by Heather Hurd

Created on: February 05, 2009   Last Updated: February 17, 2009

The transition from college to professional living can be a difficult one. Students rely on long term deadlines, guided lectures, and a clear grading system to judge their success while in school. Once the leap is made to the working world, criteria are often less clear and much more difficult to understand. Personal success becomes a matter of work ethic, company ideals, and a good relationship with superiors.

College and university life can certainly prepare you for a professional experience, but much of the burden of that preparation falls on the student. Anyone looking to capitalize on their college experience in order to improve their work environment must be prepared to focus, dedicate time and energy to tasks, and not be afraid to spend time with professors and advisors to achieve maximum results. Students taking courses that are deemed "easy" won't see the same results in their job performance as those who commit early on to extracting every possible advantage from their relatively coddled time in school.

More difficult still is the jarring realization that whatever major a student chooses may or may not be a viable career path. Often the most enjoyable majors, subjects like art history or English literature, leave students without the necessary resume entries to offer real competition in today's job market. Even students in more readily employable fields like computer science or biology often find themselves limited by current job offers or economic conditions.
Especially in difficult economic times, employers are faced with a wider and more qualified applicant base, and incoming students are often pushed out of their field by older or more experienced applicants.

It would be easy for new graduates to become disillusioned by the professional world. Long hours, conservative dress codes, limited pay scales, and unfulfilling positions can make those student loan debts look less and less justifiable. In truth, however, there is hope for graduates. You may leave your university to find yourself without the expected or promised opportunities, but students with the right attitude and skill set will be able to keep themselves afloat until better jobs come along, or until they are surprised to find a perfect fit in an unlikely career field. What matters most is a sense of duty, a strong work ethic, and an adaptability that makes candidates indispensable to employers.

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