I recently rediscovered a cartoon in my office papers. It is a colour one from a Sunday newspaper: an early work in the strip "Non Sequitur" by Wiley. The date on it is 8-14-1994. I went looking to find it on line to link to, but it was behind a pay wall. So forgive the description, but that is all I can provide you.
The first panel has a kid dressed in a black t-shirt with a skull on it, spikey hair, and slouching, hands in pockets. He has come through the open door that has "Personnel" written on the window. He is talking to a suited guy seated behind a desk, and asks "You the guy I'm supposed to see about getting, like, a job?"
The suit says "OK... I'll play along. What job skills and education do you have?" The next few frames have the kid (who has an earring in one ear and sunglasses) staring at the guy... staring... SNIFF ... staring... "Well... I'm, like, you know, COOL."
The suit replies "Let's put it this way... If you were me, would you hire you?"
staring... SNIFF...
The final frame shows the guy walking into the "Grunge Bar & Grill" with a friend, equally slouchy, and dressed similarly to Mr. Tshirt. Mr. Tshirt is telling his friend "...and the worst part is, I found out real life is based on the merit system."
When my office was in another building, we were allowed to tape things to our doors, and I had this up for years.
This diary was inspired in large part by a diary, now removed, titled "I'm Looking for Advice on Travel Overseas." The diarist had plans for the years after he was graduating which I told him didn't really make sense to me (while you can't see the diary itself, you can follow my comments to see some of the interchange). The specifics really are not important, and as he has chosen to take down the diary, I won't really focus on that situation. But one aspect of the whole exchange did get me thinking about the interaction I have with my own students in the course of advising. This student knew what he was going to do six years in the future. He was absolutely set that he should only do things that would get him to that point. It seemed to me that he was potentially cutting himself off from some of the most exciting experiences he would otherwise be able to have. And that, along with the fact that graduation at my university is only a couple of weeks from today, has led to this.
I teach at a liberal arts university, in a discipline so incredibly liberal artsy that the Car Talk guys have a running joke about it: Art History. Most of my advisees are in fact Art History majors, but I have a smattering of Interdisciplinary Studies advisees and Art majors of various stripes. I enjoy academic advising, talking to them about potential course configurations and ways to make their major and the core curriculum work for them. I was one of those geeks who read through the complete course schedule when it came out (when I was an undergrad) and I am still one of those geeks. The academic advising, the getting students to graduation, is challenging (sometimes more than other times, depending on the student, and when he or she decided that maybe Art History would be an appropriate major).
But in some ways for me the thing I like best is the "What are you planning to do when you graduate?" conversations, the ones that sometimes are started by the student ("What can I do with this major?") and others that are brought about by me. The time to start planning for the future is as early as possible. But it doesn't mean that you should seriously plan and not let things change. That is the primary advice I would always give students from freshman through senior years. Have plans, but allow for the unexpected. And allow for all contingencies. A study abroad program might change your life (did you met someone over there? did you decide you didn't really like living away from the midwest?), a course for the core might introduce you to a discipline or a series of ideas or methodologies you had never thought of, or you might decide (as did a very good friend of mine who came to college to be a doctor) that you really don't care why someone sitting next to you is sniffling in class, you just wish that they would shut up, get healthy, and leave you alone! In this latter case, I hope you will realize that maybe med school is not for you.
My task in these conversations is to encourage you (pretend you are a student) to think of options for yourself. After all (aside from the economy, which is encouraging a lot of students to go home and look for a job) you have options. Your degree means that you can write, speak publicly, research, and construct an argument that will convince an audience. Yes, you are prepared by the time you leave here for graduate school, or law school. But are you interested in going? If not, that is just fine. I will not be upset, or feel let down if you decide not to follow in my footsteps. I am surprised how often students think it might upset me. It is not what you are "supposed" to do. There is really no "supposed" about it. When you are 21 and have spent your whole life since five in school, you might not want to go on and spend more time there. It is quite all right to come to that conclusion. I took a year off between undergrad and grad school. I wanted to go back to school as soon as I could. But you might discover that you actually like time away from school -- having a schedule that is your own, having your own space, making and saving your own money. You may enjoy that. If you then find you are spending all your spare time in a museum or at lectures, that you are watching every PBS program on art, and you miss spending time in a library, that you would love to go back to the smell of musty old forgotten books, then maybe graduate school is for you. It is not as though I will forget you, and if you write me and ask for a letter of recommendation, I will write you one.
On the other hand, if graduate school is attractive just because you don't really have any other ideas about what you want to do, but you don't really like school in the first place (I know students who this describes!), don't go! I have actually told students that I would not write them. In one particular case I sat down and told a major that no, I did not want to write a letter for her because I didn't think she was ready for graduate school, and she would benefit from taking a couple of years off. She did, and decided that perhaps a business degree rather than an art history one would make her happier. Another student took time off and decided that library school would be better for her. And lots have felt really relieved that they were out of school, discovering that this thing they could not imagine living without is really not missed in the final analysis. That is a success as far as I am concerned.
And if you don't want to go to grad school, and know that already, that is perfectly fine (after all, if you get in to grad school and figure out that it isn't what you want, and leave after a semester or a year, it doesn't show that I knew you all that well when I wrote you a letter. Why would the school take a letter of recommendation from me seriously the next time? And it would make the university potentially uncomfortable in taking future students from here. If you start something, I want you to know for sure it is what you really want to do. If you don't want to do it, please don't. If you do want to, that is great. But you may not be sure. So go do something else. Work. Sign up for the Peace Corps. Go to Australia for six months and see if you can get a job. Teach English in Japan or Morocco. Circuit dig in England, or work in one of the National Parks or Teach for America, or in an art gallery, or as a museum guard. There are all sorts of jobs for good writers. They would not necessarily pay terribly well, but try them out. One of my colleagues took three years off and worked as a waitress and bartender. She enjoyed it and made more money doing that than she did for years as a graduate student. That is fine too.
You should plan well in advance -- if you want to apply for a nationally-competitive scholarship (Rhodes, Fulbright, etc.) you should think about it in the spring before your senior year. Language skills might help you in a variety of ways -- again this is a good thing to plan ahead for -- French and German are important for grad school, and Spanish can be helpful for a lot of jobs. Chinese and Japanese are great if you are interested in Asian art or culture. Take a business class (at least a class in personal finance) if you are interested in eventually running a gallery. Do a couple of education classes if you think you might want to teach school or volunteer for the local arts association. There are options for you.
If I had a dollar for every student who has sat in my office, crying, saying that he or she has real doubts that being a doctor is what he or she wants to do, and then a couple of days later I see the student getting ready for the exams, I would be really rich. A student who doesn't really want to be a doctor but can't think of anything else to do makes me uncomfortable. What if the student really doesn't want to be a doctor? Isn't that an okay realization? And sometimes it is because the student can't handle the stress of undergraduate classes. Isn't that a problem for someone who wants to be a doctor? I am not sure he or she is going to make it through that medical program...
What is the best advice you ever got when you were in school? What do you tell your students? What is the place of the advisor in career planning?