Restructure Collegiate "Experience"

Throughout junior high and high school teachers, parents, and friends preached how important a college education is to our future career success. So with that in mind we engage in an endless number of hours of extra curricular activities, volunteer work, and “character building” activities. We then look at our past and find that one element that would embody who we are, how we got here, and what we have to offer to society. What would spur high school students that are more interested in the opposite sex to divert time from flirting and hanging out to countless hours of monotonous work? To perfect that dreaded college application.However, prior to1994 there was a potential catastrophe brewing in the United States. It was reported that 3.4 million youth ages 16-24, representing 11% of that population, had not completed high school and were not currently enrolled in any form of school. Even more stricken of the remaining 89% of youth that did graduate high school a wopping 75% did not complete college or any other form of high education/training.On the other end of the spectrum employers were faced with an unskilled workforce. US employers, at the time, estimated 20% of employees were not proficient at their jobs and over 50% of these employees could not find qualified applicants for ENTRY LEVEL JOBS. With all these elements at play these employees were forced to spend over 30 billion dollars annually to train and retrain these unprepared workers. With the increased competition of international employees entering the US workforce the Clinton administration passed the Opportunities Act of 1994. The Opportunities Act provides fund for the implementation of “School-to-work” programs.School-to-work programs have been implemented in all 50 states. A recent employer survey, conducted by the National Center on the Educational Quality of the Workforce and the U.S. Bureau of the Census, found that 25 percent of U.S. businesses are now involved in school-to-work partnerships and that more than 90 percent of those businesses are providing students with onsite learning experiences, such as job shadowing, mentoring, internship, and apprenticeship programs. With this great success why are more and more collegiate graduates leaving the realm of collegiate life and faced with closed doors into the working world? http://www.education-world.com/a_issues/issues040.shtmlThe most popular answer from interviewing employers is, “You lack the experience we are looking for”. WOW, so the countless business models, plans, and group projects for these same businesses that were carried out in Anderson School, or the hours spent on chemistry experiments, or the hundreds of drafts, thesis’s, and legislative proposal that the political science student drafted and were used on the floor of the legislature is “not enough experience”. That doesn’t even tap into those volunteer summer internships with law firms, medical facilities, and advertising/marketing firms to build experience and knowledge.The School-to-Work program has a major pitfall. The major focus for most states within this program is aimed towards teachers in the realm of true working experience. In the final semester for an education major career they are not attending classes and lectures at UNM on a daily basis. These individuals are in the classroom of high schools, middle schools, and elementary schools initially shadowing then teaching these classes. They meet with a “mentor” once a week to discuss weekly happenings, but they are truly immersed in the “work force”. Upon graduation a large percentage of these graduate are offered positions at the school they did their student teaching. Why can’t this system be implemented in other disciplines?The different departments need to reevaluate their curricula. Obviously, employers are not just looking for applicants with a college diploma. They want a person that has “been there and done that”. They want that applicant that has completed that business model on top of all the other unexpected projects that appear in the working world. They wanted that lobbyist that has drafted legislative documents and trudged the halls of the roundhouse pushing their agenda.With employers showing a strong participation in School-to-work programs why can’t universities truly utilize these opportunities. Restructure the curricula to model the education department, where students spend their final months at the University in the work force. Not as an intern, but as an employee. If you move away from internships and actually being immersed in the work force these students allow themselves the chance for positional advancement, additional training, and gaining that much needed “experience”.As it seems evident with the annual increase in tuition, the goal of universities seems to move from educating to building the bottom line. If students in their closing semesters were not actually attending classes at the university less professors would be needed and less classroom space would be utilized. This would cut salary, electrical, and maintenance costs drastically and would allow universities to puff their financial gains. So it looks like this would be a truly win – win opportunity for everyone. However, could the collegiate institution take on a drastic change such as this…….. ONLY TIME WILL TELL!!!!