My Personal Journey
Bridging the gap between academic experience and the workforce has sentimental and personal value. I had struggled when my family traveled back and forth from Egypt to the US in the 90s. I grew up in the US, and in 2002, my family decided to move back to Egypt. I had to re-adjust my mindset, language, attitude, and academic learning to follow the Egyptian educational and academic system, which was not that great even though I attended an American school in Cairo. In November 2010, my family decided to return to NJ, and I had to go through turmoil when I started attending high school during my junior year.
Looking back now at my academic journey, I believe it has been challenging because I never had proper academic and career guidance during high school and college. Even though I used to read many books, be involved in social activities, play tennis and swim, I was never introduced to proper resources and materials that would help me determine what kind of career I should pursue.
In Egypt, I experienced how much students did not learn about careers, electives, interests, and hobbies. The education system in Egypt does not allow students to have electives or question their interests. Parents are fixated that their kids will be doctors or engineers. For example, my father decided on my behalf that I would be a dentist, which was the only choice I had to pursue even though I hated going to my dentist.
Coming here to the US as a junior high student was a shock for me as I had to question and look for my interests, strengths, and weakness and what kind of major I should approach when applying for college. I did not even know that I had to apply for college in my senior year. My high school guidance counselor did not instruct or give guidelines, and I followed what my classmates were doing. I learned how to ask questions and stop being a passive person. I had to learn how to apply for an undergraduate degree by myself, read brochures about college programs, and learn about scholarships and tuition on my own. And btw, my parents were going through a divorce. I was involved in their problems, and I had to rely on myself to solve problems even though I was just 16!
After getting into college, I changed my major three times during my freshman year. First, I studied international marketing, then changed my major to international business, and decided to add political science as my second major. I had to transfer during my freshman year as my family was moving to another Virginia. I did not find the admission office at college as helpful at all during my transition period. Google has always been my best friend, to be honest. I searched and looked for guidance. Finally, after getting accepted at George Washington University in DC, my advisor told me that I could not study business and political science together. However, I could apply for minors—which I never knew that this option existed. So I decided to apply for journalism and mass communication because I have always wanted to be like Oprah! Again, this decision shows how much I explored my hobbies and interests when I started my college journey.
Since the beginning of the fall semester this year, I have brainstormed several topics in Independent Project: Design Research Studio as part of the Strategic Design and Management Master’s curriculum at Parsons School of Design. And honestly, this topic has been the only one that resonated with my experiences. The duration of this research took about fourteen weeks, and I hope to demonstrate that I did not impose any personal biases in this research.
A Note on “We” and “I”
For this research, I collaborated with Shaza Alashi and Kevin Bukreev. I want to clarify that even though I wrote this research paper, many of the ideas and findings that it explores have been discovered through team meetings, interviews, and workshops. All responsibility for the many errors in this research is mine. I move back and forth between the third-person description and the use of the first-person pronouns such as we and I. In particular, when using I, it refers to when I am describing or drawing from my own experience to illustrate a point. When I use we, it refers to the shared and collective thoughts and works through this research.
Research Topic
Education is a key to a person’s growth and development. There are structured processes for people to get valuable education and knowledge, and it starts after finishing high school and applying for colleges. For people, colleges and universities offer practical knowledge that promotes learning related to engineering, design, and more. They help develop experience on campuses where students generate knowledge about their self-interests, build communication skills, teamwork, build strong ties, and make new friends. Over the years, attending colleges and universities has become a requirement for people to earn high-paying salaries and positions in societies. The outcome is “with more education comes the potential for a better job, a better salary, and better health benefits.”
Our research report is about the types of conflicts and struggles students face when approaching graduation, applying for jobs, and getting started on their feet when they enter the workforce. Unfortunately, many students graduate from college feeling unprepared, which postpones their career growth and development. Therefore, we have observed this problem statement and revealed what constitutes being prepared and unprepared. We searched for definitions and real-life experiences on a good college or university program. Our user segment research focuses on undergraduates and graduate students. Due to time limitations and resources, we did not consider high school or Ph.D. students. However, our potential solutions could be helpful for them.
Our goal is to advance the growing conversations about leading students from day one when they start their education journey in college to the last day they leave academia and enter the workforce with preparedness skills. Our research proposes and identifies leverage points for facilitating the transitional phases that students go through. Potential solutions are included in this research by the end of the report.
Design Research Process
We started with understanding and identifying problem statements through our design thinking process using secondary research, which developed later into a system map containing different themes and observations on primary and secondary actors. We collected secondary insights and information as part of the secondary research. Then, we moved to the observation part, which includes creating journey maps, trends analysis, and themes. We collected observations and reached out to expert engagement through interviews. I have been hoping to reach out to as many people as I can worldwide to share their experiences, find the gaps and flaws, and develop solutions to intervene in the system.
Quantitative Research
What College Majors Lead To Success?
According to McGraw-Hill’s 2016 data report, more than 53 percent of enrolled college students strongly agree that their major field of study will lead to a good job. However, it depends on their majors. For example, 62 percent of students pursuing science, technology, engineering, or math (STEM) degrees reported the most confidence in their job prospects, believing that their major will lead to a good job. On the other hand, 58 percent of students pursuing majors in public service majors like education, social work, and criminal justice showed some confidence. While 51 percent of business majors showed confidence, and the least confident rate was reported by 40 percent of students pursuing a liberal arts major. Majors such as arts and humanities “are more than three times as likely as other students to report that they feel ‘not at all prepared for their careers.”
Internships
I focused on internships during this research because I did not have any internships during college. I was not introduced to this concept, and when I graduated, I started my first internship. I felt behind, and I lacked many soft and hard skills and experiences. During the past few years, whenever I met someone pursuing their undergraduate degree, I started emphasizing the importance of pursuing internships while studying to find jobs when they graduate and be prepared with skills.
I wanted to narrow down my findings and dig deeper into what college majors prepare students for the workforce when starting this research. I questioned a high correlation between being prepared for college and internships. In the beginning, I assumed that lack of internships was highly correlated with the unpreparedness of students who are graduating and entering the workforce. However, the results were really interesting to correct my assumptions.
Insights and facts from secondary data revealed that many students preferred having more internships during their college years. According to Gallup 2017 data report, roughly about 42 percent of students questioned in this data survey said they strongly agree that having a relevant job or internship as an undergraduate led to a good job waiting for them upon graduation. At the same time, according to an article published by Forbes, data showed that
Only a third of college graduates had internships during college where they were able to apply what they were learning in the classroom. But those who did were twice as likely as those who didn’t to have a good job waiting for them upon graduation. With such a profound relationship, it’s fair to wonder why an internship or co-op isn’t a required component for graduation.
Data showed a discrepancy between having internships during college and not getting a job upon or after graduation. Moreover, that is because as recent studies by Pew Research have pointed out, “today’s young adults (between the ages of 15-21) are much less likely to have had a paid summer job or to have been employed in the last year compared to every previous generation for which data exists.” This data shows that internships and being employed during college don’t necessarily correlate with students’ preparedness for the workforce, and many factors contribute to the lack of readiness. Colleges and universities are not to be blamed all the way, and the problem is that
employers share equal burden and blame here. After all, with the small exception of work-study opportunities, colleges and universities don’t have jobs and internships…employers do!
Possible Solutions Provided by Experts
A Survey by McGraw Hill in 2016 showed some potential solutions proposed by students, and some of them suggest that students feel that their colleges could have done more work to help them feel and be ‘prepared’ when graduating. The results of the survey showed that:
Sixty-seven percent of students preferred if they had internships and professional experiences.
Fifty-nine percent preferred more time to focus on career preparation through coaching and interview preparation.
Forty-seven percent preferred better access to career preparation tools.
Thirty-four percent wanted more accessibility to alumni networking opportunities.
System Map
After collecting secondary data, we created a system map to observe what factors interfere with students’ preparedness and unpreparedness when they graduate and approach the workforce. We wanted to understand the different layers of interdependencies, everyday interactions, and overlap between primary and secondary actors. The map’s primary actors are college, economy, and employers, and the secondary actors are again economy, parents, connections and networking, high school, society, and culture.
Primary Research and Data
Interview Archetypes
After collecting data from secondary sources, we started creating a stakeholder list and reaching out to experts for interviews. We reached out to people from all around the world to understand the topic better and see if there are any shared commonalities and differences.
We conducted twenty-eight interviews for our research process. Our interview stakeholders consisted of the following:
Associates, undergraduates, and graduate students: helped share their experiences with career services and transition from school to career.
Strategists: they proposed several strategic plans for students.
Professors: they shared their recommendations and pain points that students go through.
Current Strategic Design and Management Master’s students at Parsons School of Design: provided and shared their current and previous pain points while pursuing their master’s degree.
Professionals in different fields such as pharmaceutical, creative production, design and strategy, architecture, sustainability, filmmaking, teaching, recruiting, and finance shared their experiences when graduating from college and approaching their first jobs.
Human resources and recruiters: shared their experiences of bridging the gap between education and career and recommended how students could have successful transitions when graduating and entering the workforce.
Extreme users, such as college dropouts, shared their motives and decision not to pursue college degrees.
Questions
After going through our data collection from secondary research, we created a list of questions about what makes a good college program, the definition of preparedness and unpreparedness, and what helps students have a smooth transition when graduating from college and entering the workforce. Also, we asked questions on the effectiveness of using career services in college and whether academic classes helped them be prepared for the workforce with soft and hard skills. Here are some of our questions:
How was your experience with your degree at the beginning?
How was your experience with your degree towards the end of it?
Why did you think your experience was as such?
List skills, if any, that you developed during your degree?
What was your experience like working with the school’s career services? Alternatively, any other offices/persons assisting in career development.
How did you feel after graduating?
How was your knowledge of the industry you were applying for work?
What was your understanding of your career path?
How was your experience looking for job opportunities?
Describe your professional interviewing and networking experiences?
What do you think makes a good college program, and what is not?
Anything else you would like to share that you think we did not cover on the topic?
List skills, if any, that you were lacking for work experience?
What would you have done differently, if anything? Why?
If you would teach a course in college, what would you do differently from your professors?
Do you recommend that students graduating from high school take a year gap before applying for college?
Interviews Quotes
I will not include any names to protect interviewees’ privacy. I have decided to move forward with using only single alphabetical letters.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea to go straight from high school to college. When I was 18 years old and graduating from high school, I had no idea what I wanted to do, and I had no idea what was out there or what I was interested in. I think it would be super valuable for people to take at least a year off and do some volunteer work, do some part-time work, just explore things to figure out what they are interested in.”
“Students need to know their rights regarding their salary, educational rights, expectations, and office responsibilities. In fact, it is a problem that students are not aware that job descriptions are not accurate. It is important for entry-level employees to ask questions, and ask around for advice. Many fresh graduates lack basic office skills, such as Microsoft Suite, and they should know the bare minimum like how to take screenshots, schedule meetings, etc.”
Insights from Interviews
Insights from the interviews are unique as they answered so many questions we had, and they helped us discover the discrepancies we stumbled upon during our secondary research. All of our interviewees agree that colleges help students develop critical thinking, communication skills, self-discipline, resilience, teamwork spirit, technical skills, industry-related skills, and knowledge.
Insights revealed two types of problems that students graduating from college struggle with. The first part is that students are unprepared when they are approaching graduation from college and entering the job market, and the second part is when students are about to start their first jobs.
Here are our top insights related to students who are approaching graduation:
Academics do not prepare people to see the real world.
College students who do not have prior work experiences, especially during college, do not feel prepared when they graduate.
Internships and part-time jobs are essential because they help teach students real-life skills and develop their confidence and leadership skills. Given all of that, students will be able to strengthen their decision-making, communication styles and develop soft and hard skills, and they will be able to choose what kind of career they want to pursue.
Students can gain real-life skills outside the academic environment through work experiences, such as extracurricular activities, as they help students develop interpersonal and communication skills.
College assignments and group projects should be more realistic and reflective of real case studies to develop strategic planning skills and awareness of current laws and regulations.
Students graduate from their college program without knowing what types of jobs they can apply for or their career path, and career services do not provide this knowledge.
Students require more structure and guidance after graduation and during the transition to employment.
Students lack confidence regarding reaching out to their network, are unsure about available job opportunities, and are unclear about entry-level and suitable jobs.
Students should consider taking a year gap before applying for college. They should work, volunteer, and explore what kind of fields and industries exist before pursuing a major in college.
Here are our top insights related to students who are about to start their first job:
It is hard to apply academic theories to practice.
Many students have difficulties connecting skills learned through education to their real-life experiences, which leads to a feeling of unpreparedness.
Students who start their first jobs lack financial literacy awareness and negotiate their salary.
Students who start their first jobs lack essential office and communication skills, such as office management and dealing with multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary working professionals.
Many students who graduate lack confidence and assertiveness.
Current Student Journey Map
We created the journey maps during our workshop and concept development sessions based on our interviews. This journey map focuses on our user segment: undergraduate and graduate students. We wanted to know why the educational system has been failing and not preparing students for the job market. We figured that the journey map illustrates actions, happy moments, pain points, questions, and possible opportunities for intervention in the system. Our journey map will lead us to synthesize insights and common themes.
The current journey map does not include any potential opportunities, and it only provides the current journey that many of our interviewees experienced. Also, it includes a mix of questions, actions, and pain points of students who are approaching graduation and students who are about to start their first job.
We noticed a pattern related to where the problem initially starts. Interviewees mentioned that these were the questions they had when approaching graduation. The questions are: what suitable job options should students pursue? How can students connect theory to practice? What questions should students ask during a job interview?
After observing the questions in the current journey map, we moved to the pain points. Our research revealed that the top reasons students have difficulty transitioning from college to the job market are the lack of knowledge about corporate roles due to no prior work experience. Students who are recent graduates or getting their first job have poor decision-making skills when facing the real world outside the academic environment. Lastly, students lack awareness of shortcomings and experiences or being undirected before entering the workforce, which creates many pains.
Findings:
Unprepared When Graduating and Applying for Jobs
After going through the journey maps and interview insights, we defined what it means to be prepared and unprepared for graduation. We have agreed that colleges help students develop independence, learn about themselves and develop self-awareness. Also, they establish excellent critical thinking skills, learn about time management through assignments deadlines, gain and learn technical skills related to their field of study, and their communication skills get robust.
However, college students are unprepared for creating strong networking circles. Some of them have issues with building confidence and are unaware of entry-level and suitable jobs. Many students struggle with preparing for job interviews by not connecting or applying theory to practice. Lastly, students have difficulty finding industry-specific technical skills, especially if they have no prior work experience and employers are looking for top-notch employees.
Unprepared When Starting The First Job
The second part of being prepared and unprepared is when students start their first job. We refer to the transitional phase when students finally land a job after graduating. As we mentioned earlier, students getting their first jobs are prepared with critical thinking, communication, time management, and teamwork skills. However, they are unprepared to understand financial literacy in terms of knowing their salary rights, salary negotiations, and filing for taxes. They lack general knowledge regarding basic office skills and etiquette. Many of them never used standard computer software such as Microsoft Suite, G-Suite, Figma, Jira, JustWorks, and more. Entry-level employees or fresh graduates are not knowledgeable and aware of laws, regulations, and human resources rules. For communication skills, they lack basic office skills such as making phone calls, arranging meetings, talking with clients, handling administrative duties, working with people from different professional backgrounds, sending out emails, and more. Lastly, many fresh college graduates lack confidence and are not assertive to disagree, and they lack the experience of asking the right questions.
Observations
The current education system in colleges and universities develops the asymmetrical relationship between theory and practice. It is a system that will not give students too many opportunities to explore what is happening in the world. Several constraints contribute to this issue, such as financial restraints. These limited resources do not allow students to travel, being part of the exchange student programs, poor economic conditions, terrorism, and more. Students need experiences to develop fundamental life skills that will help them mature faster outside the classroom and apply theory to practice, which means applying what they are learning and reading by exploring real-life case studies and taking action to find solutions.
Concept Development
Our opportunity or concept is an online preparedness platform and phone application that will offer easy and fast access to students for existing college services. We only focused on undergraduate and graduate students seeking two to four-year programs, and the service will be called PreParedness App. The application features will keep students updated on different opportunities throughout their college journey to support them in the transitional phase, potentially eliminating feeling unprepared, lacking confidence, and disoriented. The features and services delivered through this platform are thoroughly explained in the survey questions below.
Survey
We created an anonymous survey to understand what features we should implement to improve our concept development. We posted the survey on social media platforms, such as Facebook, WhatsApp, LinkedIn, Instagram, and the Strategic Design and Management class of 2022 general slack channel. Due to time constraints, a total of 30 people answered our survey questions in four days.
Here is the list of questions we asked:
Would you consider Self-help Book for college students as an efficient way to become prepared when graduating? The book helps students understand their levels of unpreparedness and gain self-confidence. Do you agree that this idea might be helpful for college students?
Pipeline Grooming Program: Companies hire students midway through the academic program. Colleges are given tools to promote this program to employers and create competitive work opportunities for students. Do you agree that this is an efficient tool for students to be prepared for the job market?
Shadowing Program: “Meet The Future You!” or “Meet The Future Employer” is an opportunity for students to observe a day of work from a professional they aspire to be. Do you agree that this idea might be helpful for college students?
Preparedness App provides instant messaging to students from freshman year - everyone automatically will be opted-in. Students could be notified of appropriate events and opportunities, network with other users across other majors/programs, and have applicant tracking system software that manages the recruiting and hiring process, including job postings and job applications. Do you agree that this idea might be helpful for college students?
An empty section that allows people to share their suggestions or creative ideas.
Survey Results
Our findings from the survey results are just a starting point for us to understand what kind of features we should focus on and eliminate. Given that only 30 people answered the survey, there might be another round of surveys conducted in the second semester to narrow down what kind of service we should be offering. Only 6.7 percent strongly agree that giving self-help books is helpful. About 26.7 percent strongly agree that the pipeline grooming program could be a good idea, while 60 percent strongly agree that shadowing programs or meeting the future could be a great feature. Lastly, 33.3 percent strongly agree that the preparedness application providing instant messaging to students from freshman year could be helpful.
From the survey suggestions, internships should be mandatory during the educational journey in college to provide students with real-life experiences. It was also anonymously suggested that colleges should “provide professional mentoring through the alumni network of the universities to show the student the future through the people who studied similar subjects and moved on in their careers.” Also, It was also anonymously suggested that “the idea of promoting self-help books will be a tough sell, and everything needs to be low touch and instantly gratifying.”
Potential Student Journey Map: Using The Preparedness Platform
We created a ‘future’ student journey map to imagine how it could help students approach graduation and apply for jobs. We did not focus on how students should be prepared when starting their first job. Our potential scenarios suggest that first-year students will automatically opt-in to the application or platform and be provided with self-help books containing tutorials and guidelines to follow. Sophomore students will be invited to participate in the pipeline grooming program and auditing classes to gain practical skills. Junior students will get the opportunity to participate in shadowing opportunities offered by employers and organizations. Senior-year students will have enough exposure to suitable jobs and the job market and get a sense of possible career paths. Also, they will have extra resources to learn about their financial rights. The crucial outcome is that students, when graduating, are confident, have created connections and expanded their networking circles, and are ready to transition to the workforce smoothly.
Next Steps — what needs to be done.
The next steps include conducting more market research, defining success for the platform, and creating a vision cone to analyze the past, present, and future scenarios. If given more time and resources during the spring semester, we would be focusing on a user experience design that includes ethnographic research. Part of the ideation process would require us to speak to experts in colleges, universities, and employers who could provide their feedback on the PreParedness App, so appropriate prototyping, iteration, and testing phases could be implemented and pursued.
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