OPPORTUNITY: Classes at the University of Florida are not specific enough nor are they career preparation oriented because of funding and variability challenges when it comes to offering enough classes that pertain to a large enough audience.
WHO?: The University of Florida students
WHAT?: They are unable to supply specific classes that prepare students for their future careers.
WHY?: There isn't enough funding, professors, or audience of students for classes to be too specific and career oriented verses major oriented.
Testing the WHO-- I believe that most students at UF have this need. For instance, there are many Marketing majors and classes for marketing majors in return. However, a marketing major may want to go into a career of social media but are forced to take classes on retail.
Testing the WHAT--It is true that some classes are more specific for people's future career aspirations, such as the marketing sales class for a student wanting to go into sales. However, there are no specific sales classes for the different types of sales fields. And, some may say that the class does not actually prepare them for their day to day role in the job.
Testing the WHY--I think the reason for this issue is for a couple reasons. These reasons include proper funding, variability, and need for each specific career and field.
Interviews:
1. My first interview was with Eric. Something that stuck out to me from my conversation with him is that he said one way to solve the problem of under preparedness for entering the job field is making the norm for college increase from 4 years to 5 or 6. That way, there will be time to take required classes and time to take classes that actually prepared you "street smarts" for the real world.
https://soundcloud.com/user-160890585/eric-smith
2. My second interview was with Taylor. She said that she wished her classes wouldn't given her more life experience such as paying taxes, building credit, or learned how to work the stock market...verses learned how to take a test on finance when her major is management.
https://soundcloud.com/user-329268085/taylor-erickson
3. My third interview was with Olivia. One thing interesting that she mentioned was that another struggle of taking classes at a university is that some classes are only offered in certain semesters. So even classes that are supplied are limited.
https://soundcloud.com/user-329268085/olivia-davis
4. My fourth interview was interesting because I spoke with a transfer student. Anna said that at her former college, they were given more specific class options and less required classes, but more required experiences. They were encouraged to learn outside of the classroom through shadowing verses taking tests in the classroom.
https://soundcloud.com/user-329268085/anna-morgan
5. Finally, my fifth interview was with Cam. Cam said that he enjoyed some of the classes that he was required to take even though they didn't pertain to his major. However, now he feels like he's trying to squeeze all of his core classes into each semester, making them more stressful than necessary to be successful.
https://soundcloud.com/user-329268085/cam-jenson
Meagan,
ReplyDeleteThe subject of schooling and getting ready for a career is an interesting one. There can be interesting opportunities in this area. If understand correctly your idea is to have more flexible curriculum. While I agree with it, I also see that may students come to college expecting that this is all they will need to succeed in life. And when they graduate they get disappointed that the reality is different.
I agree with you that schools are not sufficiently funded, in general I believe that teaching profession is underpaid and underappreciated. Being older than an average student I believe gives me an advantage in the view of the world. We can’t expect that everything will be given to us, we must seek and acquire knowledge, and we need to understand that what we are given is just the base, where we start. What school needs to do is prepare us to think, prepare us to find ways to acquire new knowledge. We need more classes like the one we are taking now, to learn how to learn, and how to think.
All the best
My blog is http://lubovg-ent.blogspot.com/
Meagan,
ReplyDeleteI love this idea. If you had interviewed me, I would have told you all about how stupid I think a lot of the Gen Ed courses are here at UF. The classes themselves have quite a bit of potential, as they are generally based off of pretty interesting topics. But I think that they are oftentimes taught by teachers who don't really care too much about the subject.
I'm a finance major and I would love more courses about personal finance. We learn all about the accounting and finances of businesses, but not about our own!
Meagan,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed your interviews! I agree with you that the classes are not helping with career preparedness as much as they should be. I find it very intriguing with your interview with Eric about that the norm for graduating should be 5 years. I agree that it can be beneficial in helping prepare for future careers.
This is a great thing to focus on. I have had so many disagreements with advisers and administrators on what kinds of classes I should be able to take for my degree. I once wanted to take Avian Biology as a credit for an elective for my CALS biology degree, and I was told because it had an outdoor lab portion it wouldn't count...I didn't follow that logic. Taking that class could have opened up jobs for me in bird research in the future. Anyways, it's hard to make your own degree with the silly requirements for the degrees we pursue and it feels like there's a disconnect between people making the requirements and the students' needs.
ReplyDelete