Whether students work prior to university enrollment or not is an important question. This piece expresses a positive view on this topic and provides reasons why it helps students. There are critics of this opinion and they have their reasons too. It is, in fact, a debatable topic. However, a supervised pre-enrollment experience is proven to be effective and motivating.
Is it Helpful?
A full-time or part-time job will help pre-university students to get exposed to real challenges and opportunities of the industry they want to join after graduation. It can help them prepare better to tackle those challenges and might unleash many solutions. A study that I reviewed a few years ago had expressed more than half of successful professionals had pre-university work experience.
Employability
A perfect opportunity of work experience will greatly enhance your knowledge, personal traits, and talents, which will entice employers to hire you, such as:
Working in groups on assignments – you may have done so in the past, but most workplaces are built around teams, and you must learn to work well with others and recognize each other’s abilities and contributions.
Communichttps://accordemy.me/principles-communication/ation – You’ll need to learn to communicate effectively and succinctly both in writing and orally, as you’ll be making a lot of fast points in meetings.
Interpersonal Skills – Working with people at all levels requires interpersonal skills.
Organizing and Time Management – You won’t always be able to rely on others to tell you what to do when it comes to problem-solving and decision-making. It’s crucial to be able to take action on your own.
IT Skills – Both numeracy and IT literacy, as well as oral and written communication, are essential abilities.
Ability to look self-assured — students may appear timid in college, which their professors interpret as humility or fail to notice if they perform good work. In the corporate environment, though, hesitation might be misunderstood as a failure to engage.
Negotiation skhttps://accordemy.me/advanced-negotiation-skills/ills – for example, if you have opposing priorities or if you want the organization to assist you in achieving a learning goal in a certain way.
Motivation
A motivated student can learn the applicable aspects of education and give more dedication to learning. Working prior to the commencement of higher education can motivate students to visualize the application of those theoretical lessons they learn in college courses. A simple example of this will be building rapport with a customer. Students who have seen how an unsatisfied customer is handled will learn the communication skills and customer service skills much better than those who have not been exposed to a real-life scenario.
Undoubtedly, there are points that a coach/mentor must consider in order to ensure the effectiveness of this program. There were cases that students who have economical challenges were attracted by the small amount they were making and stopped pursuing higher education. Besides, if students are not supervised and advised in a constructive manner, they might misunderstand the challenges they see in their short experience and change their career goals. An article in Times Magazine had discussed many students do not choose the health sector because of the challenging day/night working hours and the risks of malpractice litigations.
In summary, an opportunity for students to experience a formal and professional environment prior to stepping to higher education is helpful and effective. However, it must be a supervised and structured program with pre-set learning objectives to ensure its efficiency. Accordemy® has proper programs that can help your organization get the best output from interns and pre-university learners. The programs will also help students take the maximum learning experience.
