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People aren't born knowing what's appropriate for the workplace, though. There are first generation college students who don't come from families where generations of people put on a suit or business casual and went to work in an office. They truly might not know that their favorite dress or flip flops aren't something to wear to work. If a workplace doesn't have onboarding and just assumes that "everyone" knows things, they're putting a inequitable barrier on entry.
Yeah, I'm curious about the onboarding process at some of these places. There is usually someone from HR or management that would go over the general policies of the workplace. That would include dress code, expected business hours, breaks, etc. It sounds like this was either never communicated, or, if it was, there was a blatant disregard for those rules. That said, I've never worked in any professional, corporate setting where I witnessed people wearing belly shirts. Blue jeans, t-shirts, shorts, or flip-flops? Sure, but it was usually the dress code. One place I worked had a dress code of "dress for your day". If you didn't have any client facing meetings, then blue jeans and a polo were perfectly okay.
People aren't born knowing what's appropriate for the workplace, though. There are first generation college students who don't come from families where generations of people put on a suit or business casual and went to work in an office. They truly might not know that their favorite dress or flip flops aren't something to wear to work. If a workplace doesn't have onboarding and just assumes that "everyone" knows things, they're putting a inequitable barrier on entry.
I will grant that people aren't born knowing. That's what the first years of living, school, and college are for. If they are showing up unprepared, there's been a failure somewhere. But it's not up to on boarding to fix what they didn't learn the previous 18 years.
It doesn't matter that someone is a first time college student. Colleges have whole career preparation offices to teach just those skills. Here's an example of what one school provides: https://career.sites.clemson.edu/services.php
It's funny. Way back in the mid 80s, I read an article in Woman Engineer (don't know if it's still around) that recommended female college students take some trips on their own before their junior year. Schedule a flight, get to the airport, fly somewhere, get a taxi, book a hotel, eat dinner alone, all those things before they start interviewing for a job. The article actually said that "male college students already knew these things and females should do it to get on an even footing." Funny how it just assumed males just knew how to do those things. But even back then, the resources were there if someone just used them.
As for the other issues I've mentioned, those fall back on the education system and college system to fix their gaps. Those gaps didn't used to be there but are today.
I will grant that people aren't born knowing. That's what the first years of living, school, and college are for. If they are showing up unprepared, there's been a failure somewhere. But it's not up to on boarding to fix what they didn't learn the previous 18 years.
It doesn't matter that someone is a first time college student. Colleges have whole career preparation offices to teach just those skills. Here's an example of what one school provides: https://career.sites.clemson.edu/services.php
It's funny. Way back in the mid 80s, I read an article in Woman Engineer (don't know if it's still around) that recommended female college students take some trips on their own before their junior year. Schedule a flight, get to the airport, fly somewhere, get a taxi, book a hotel, eat dinner alone, all those things before they start interviewing for a job. The article actually said that "male college students already knew these things and females should do it to get on an even footing." Funny how it just assumed males just knew how to do those things. But even back then, the resources were there if someone just used them.
As for the other issues I've mentioned, those fall back on the education system and college system to fix their gaps. Those gaps didn't used to be there but are today.
These departments are like customer service departments for sales organizations. They exist, but it's a cost center and the school doesn't typically dump a lot of resources into it. The career guidance counselor that my school assigned me was two years removed from his own undergrad program and provided minimal, common sense guidance on resume drafting and interview prep.
Also, dress codes vary by business and industry. These probably aren't going to be addressed appropriately at any school's career center since there is no one-size-fits-all. At one place that I worked (not for very long), they had dogs running around the office and people wearing pajamas, shorts, or flip flops. From a professional standpoint, it was just not a very good fit for me. Meanwhile, I interviewed at a government contractor job where one of the interviewers seemed to be put off by my suave business attire. He also made several inappropriate comments about how Corporate America is full of backstabbers and swindlers. I believed that I dressed and presented myself "too impressively" for him.
Last edited by digitalUID; 08-08-2023 at 03:31 PM..
Used to be hard to believe, but not any more. It's not all schools, nor all colleges, but enough to be concerning. As for doing research papers in middle school, there's going to be a very big "it depends" on you are on that one. I've talked to many teachers and the one constant I hear from them is "if it isn't on the TCAP (Tennessee's annual standardized test), then they don't spend any time on teaching it." From beginning of the school year until the test, every minute is scheduled toward that test. Nothing else gets introduced until after the test in late April/early May.
As an interesting side note, during my career I was reviewing a class at a lower tier college. I was rather stunned at two things. First how probably 90% of the students in that class could not have gotten accepted to the university I attended. And second, how the labs in that school were essentially lecture demonstrations where the class watched the professor demo the experiment versus the college I attended where you had to perform it hands on. I talked to the professor and even he acknowledged that no one in that class could have passed the course where he'd taught during his career (he was retired, teaching part time) but the standards at this college were such that almost no one could fail. And they would eventually graduate with the degree of "engineer."
Wow. Unbelievable! Yet true! Thanks for the reality check. This is very concerning. And kids/families/scholarships (?) are paying for kids to take college science classes where they just watch demos? Or are these mostly community colleges?
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It doesn't matter that someone is a first time college student. Colleges have whole career preparation offices to teach just those skills. Here's an example of what one school provides: https://career.sites.clemson.edu/services.php
You're absolutely right. The college's career center exists precisely for that, and to teach resume-writing skills as well as coach kids on interviewing and so on. I think some kids don't even know that office exists, and others do, but don't bother to go there. These are "free" very valuable resources, "free" but they paid for them with their tuition $$.
At my university, a state school, the career center held multi-session workshops on resume writing, ditto for interviewing, and other skills. They maintained files on some of the students (those who get teaching certification, for example), and would contact them directly before graduation to advise them if their file needed anything, like recommendations from the teachers they taught under in their practicum. I've seen community college career advisors actually type out a resume template for students, filling in their particulars, while the student was in their office. Most of these offices give students their money's worth. These advisors can brainstorm places to apply for jobs with the students. They know which employers have openings. It's their job to keep track of that. (This is in response to post #33.)
Last edited by Ruth4Truth; 08-09-2023 at 02:46 PM..
Wow. Unbelievable! Yet true! Thanks for the reality check. This is very concerning. And kids/families/scholarships (?) are paying for kids to take college science classes where they just watch demos? Or are these mostly community colleges?
Hopefully there aren't many like that. It was actually kind of sad to me watching these folks struggle, knowing that they wouldn't have been accepted in most flagship universities and that a lot of them probably wouldn't complete their four years but would eventually drop out with nothing to show but debt.
Slight sidebar. Are you familiar with Florida Polytechnic? I became familiar through some relatives who live near it. It's only about 10 years old. But anyway, it is a Florida public university. When it started the local business execs who pushed for it wanted to break the model of a university and essentially modeled it after U of Phoenix in its structure. It was intended to be modern in design and thinking, job skill relevant, and basically all the stuff you hear in a UoP ad. Very much like making a bachelor's awarding community college. I've visited it a couple of times and find that while it's an architectural tour d force, it's educationally cold and uninspiring. Why it's interesting to me is having watched through my relatives how it's slowly morphed over the last 10 years, it seems many of the goals have become tempered by reality and both its education and degree structure seem to be sliding into a more classic content. I just find it a fascinating experiment in college education and should be studied more.
Colleges don’t teach practical skills, like using a lathe……that was true even in the 80s. Back then, it was very unusual to find an Engineering student that could use AutoCAD. That was why the US Army wanted me on their job as a senior project, I had experience.
This was a hiring error, this manager had the wrong expectations…..Engineers are not machinists.
Indeed.
I was in college (for engineering) during a transitional era, when computer-aided drafting was relatively new. Half of our engineering-drafting class was with a drafting board, and half was with a computer-based package in vogue at the time. We were expected to learn about linework, dimensioning, tolerancing, sectional views and the like. But there was zero work on actual machines (lathes, mills and so on); zero. That simply wasn't part of the curriculum. Later, in a materials class, we learned about the thermal or mechanical properties of different metals... grain structure and so on. But there was absolutely nothing about welding, brazing, annealing the work-piece and so on.
Engineering is the methods and philosophies of applying physics and math, to the design and analysis of physical products. The actual making of physical products is a different discipline. To conflate the two, says more about the ignorance of the critics, than the purported ignorance of the practitioners being criticized.
What about internships? I think for many students they can be an effective opportunity to learn what is expected in the workplace, among other things.
It can be, but those opportunities are also finite. If everyone who wanted one was afforded an internship, maybe some of these perceived issues wouldn't be so pervasive.
It can be, but those opportunities are also finite. If everyone who wanted one was afforded an internship, maybe some of these perceived issues wouldn't be so pervasive.
Internships are fantastic for teaching soft-skills, such as navigating office dynamics, being prompt and polite, communicating effectively... invaluable, for the budding engineer. But most interns end up doing Powerpoint, Word and Excel... maybe Matlab or SolidWorks. Rarely would they touch hardware. Why? Liability and safety, technician-engineer dynamic, reluctance by senior people to actually give training
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