Campus To Career: 8: College vs Career: How we are moulded

School and college have bigger influences on us than we imagine it to be. The way we are shaped up in school and college has a lasting impact even when we pass all of them and move on to our career.

Mentally, most of us are still stuck in the way we were when we were in college.

Let us take a look:

Since we all spend so much time going through the "way of school & college life", undoing that mentality takes time. Some of us don't even realize the devastating impact this mentality has on our lives.

What is this devastating impact?

School/college life prepares us for a life where you study - you get marks. Clear markers of progress. There is an absolute guarantee that if you study well, if you memorize those facts and figures, if you are able to "write" well in those exams, you will be able to pass those exams, get good grades and you will be called "good".

But, life is NOT like that. Even if you are to put in lots of effort in starting a business, there is no guarantee that you will succeed. Even if you do your best in your work, the company may fail - and hence you may lose your job.

While there is a direct relationship between your work and success in your college, that relationship is a lot more tenuous in your career.

And, that is where lots of problems begin for most of us.

We expect quick markers and guidance and feedback on how we are doing like our marks and grades told us back in college days. We hardly get any of those in business life.

We expect streamlined ways of working - as we did in our school and college days - clear expectations on what to do and how to be "good" - which is study, hack the exam and you are called a "good student".

No such simple equivalents are available in our careers. And, again, this leads to lots of confusion and heartburn.

If we don't like the study stream, we can drop out. If we don't like the school or college, we can drop out and join another. It is almost too easy.

But, a career is not like that. If we don't like the job, yes, we can drop out. But, getting another job is even more difficult. Staying at home without pay is not a scenario any of us can even think about.

Also, since working hard in schools and colleges almost always guarantees "success" - which is "passing" the exams and getting at some decent grades, those who have "succeeded" by slogging it out in colleges find it difficult in real life when the same approach of "slogging it out" does not really give any decent results. They get confused. They start worrying and more often than not, feel completely lost.

So, what does one do?

The first step is to recognize the need for the mental shift that we need to make from college to career. We need to recognize that we need immediate and quick feedback - and while that is readily available - and that feedback is called EXAMS in schools and colleges, we have to go seek and get that feedback the hard way in career life.

The next step is to recognize that there is no way to "DROP OUT" gracefully. We need to develop the skills we need, the expertise we need to "DROP OUT" of one job and go to another - much before we decide to drop out of the previous job.

Let us see the way out of this "college" thinking and what it takes - in our next newsletter.

See you next week!

#collegetocareer #howcollegespoils #campustocareer

**************************************************************************************

You might have received this newsletter simply because you are in my network. In case this newsletter is not directly relevant to you, please do share this with someone to whom this might be more useful! Thanks a ton in advance for the help!!

Remember: Sharing is, caring!

**************************************************************************************

If you are interested in learning a lot more about how to turbocharge your career, please do register for this masterclass :

https://academy.visvanathansambasivam.com/web/checkout/65c0a4b63e895934b882a7c2

We cover the 6 Step Career G.R.O.W.T.H Framework in this masterclass and how this framework can help you in your career journey