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For your first bolded, that's where your experience comes into play. Looking at and analyzing a situation and coming up with the right answer.
For the second, if you get the reputation of being "right" that will, of course, carry over and does somewhat shield you went you boot something.
Just as a note, I've worked with people, colleagues, who seemed to never learn anything from their mistakes or take correction (or in my case to them, suggestions) from others, even their supervisors. And then they wondered why they always were in hack.
Experience helps. No doubt.
But there's just people who can convince others that they will do a good job.
For example, being totally objective, I know a former co-worker that just had a reputation as being a sloppy worker. No matter how much he would try to repair his reputation to the boss, no matter how many extra hours were put in, there's just really no way to bring yourself above the favor of somebody who has the reputation of being 'great'.
In school, nobody cares if you failed the first exam, so long as you put in the work to bring your grade up to an A, then you get an A. Everything is based on numbers.
College generally was based on merit. You had to work to get the grades. The work environment is by and large based on everything BUT merit now. Your have a higher chance of being grossly underemployed and enjoy gross market undervalue and in a position you're overqualified for then you do being in a position that warrants your education/experience etc.
College was more a mentally stimulating environment. Most corporate environments are just a drag and mentally unstimulating unless you're on the "company fast-track to success" but most of these positions are reserved for cronies/friends of the family of corporate hot shots
Well said. In school, you have control over your outcome. Choose the right topics and put in the time, you get good grades, no discrimination, no need to suck up to anyone, no one is trying to knock you off the food chain as it happens all the time in the workforce.
So in the workplace, it's all about the people, not merit.
I find work much harder than college. In college you are presented with all relevant information (whether you decided to learn it or not was up to you) and asked to solve problems where there was a definitive correct answer or conclusion. You received nearly immediate feedback about whether or not you reached the correct answer and knew what to improve on.
In the workplace you have numerous competing interests and all the relevant information isn't known (or is purposefully withheld). Sometimes the feedback loop is years and whether you made a correct decision is unknown for extended periods of time. Worst of all, even correct decisions have serious negative consequences for some of the competing workplace interests. In many cases no matter which path is taken, some group will not view it favorably. Despite all these factors, you have to make timely decisions and live with the effects.
College is an artificial environment set with controlled inputs and specific goals. It's like putting together a puzzle to create the picture you see on the box.
The real world is messy and unorganized. You don't have all the pieces, and there might not even be a picture.
College is an artificial environment set with controlled inputs and specific goals. It's like putting together a puzzle to create the picture you see on the box.
The real world is messy and unorganized. You don't have all the pieces, and there might not even be a picture.
College is an artificial environment set with controlled inputs and specific goals. It's like putting together a puzzle to create the picture you see on the box.
The real world is messy and unorganized. You don't have all the pieces, and there might not even be a picture.
That is correct.
College is more fair and rewards raw hard work more.
Work is more unfair. And the real world is ... unfair.
Work rewards people who have personal skills to explain why you spent $50,000 of the clients' $, but did not accomplish the goal you set out to accomplish, yet are able to convince the client to spend another $75,000.
I think that university can feel more difficult vs. work for some because at the point that we enter university, most of us are still learning to think critically and analyze issues/situations/problems from multiple perspectives. Once we get to work, critical thinking and processing is something that comes a bit more naturally.
University throws a whole bunch of scenarios + a whole bunch of potential solutions at a person all at once, in order for them to learn which method produces the most successful outcome. In a sciences or maths based job, this process of critical thinking and investigative rationalizing really never stops. But in business settings, for example, it isn't all that common for someone to consult a book on leadership models before making a decision, because they've spent time learning and researching the various methods and have already determined which works best for them + their current environment. At that point, decision-making is (or should be) more natural.
The need to think critically isn't something that just goes away upon graduation, but once a person learns how to do it well, it becomes "easier" and more intuitive.
I am not constantly studying at work---and once in awhile, I can learn something new, which I appreciate.
Although most things become repetitious, there is more problem-solving based thinking at work as opposed to memorize the correct answer for this question.
I graduated from a school that is known to be very difficult. Most of my classmates were highly intelligent which led to very difficult and complex assignments from the professors. Out in the world working, you are surrounded by average people with average intelligence. You typically don't have to think that hard when you are surrounded by average.
In some ways, college can be more difficult than your job, but on the whole, it is not.
At work, the stakes are so much higher. If you screw up at work, you get fired and can be homeless. If you screw up at college with regard to class work, you can recover a little more easily. Because of the stakes being so much higher, concentration is more intense and even little things can be energy draining. I have often been more drained ending a work day. A 9 hour work day at the workplace is more draining than 12 hours between classes and studying in a day.
There are times in the working world where your work tasks don't make full use of the skills you learned in college. This is discouraging.
In college, it is all fresh, new, and exciting. The workplace has more monotony. Workplace politics too. Less workplace politics as a student. Greek life dramas are less consequential than workplace conflicts.
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