students are accompanied by self-defeating attitudes such as feeling inadequate for a job or internship due to a lack of experience, doubting their capabilities of getting a job/internship, expressing insecurities of not having a perfect GPA, or feeling extremely doubtful of having the ability to chose a desirable career path that is suitable to their interests or major. Sometimes the students that come in are so overwhelmed with these feelings that they will give up on finding an internship or discontinue using the Career Development Center services to develop a post-Graduation plan. This problem however, is not just a problem that exists at the Career Development Center at Purchase, but a problem that exists at Career Development Centers on college campuses nationwide. A 2013 study conducted by Andrews, Bullock-Yowell, Dahlem & Nicholson analyzed negative career thoughts, perfectionism and career decision-making

This approach allows students to have an independent role in making decisions when it comes to planning for their college and career goals, (Brown, 1984) with the added assistance of a trusted advisor.

When motivated, I am the type of person that will be able to see my goals through, but I must be one hundred percent mentally committed to the goal for the journey to be a success. This has always been true for me no matter what type of goal I’m trying to achieve. If I’m not one hundred percent in than I might as well not be in at all. While having this quality is an asset, trying to get to the point where I’m all in is a little tricky. I share this insight so that my academic trail will make complete sense.

As I was indisposed on the day that we wrote up our goals for the semester, due to my car accident, I did not write up my goals in class. However, I thought of some goals that I would like to fulfill in the interim period, those goals would be to get at least a “B” in all my classes, manage my time so I do not burn myself out on homework, and get enough sleep during the week. Firstly, although I would like to make it on the Dean’s List this semester, there is a very possibility that I will not make it on due to academically rough areas in Math 110 and, to a lesser extent, Astronomy 100. With that being said, I would be more than happy to achieve a “B” or better in those classes as math and science have never been my strongest subjects, and I am not worried about my other classes as I know them fairly well and am confident in my abilities to do well in them. Secondly, I would like to manage my time more effectively so that I do not get ground down mentally by the amount of homework that is sure to pile up over the course of the semester. I have found that it is much easier to split my workload up into smaller chunks and tackle those, day-by-day-, as opposed to trying to cram a lot of homework into a single day – which is mentally taxing and a fair bit annoying as well. Finally, as rest is very important – both during the course of the school semester and when school is not going on – I would like to get enough this course so that I can focus on my classes each day without