Show up, prepared and on time, not just when you feel like it. Take directions gratefully — and this means not being offended if you’re corrected in public. Knowing a particular skill or craft is not as important as knowing how to learn new things — and that means a willingness to step out of…
I just got this email from a student who graduated in May. I’m the adviser to The Setonian, the student newspaper. I think it’s safe to say that working with the Setonian helped me get the job. Several of the tests I took with the company involved me compiling given information into paragraph format, which was…
“What answer do you want?” “Just tell me what you want me to write, and I’ll write it for you!” I once had a student in a literature class who almost had a panic attack when she found out, from the mock final exam, that the final exam would contain poems and prose passages that…
An employer will never ask you to write a five-paragraph essay, but your employer will expect you to demonstrate the critical thinking skills that you will develop while mastering the college essay. How will you set yourself apart from all the other job applicants who have also passed freshman comp? These are all specific skills I…
I tell my students that if what they want is specific job skills, they should learn how to lay cable or get a Class-2 rating to drive a P-5000 Power Loader. But the specific job skills I teach a freshman or sophomore may be out of date by graduation day. Rather than teaching students how to use…
Anyone with an English degree will tell you that picking this major can lead to a lot skeptical questions: “What are you going to do after school?” or “What kind of a job can you really get with an English degree?” But the awesome part about this major is its flexibility—you’re not confined to a…