…out of college?
I think it is pretty much agreed upon that college doesn’t train people for the real world. So, if college does not train someone how to function in the workforce, then where do these recent grads get the skills to succeed?
In elementary school? Seriously, my first job out of college was cashiering at a fast food place. They did make us count the change back instead of letting the register tell us how much to give the customer (I really have no idea why), but other than that - the only skills required were basic English comprehension and the ability to be polite to people.
My “sources” in the employment sector tell me that the days of getting a gravy job right out of college are long gone, unless you are in a highly skilled and in-demand field. I’ve personally seen plenty of freshly minted grads (especially the ones with marketing degrees 
) have to start with entry-level receptionist or office clerk positions. We’re going back to the old notion of “paying your dues.”
That depends on the degree. My degrees are in mechanical engineering and this prepared me very well for the real world.
I think it depends more on the person than on the degree. My degrees are in history and dead languages and I was very prepared for the “real world”.
If your lucky a position advertised as “entry level” will come with the understanding that they’re gonna have to show you the ropes.
I have a bachelors and masters in engineering and there was a LOT of stuff that my irst employer taught me.
Not so much in terms of how to do the job I was trained for, but things that they don’t ell you in school. For example I never heard of the Thomas Register before my first job, but it’s something that many people rely on every day.
I’d agree with that sorta. I have a degree in civil engineering and I knew a lot about the engineering concepts. But I didn’t have any hands-on experience on how to apply it to real world projects. Things like how are calcs documented, what exactly do you need for a plan set, what are the assumption that the client routinely uses.
I think engineering is one of the easier fields 'cause you’re hired for a very specific job and the employer accepts that you go through a “journeyman” period. I imagine it’s a lot tougher figuring out how to apply a history degree or something.
I’m still at essentially my first real job… in nearly five years the title and the salary have gotten fancier, but it’s the same company and more or less the same kind of work. (computer programming.)
A bachelor’s degree in computer science has been useful, but really, where I got the skills to be employable was one of those ‘career training’ institutes. 
Very few of my coworkers in IT have degrees in anything related to IT, myself included. Of course, I work more on the business intersection with IT (consulting/programming) than say network administration but some of those folks don’t have related degrees either.
My academic experience is in behavioral neuroscience. When I decided to quit that, my computer skills were all I had. I started playing with computers and programming when I was 9 years old and got a Commodore 64 for Christmas. Luckily, I got in during the late 1990’s when pulse was optional. It was rough late-1990’s - early 2000’s (very rough) but things have stabilized and I have built myself a nice skill-set by volunteering for anything hard (that is my whole strategy). No I consult for big-name companies and have a great work environment. I work on stuff that other people are incapable of understanding so the freedom and autonomy is nice.
Well, when I was 17 and a senior in High School I applied for and was accepted at the United States Military Academy at West Point.
During the school year I was more or less like any other college student. I wouldn’t say my experiences day-to-day necessarily taught me how to be an effective officer in the Army. I was provided with an excellent collegiate education taught by very qualified individuals (on top of that it was free.) The big difference between cadet life and that of a regular college student is your life is more regulated, you are expected to behave and act a certain way and keep yourself groomed and presentable. There’s also sort of a mini chain of command inside the Academy. You’re a plebe (Fourth Class) when you first enter the Academy and within your corps that makes you a Cadet Private. As you advance through your years you’re “promoted.” From 3rd to 1st class there are positions within each class which are leadership positions making you a higher “rank” than fellow classmates.
The summers is when I learned the most about actually being in the Army. Each summer you do something different. The first summer is the USMA’s version of Basic Training,. The second summer you go to Camp Buckner for field training and the 3rd and 4th summers you spend assigned to active Army units around the world for on the job experience and advanced training courses. I was personally trained in mountain warfare my third summer (some fellow cadets were trained in stuff like airborne assault.) And fourth year I was in a leadeship position overseeing plebes and yearlings in their summer training.
Really?
Depends on what you take from it, I guess. From my years at college, outside of the actual studying I had to do for my degree:
I learned how to manage my time and deal with stressful situations
I learned how to find any information I need from any source, quickly
I worked with new computer programs
I learned how to work in a team with people I don’t like
I learned how to lead a team, and how to delegate tasks to make things work
I learned how to network and to find the right person to ask for what I need
I presented information to my peers
I learned how to negotiate and stand up for myself
And there are probably lots of other “soft” skills that I picked up during college that I can’t think of right now. Not to mention all the things I picked up from my part-time jobs, despite the fact that they weren’t all that related to my current field.
“Skills”, in the job world, isn’t just about actual tasks you’ve learned how to do. Those are important, yes, but employers are also looking for these general things like ability to work under pressure, adaptability, and quick learning. Anyone can teach the new recruit how to use the computer system, but if the guy can’t figure out how to organize his day to get his work done, it’s hard to change that.
We had to use the Thomas Register for one of our design projects my senior year. I haven’t used one since.
Oh no! You two got swapped in the educational system. It happens all the time.
As an electrical engineer I find that college and grad school did a great deal to prepare me for my first job.
When I graduated with my masters I went to the mall to a framing place to have it framed. The woman behind the counter wanted to shake my had because I was the only person she had met that used their college degree to get a job. She was an English major.
These are exactly the kinds of skills that I’m talking about. Unfortunately, these kinds of skills aren’t usually taught in college.
I guess my “where” question has been answered. My next question is “how”?
Through trial and error?
Advice from family and friends?
From self-help or business books?
Watching shows like Survivor or The Apprentice?
This worked OK for me. If you are not in a particularly career-focused field and not terribly sure exactly what you want to do, it might work for you, too. When I graduated I worked as a temp for a variety of places for about 6 weeks each for the first 9 months.
I’d had a lot of jobs in college, but none were in an office environment, they were things like telemarketing, retail, tutoring, etc. I wanted to do my newbie learning somewhere harmless before settling down, and I wanted to get a perspective on different kinds of offices & office jobs.
I had several offers of permanent jobs and found one I decided to take after about 9 months.
To be a successful temp, become as proficient as you can in MS Office, and make sure you can type accurately at least 40 wpm, preferably 55. Also, acquire a wardrobe that will allow you to fit in a professional setting. For example, enough non-jeans pairs of pants to make it through at least a week. Register with multiple (about 3) temp agencies so you aren’t caught long without a gig. Be clear with them that you are looking for multiple short-term assignments, not one 12-month gig doing the same boring thing. Short assignments are pretty common, often to cover for a medical or maternity leave. If you have a general idea what you want to do, they may be able to focus on specific types of companies, such as financial, technical, government, etc.
Good luck!
For me, it was a matter of trial and error and getting instruction from my supervisor and coworkers. At first, my supervisor would have to give me very detailed instructions about my projects, we’d have frequent meetings to discuss how the projects were going, and I’d go to him several times a day with questions. Over time, my instructions got less detailed, status meetings became less frequent, and I needed to ask fewer questions. Similarly, when I started, I’d have to ask my coworkers just what they expected from me and I needed a pretty detailed explanation. Over time, I got to need that less and less.
There were many times I thought I was headed down the right path or making the right decisions only to find out I was completely wrong. Given that I was getting regular feedback from others, nothing was allowed to go too far off track before someone corrected me.
When our department hires entry level people, it’s pretty much understood we’ll have to do a lot of hand holding at first. Management says it takes an average of 18 months before they start earning their keep. That seems like a long time given that almost all of our new hires have at least a relevant internship (so they’re not completely green), but there is a lot to learn.
We don’t expect that their related coursework is going to give them much training in how to do the job. Frankly, we look for related majors to show that they have an interest in the area and know what they’re getting into. A lot of what they’ll do with us is very company/industry/job specific. Plus, accepted practices change so quickly. A lot of what they’ve learned in their coursework may already be out of date.
That’s not to say we expect to have to teach new hires everything or that their education gives them nothing related to the job. We do expect that they’ll come out of college knowing certain things like how to give a presentation, write clearly, organize their thoughts, manage their time, and use spreadsheets and database programs as well as have solid mathmatical skills (including statistics).
My first job was doing desktop publishing.
I learned to use the software in college.
I went straight from a PhD to a research center. In over 25 years of work (in industry) I may have been in the real world for a year of it - and I didn’t like it very much.
My grad school advisors, and fellow students, taught me how to research and break down a problem, and taught me a set of computer and mathematical skills that have stood me in good stead ever since. I learned how to research the literature, and how to write papers. I wrote a survey paper in grad school which really helped me to organize the literature. My dissertation involved a very new and large software project, where I had the time to figure it out, so that second projects would go much faster.
But I think the real answer, which other people alluded to, is that you don’t stop learning when you start work - you actually learn more and faster the first few months. If a boss expects you to be up to speed the first week you work for any but simple jobs, run.
OTOH I got offered a job after undergraduate school. If I had taken it, instead of going to grad school, it would have been a disaster.
My father helped me get a part time job when I was fifteen mounting tapes and printing off the large Xerox and IBM printers in the datacenter of a big company starting at $6.50 hr (not bad for fifteen!). I was left to myself quite a bit with a logon ID to many servers, as well as the mainframe. And when you’re by yourself, and a tape jockey on the weekends, you get a lot of calls to do a lot little random little things… Fixing minor hardware issues, reboot servers, diagnose a problem with support, etc… And basically it all stuck, and I learned a lot from it. I needed a job after highschool, and so I stayed and went full time, and got excellent raises since then. Now I’m 25, and can take on any infrastructure issue in 80% of the datacenters anywhere, barring a language barrier. Getting better at that too the more I talk to folks overseas. Nine out of ten people swear I must have went to school to learn it all, but I’m just a B student with a high school diploma.