School does not prepare students for the world of work эссе

Congratulations! You’re out in the real world, living on your own, holding down your own job, building your career one day at a time. You made it through high school, through college, through the job hunt, and now you’re here: at work!

But you’re not entirely comfortable, are you? Something is slightly wrong with the world, but you can’t put your finger on it. You like your job, more or less. You like your company and coworkers, more or less. Your career seems to be on track. And yet you feel anxious, out of place, rudderless.

I think I know what’s bothering you.

The Past

The first twenty years of your life have almost no similarity to the rest of your life, and the rest of your life can be a very long time. The crucial difference is that for the first twenty years of your life, your existence is highly structured, more than you ever realized.

Every year, you move up a grade in school. Every year, you get a “promotion” complete with a new job title: Freshman, Sophomore, Junior, Senior. You get a new set of classes with new teachers, with new classmates. You get to choose some or all of your classes, every semester. You receive individual grades for each class, for each paper and test!

Middle school, high school, college, grad school. You know the whole process from an early age, and there’s little question about your future. You can look ahead five, ten, fifteen years and know exactly where you’ll be. And there is a profound security in that kind of knowledge.

The Present

You’re at work. You were hired for a particular job for a particular boss at a particular company…and nothing’s changing.

Title

You have the same job title, year after year. If you are just starting out as a Junior Researcher or Assistant Developer, then maybe after one or two years you’ll get to be a regular Researcher or Developer. But then what? You may go five or ten years before you get another change in job title: Senior Researcher, Special Developer, etc.

In school, your “title” changed every year, and that change carried with it a sense of progress, a sense of change and growth and importance. Now, you have no idea when you might be promoted, and it depends on the economy, on your coworkers, on your boss or clients or a hundred other things you can’t control. This can be frustrating.

Feedback

In school, you got grades on everything. Gold stars, check marks, letter grades, numerical grades, report cards, SAT scores. Constant, measurable feedback on how well you were doing on every little thing. You can develop a very clear picture of yourself with that much feedback. Good or bad, the knowledge is reassuring.

But now, there are no grades. You submit reports and hear nothing back. You write drafts and get minor editorial notes. You develop software applications and just get tasks crossed off your To-Do list. At most, your boss says, “Good work” in passing.

An entire year passes in this manner, during which time you feel adrift, nervous, uncertain. Hoping that you’re doing well, hoping your contributions are being noticed and will be rewarded. Finally, you have a performance review, an awkward and semi-formal meeting in which your one little mistake is blown out of proportion and you’re too nervous to remember all of your accomplishments.

Activities

Your life in school prepared you in just the wrong way for your life at work. In early school, your classes are chosen for you, the class material is outlined by the government (of all things). In later schools, you have some say in which classes you take, and what sports or arts you’re involved in.

Then in college, a world a freedom! Of choice! You can pick all of your classes, pick your major, even invent a major! Study abroad, switch from economics to veterinary science just by filling out a form, play sports, start clubs, join a fraternity, take summer and winter classes. You’re in charge of everything!

Then you get a job, and suddenly, all of that freedom is gone. At work, you do what you are told to do, on someone else’s schedule, to someone else’s standards, regardless of whether you think it’s the right thing in the right way. You have just fallen from the pinnacle of being in control to the depths of being controlled.

The Future

As I said, back in school you knew the shape of your future: where you would be, and when. But now, who knows?

You can hope for a cost-of-living raise, you can hope for a performance bonus, you can hope for a promotion, but the bottom line is that you don’t know if they will ever happen, not for certain.

Sometimes at interviews, you’re asked, “Where do you see yourself in five years?” This is one of the most ridiculous questions imaginable in our day and age. When you consider the unpredictable nature of our global economy, and the radical impacts of new technologies, it becomes more and more impossible to predict the future. Whole industries are springing into existence every day, and whole industries are becoming obsolete, albeit a bit more slowly.

Unless you work in the military or the government, there is a high likelihood that you will work for many different companies in many different roles, reinventing your career and your goals as often as every five years. Some people find that fact unsettling, even frightening. Others find it exciting.

The bottom line is that you start working as early as 20 and could still be working at 70, or later. That’s 50 years of totally unstructured career time. 50! Take a moment to consider how much time that really is, how much time you will spend muddling along and figuring things out for yourself.

How to Cope

• Be patient. The first thing you need to do is accept the fact that working life plays out much more slowly than school life. There are fewer changes, and they can be quite far apart. This is normal.
• Be yourself. Stop comparing your career path to those of your friends, your peers, and especially your parents. You are none of those people; you are you. It doesn’t matter if you’re in the exact same job as someone else. Your life, your work, your career is a completely unique thing of your own creation. It will play out at its own rate, in its own way. Focus on yourself, and let others take care of themselves.
• Be flexible. There is no way to predict what sorts of challenges or opportunities will arise for you, personally. Just being in the right room at the right moment could mean the difference between getting an exciting new assignment, or suddenly (and unpleasantly) realizing that you want to find a new job, or a new career path. Pay attention to the big picture, and remain open to the possibilities that present themselves.

Want something more concrete? Here are two examples from my own life:

• I went to college to become an aerospace engineer, and left with a BA in English Literature. I have no idea whether one is any better than the other. I only know that I graduated with the skills and knowledge to support myself and my family in a career I enjoy, which is really all that matters.
• I took a job as an executive assistant. It was just supposed to be a way to pay the bills until I found a “really good” job, but I discovered a way to turn it into a “really good” job and spent the next six years publishing books and journals as an editor and artist for that same company.

Take the time to reassess what you are doing and your reasons for doing it. Where do you think your career is going, and why? Are you happy with where you are and your apparent progress along your career path?

School taught you to follow a plan. But in life, and at work, no plan survives first contact with reality. The ability to adapt (and a sense of humor) will take you farther than any plan.

Popular search terms for this article:

does school prepare you for work, you are not prepared, school doesnt prepare you for life, school doesnt prepare you for life, school does not prepare students for the world of work, does school prepare you for the real world, does school prepare you for life, do subjects offered at school prepare you for life, Do subjects offered at school prepare you for life?, does high school prepare you for the real world

1.

School does not prepare students for the world of work РКЗ 2 бала
.
There is a growing opinion that school does not get
children ready for the (their) working life. Some
people, however, argue that it is not so.
School does not make children be ready
Students get ready / are ready
Введение +

2.

Мнение автора +
I personally believe that school plays a significant role in preparing
students for the professional world +. Firstly, that is the place where
students get access to various sources of knowledge, broaden their
horizon and mindset which they will need for career-making +.
Secondly, logical and critical skills gained at school will be essential
for young people at work if they want to overcome challenges and
think independently (+) Finally, school is a key factor in children’s
socializing, it enhances their soft skills like leadership, networking
and conflict resolution(+). Each of these talents (какие именно
таланты перечислены выше? Только навыки ) are indispensable
in today’s job market (логика these )(-) .
Professional career/professional life
To broaden mindset такого сочетания скорее всего не
встречается
The key factor

3.

Мнение оппонента + However, some people disagree and claim that
students do not get prepared for the real world of work
because of the school rules (+). They believe that at
school children are forced to obey teachers and are
not allowed to have a different opinion (-) . As a
result,(school) graduates lack confidence and are not
ready to make their own decisions это можно
написать и о периоде в школе – нет связи с
работой) .
Как школьные правила мешают в будущем в
работе?
Аргументы неточные – можно отнести к проблеме в
школе

4.

Опровержение +
I am afraid I cannot agree with this idea (какую
именно идею вы представлена в этом параграфе)
In my opinion, teaching to follow the rules does not
mean teaching blind obedience, but to show respect
to others, so it cannot hinder students’ development.
Желательно в каждом параграфе показать для
работы (the world of work)

5.

Заключение+
In conclusion, I think that school is the perfect place
to get students well-equipped for the world of work
because of the knowledge and a great number of vital
skills it gives.

Are teenagers today prepared for life after school? Or are American students too coddled? Windsor High School student Aliezah Hulett ponders these questions in her TED-Ed Club talk, “Preparing Students for the Real World.” During the talk, she advocates for schools to teach more real-life skills to their students, including a basic understanding of the metric system and a more realistic approach to sex education. Read on for an interview with Aliezah about the gap between what we learn in school vs. what we need in later life.

There’s a lot of discussion about modern youth being supposedly less ready for adulthood than their parents’ generation. Do you think that today’s teenagers are less prepared for the real world than ever before? If so, why?

Teenagers today are the perfect example of what can happen if parents never challenge their children to go above and beyond. They hand everything to their kids. It used to be that you’d be extremely privileged if you got to use your parents’ old beatup car once you turned sixteen. If you wanted something else, you would get a job and pay for it yourself because it was triggering a sense of responsibility. Nowadays, I see 16-year-olds with trucks and Priuses straight off the lot. This causes teenagers to be less prepared for the real world than ever before. A large chunk of this is due to parents coddling their children. According to this interesting article from The Guardian, “more than a quarter of 20 to 34 year olds are still living with their parents according to new statistics — the highest proportion since 1996.”

Do schools have a responsibility to fill in the gaps when parents don’t educate their children about basics? 

The school system and parents should be working together to raise educated students. Schools should be accountable for instructing students to be knowledgeable about the world around them, even when the parents slack off. It should be a joint effort between parent and educator to train the next generation of children to be independent and prepared for what’s ahead.

Some educators might be concerned that teaching lessons around more real-world subject matter would take time away from traditional topics like calculus or Shakespeare. Do you see value in traditional topics?

Traditional topics such as calculus and Shakespeare should not be neglected, but teachers should be able to ask their class, “Now, how can we use this lesson outside of the classroom?” Every class should be able to draw out a moral that students can leave with daily. For example, a possible moral for Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet could be to not be swept up in emotions and carry out such rash actions.

Right now, do you think most of your peers are capable of handling life after high school and college?

If my peers were to be thrown into the real world, I don’t think that they would know how to handle themselves. There’s a sense of responsibility and maturity that come from having a job. When someone puts their head down to achieve their goals by themselves, as an independent adult, their outcome will reflect what they learned in both high school and college. These include how to sew a button or how to use a plunger!

You spoke about the need for a pragmatic approach to sex education in schools. How would you respond to those who say students shouldn’t be learning about sex at all in school?

Those who think that teenagers shouldn’t be taught about sex in school are trying to shield children from learning about the outside world. In high school, college, and the many years after, sex is a real thing. I agree that abstinence is the only way to fully prevent teen pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases among youth, but what happens when they do decide to have sex? The answer is that they could end up getting pregnant and spreading STDs because they may not know how to properly address these types of situations. This is in no way promoting sex, but instead teaching tomorrow’s future about the truth, and what may arise in their future. By providing students with knowledge of how to properly go about the physical and mental components of sex, we are raising educated adolescents.

If you had the opportunity to design a school from the ground up, how might its classes be different from classes in existing schools?

If I got to design my own school, the classes that students would take would be based on two main components: what students are interested in, and what students will need for their lives after graduating. Sometimes, there are classes that we don’t necessarily like but are required to take because they teach things that are needed out there in the real world, or provide a better basis for the rest of a child’s learning career. However, it is proven that when a child is enjoying the class, they are more likely to absorb the information. If there is a particular subject or teaching style that a student likes, that’s information to act on.

More than 10,000 students are now sharing and presenting their ideas in TED-Ed Clubs around the world. Interested in starting a TED-Ed Club at your school? Find out more.