Ed.
A podcast covering topics related to education, communication, and beyond. Smart and frank conversation about topics that matter to students, faculty, and community.
Ed.
Episode 11- Educational Transitions
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This month on Ed. Andy and Twyla are once again joined by Nicole Foley Nelson to discuss Transitions in the academic setting. How transitions are dealt with going from high school to college, within the college years, and then post graduation. All of this on Episode 11 of Ed.
For further information about Ed. Please visit our website at www.ed.buzzsprout.com.
Ed. was produced by Andy Luster and Twyla Coy, Music Provided by Liborio Conti.
We're just ready. We are ready to jump into our last segment to talk about burn uh not burnout. Cut, cut, cut, cut. So many things we can put in the intro.
SPEAKER_03You just keep rolling and I have I haven't stopped. Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_01That hasn't ended.
SPEAKER_03Transitioning this is professionalism right here.
SPEAKER_01This month on Ed, Andy and Twila are once again joined by Nicole Foley Nelson to discuss transitions in the academic setting. How transitions are dealt with going from high school to college, within the college years, and then post-graduation. All of this on episode 11 of Ed. And we are here with episode 11 of Ed.
SPEAKER_03All right.
SPEAKER_01Yes, number 11. Lucky number 11. I guess that's lucky for some people. Anyway, uh, we are once again joined by our friend Nicole Foley Nelson.
SPEAKER_03Welcome back. Hello.
SPEAKER_01It is nice to have you back.
SPEAKER_00It's good to be back.
SPEAKER_01And to talk about something that I think really pertains to your what you do. Um, you help students get, you know, you guide them through their educational career, you guide them through transitions, which is what we were talking about today. Two school, through school of the data. To school, through school, through the whole kit and caboodle.
SPEAKER_03That's right. Yeah. So we're we're calling this what transitions to, in, and out of college. Okay.
SPEAKER_01Yes. So I think uh let's just jump straight into it. We'll talk about uh what what is a transition, what what manifests and what is a transition. And I've got Miriam Webster, uh, our our good friend, um, who says that basically there are four different types of transitions. There is the anticipated transition, the unanticipated transition, the non-event transition, which basically is nothing happens, and then sort of, I guess, the sleeper transition, the one you just don't know what's gonna happen. It pops up out of nowhere. Um, and I guess that is worse than an unanticipated transition. But I think the one that we are really focusing on today is the anticipated transition.
SPEAKER_03Right. And this is airing in May. And so we're thinking about, you know, we're thinking about graduation. So, you know, I have a high school student that a lot of our high schools are graduating in May, and some of those students are transitioning into college, some of our students are graduating from college, some of them are kind of in the middle of this, like, we're finishing a semester finally, and we're transitioning into that next semester, whatever that looks like. So, yeah, they're we're anticipating those transitions.
SPEAKER_00So there's several different types of transitions out there that we're all gonna experience. And then you're gonna transition after that into dare I say it, life.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and we're gonna talk about that transition into life as well. Uh, so I think the first one, high school into college. What is it, what is it like to go from high school into college? What is that, what does that look like? What is that, what are the biggest things we have to contend with? What are some things we have to work on? And I think that the first thing that pops into my head and something we've been talking talking about is this idea of culture shock. The biggest culture shock you have is going from a high school classroom into a college classroom. Why?
SPEAKER_00I think one of the reasons, and many students have told me the the reason why that that transition is so huge is because you're with the same people in high school for four years. So you've grown from 15 to 18, and sometimes 14 to 18, with these the majority of the same kids. You guys have done the same thing high school, you're on that same clock, you know when the bell is gonna ring, all of that, and then you graduate. And you move into this transition of I don't have to go to school on Tuesdays and Thursdays. There's a lot of freedom, right? There's a lot of freedom. I think sometimes too much, it becomes overwhelming because you've always been on a train clock that the bell rings at 755, and the next bell, and the next bell, and then you get out, you come home, you go to sports, you get something to eat, and your your mom decides, or your mom or dad decides your whole life. And then all of a sudden, graduation happens, and you get to make the decisions. You don't have to do things on a timely clock. So you're shocked by that. Then you're, of course, socially shocked because you know you've been watching all of these movies and fun things on TV that you're gonna be in these huge classrooms with this mass of people, and it's all gonna work, and you're gonna find your very best friends for the rest of your life in these classes, and you don't know how that's gonna happen. So what do you do?
SPEAKER_03Yeah. You know, I have an article pulled up by the Mayo Clinic, and it talks about the W curve model, understanding a new college student's experience. And it goes through that kind of that exact same experience that you just talked about. It talks about the five stages of the model explaining the culture shock that students actually have. And it talks about that, the honeymoon stage, that being the first stage, where it really starts before students arrive at college. They are so excited. They're excited to be there. And then reality sets in. We've all seen it where they get there and they're like, oh my gosh, everybody's just staring at their phones. They're not talking to anybody. I don't have any friends. What do I do with my life? Right. The reality sets in. And then there is the initial adjustment. So the settling into the demands of college life because college is hard. It's it's more difficult, academically rigorous than perhaps high school was. And so the reality is setting in, but they're settling into it. And then maybe if they've gone off to college or if they're they're missing home, maybe not here, because we've got, you know, people that are still in the uh same, but they're they're missing their friends that maybe have gone off. And then acceptance and integration. So balance emerges. And but there's it is culture shock. What what have you found about culture shock?
SPEAKER_01So I think the the biggest the issue, and I want to go back to that for a second, is is that freedom issue. I think that freedom issue is where where students start to get stuck. And I think it's it's very much you are now in charge, and I think you see a lot of college freshmen who end up not being able to get past that freedom shock aspect of it. But then it's funny because five, 10 years later they come back.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_01And they've learned that freedom aspect, and they've learned that they need to basically structure their lives themselves. So they structure their lives themselves and they're able to succeed in college now because they've taken that time to sort of get those life experiences. And no, I am not telling people to go, you don't go to college for 10 years. But what I'm telling students now is that they need to learn those ways of being able to manage your time and be able to structure the time for yourself from the get-go. You need to take those things that were given to you in high school and start using them as the structure for your college now.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_01And I think that is the key to being able to jump at least past the freedom aspect. Now, the friends aspect. I think we live in a post-COVID world where uh we had a lot of students who spent a lot of time not socializing, and we talked about this before on the podcast that we've had students in the past who have just had to deal with that. And I think it is going to either it's gonna take time to get sort of back to where we were, and I think I've said that before, but I also think that we need to just encourage students in our classrooms to talk to each other.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_01Um, I have two classes right now where the students just don't talk, they don't speak at all. And I ask questions in class and they don't want to talk. And I keep taking, and I it's funny because I take a step back and I say, okay, now have you work in groups and have you talk in groups? They talk in groups, right? So they want that socialization. The socialization is wanted, it's just a matter of pushing them into that direction.
SPEAKER_00But they've never, you know, they've come from a place where somebody has always been telling them exactly what to do. So when you put them in a group, you tell them you have to talk. They can do that. But if you put them in a room and just have them sit there, they don't know what to do. I have so many students that come to me and they're like, I don't have a lot of friends. I don't, I don't, you know, I don't really like a lot of people, is what they tell me all the time. And I'm I'm like, Well, you do have friends because you're still talking to people. You're just not giving yourself access to have more friends and talk to more people because you're on your phone. And what I do with some is I work with them because they literally are going through the culture shock of being the only person in their friend group that went to community college instead of went off to college. Yeah. And so they talk to people, but all of their friends are gone. So now you're at a culture shock of having to make new friends. And I have said, okay, we're gonna make a friend in this class. You're gonna ask somebody for a piece of paper, even though you know you could write it on your phone, or you're going to talk about something that you like to talk about. I have taken people to clubs and said, Hey, this person is this is John, and he is an engineer and he's interested in engineering things, let's be friends, and have them become part of their friend group. And it's worked, but it's it's it's been a huge culture shock to them because they don't know how to do things in this post-COVID world without somebody telling them what to do.
SPEAKER_03Right. So when we're talking about transitioning from high school to college, I also want to address the fact that many of our students here are those dual enrollment, dual credit students. And so we we have that transition and or those skills that we're learning, transitioning back and forth from high school to college to high school to college. What advice do you have for those students or those professors who are transitioning, you know, back and forth from high school to college? How do you manage that?
SPEAKER_00That's that's an interesting one because they're 16. Some of them are very young. They're in 10th grade. And as a faculty member, knowing how to manage a class with a 16-year-old and a 35-year-old and getting them to that same point of contact in a class has been is difficult. I've talked to a lot of faculty members where that's very difficult because you have a a 16-year-old that wants you to tell them everything of what to do, and then you have a mature student that wants you to say, give me the work and let's do it. And you have to find that common ground. So it is a it's been a huge challenge for faculty. Um, as a dual cred, I think dual credit students are wonderful because they get to jump into both worlds. They know what it's like to be in college and they know what it's like to still be in high school. So you still have your that um set of of advocates behind you, like your mom and your teachers and everything, telling you what to do, but you're moving forward in your education. So um then there's that traditional college student or or traditional community college student who's out here on their own trying to figure it out. And you have to blend all of them together. It's a tricky, it's tricky, right? It's tricky. And you know, I know that you know, if you're an English teacher, you want to do, you want to talk about English.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_00But you also have to know what's going on in the class with your students and how to blend those students together. And the students, it's been very difficult to do that because they want to be on their phones. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01We can talk about life and talk about speech at the same time. Yeah. Uh, but we also teach interpersonal, so we talk about life.
SPEAKER_03Um and if we needed to address the soft skills, you could go back to episode six and talk about learning. Oh, yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01So that I think um I think the biggest thing is also, and then this is something we also wanted to discuss too, is you need to learn very, very quickly how to be your own cheerleader. You need to learn very quickly, and and that's that that is a personal mental standpoint that you need to have. You need to learn very quickly that you need to give yourself a chance to be as you just need to be an advocate for yourself. You have to be. You have to put that forward because if you don't, you are going to fall into the pitfalls of everything that that is problematic, the freedom aspect and everything. I think we talked about. You have got to jump forward and just say, I am and have some assertiveness with that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01It's about being assertive and being able to approach this transition, this movement with the most gumption that you can.
SPEAKER_03Right. Yeah, I agree absolutely. So I'm thinking of my, you know, high school junior right now who is starting to um think about all of the things that you need to do in order to get into a college, right? But I'm like, you have to advocate for yourself. Not only do you need to have that growth mindset and you know, embrace failure and and not getting it all right all the time, but you have to advocate. You have to set the appointment with your advisors, you have to ask the questions, you have to be your own, as you said, your own cheerleader. So I think that's the biggest takeaway from transitioning from high school to college is that there's not somebody necessarily to hold your hand every step of the administrative process, which there is in the high school. So you have to be your own administrative assistant kind of along the way.
SPEAKER_00Right. And as I always say, the word no is a full sentence. So when you say no and you mean no, that's fine. But you can't, you have to back that up as being assertive. You have to back that up with why I'm saying no, and no, I don't think I can do this. Or just when you go talk to your instructor, tell your instructor, no, I don't understand this. Don't say, Well, that's stupid. Like that's dumb. I mean, in some instances, yes, it may be, but you have to be able to turn that language of stupid into something that your instructor can understand and tell you how to get to the next level. But as um Professor Lester said, is you gotta be able to speak out. You gotta, if you don't say anything, they take that as you being okay with everything that's going on. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01You and and honestly, just come talk to us. Tell us the truth. Just come tell us the truth. I am more likely to be more supportive and sympathetic if you come and tell me the truth than you not telling me anything. Just not, you know, and just disappearing. I don't want you to disappear. I don't want you to disappear. I want you to succeed. Everybody I talked about this in my class today. I said, you know, I'm an agape love style, which basically means that I, you know, will take, you know, I will jump in front of a bullet for everybody. I'll jump in front of a bullet for you. Like that's how I feel as an educator, and I'll do that. All you gotta do is, you know, just come and talk to me.
SPEAKER_02Yep.
SPEAKER_01All right. I think we're gonna take a break. Um, and next we will move into transitioning within college and how that looks and works. And we're back. And uh we just realized that we weren't recording for the last uh few minutes, so I'm sure that this will end up making the intro. Uh we are transitioning.
SPEAKER_03That's how we transition, exactly. We're transitioning into the introduction.
SPEAKER_01Transitioning into transitioning into transitioning into uh I did. I was on a roll. I was on a roll there for at least a good like two minutes and then it all disappeared.
SPEAKER_02That's okay.
SPEAKER_01Uh but we are we are back to talk about the transitions in between the years.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, we're talking about in between semesters. So maybe it's the in between freshman and sophomore year or between general ed to major uh courses and things like that. And and I posed the question to you maybe not what's the hardest transition that you've ever made in between the college uh semesters or things like that, but but maybe what was a difficult transition that you had made?
SPEAKER_01And I think I'll I'll I'll try to do this again. So uh the I think that the most difficult transition that I made was probably from going from a community college to a university, uh, moving from Rock Valley College to North Central College. Um, and really it was because of all of the things that I was so used to. I was so used to being known by everybody on campus. I was so used to everybody just sort of, you know, being respected by everybody on campus when I was at my community college. Um and I was going from that to the university was where I knew four people, was just kind of, oh, well, this is this is kind of crazy. The only people I really knew were the people on the speech and debate team.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_01So uh moving into that, but then also moving into my possible career, which was gonna possibly be radio, which you know now we all know is a podcast. Um we had a joke there, it was great. Dreams fulfilled, I know, like went down the tubes. Uh but it and dreams fulfilled into a podcast. But no, it it was definitely a hard way to deal with that because then I was also, and I talked about this a second ago. I went from going from a high school to the university or to community college in speech and debate, and going from a coach who was kind of zany and fun and kind of let us do our own thing to a coach who was very much you got to work every day. Right. You gotta do this every single day. You have to work. And I wasn't used to that.
SPEAKER_03That's a lot of transition, all right in a row.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it was all right in a row. And and and really, my biggest thing, and it and what the nice thing about working somewhere for seven years was I hated not being grounded. I hated not being in the same place for a long period of time. Because you get four years of being in the same place in high school, and then you go to someplace and you're a community college for two years, and you're and a lot of a lot of students will go straight to the university and that's fine, and they get those four years. And I think that transition I might have been a little bit easier.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_01But the transition to two years at a community college and then two years at a university and then two years in graduate school.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_01That's what it was. It was two, two, and two. You never got fully grounded in those years. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00What about for you, Nicole? So I think my biggest transition was not so much transitioning to from high school to college because I knew I wanted to go to college. I was I had a dream of being on campus. Um, but transitioning from what I thought I wanted to do to what I really wanted to do. And in the beginning, I listened to my parents, like most students do. Your parents say, go to school, find a degree in a job which is mainly business, medical, or a lawyer are the three that most people do because that's what you want. And so that that's your mindset. You want to come in and do something that's gonna make you good money, that you're gonna be able to live, maybe take care of your family, help take care of your family. And in the beginning, I knew that's not what I I mean, I didn't really want to do that.
SPEAKER_01Let's not crush dreams, but let's crush dreams. Not everybody should be a lawyer, not everybody should be a doctor, and not everybody should be a business person.
SPEAKER_00But the transition is the the hardest part is identifying what you want to really do. I wanted to be in journalism. I wanted to be the next Oprah Winfrey at that time because she was really big. I wanted to be able to talk to people and explore their what they're doing on camera. And that was my idea. And to reiterate that back to your parents and you everybody that's sent you away to college, and they're saying, Yeah, well, you can't, you know, that's one and only one. You can't make money doing that. Um, and then transition into exploring what I really wanted to do. And that was my biggest challenge was just being able to say I'm gonna take some journalism classes, even though I'm supposed to be doing accounting right now. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And I'm so glad that you did because I I love that. That was one of my difficult transitions as well. Not necessarily going from because I was a first generation college student. So my parents really didn't tell me that I should do this or that. They didn't have a clue. They didn't know about the college experience and and they didn't actually really say that I should go to college. They just were like, whatever. Um, but to go from being at the top of my class in high school and finishing gen ed classes and dual credit classes and things like that, to then trying to figure out what I wanted to do. I just knew that I wanted to help people. I knew, but I had no idea. So transitioning from the options are endless to what are you gonna do with your life? Like once you're in college, like you can't stay in college forever. Ha ha, jokes on you. I am actually in college forever, right? Um, but because I mean, like, that's my job now. But the you you have to eventually end up with a degree. So like transitioning to you can do anything to okay, now let's come up with a degree that gives you some fulfillment and uh you know and that's graduation.
SPEAKER_00When I speak to students, the hardest thing that they f they look at me and they think they failed because they're like, Miss, I don't know what I want to do. And when I tell them it's okay not to know what you want to do, that's one of the reasons why people go to college is is to explore different avenues and figure it out. Um it kind of gives them a l a sense of a a little relief. Um, but they're all on a time crunch because when you're in high school, you got four years and then you graduate. So when you transition to college, most think you have four years and then you graduate. Anything past that is failure because you haven't done it within that pseudo amount of time. So transitioning to what you really want to do is a very difficult task because we don't want you to be a nurse if you don't really like touching people. Right. We don't want you to be a lawyer if you don't think the law is what you should be doing. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01What happens though if you do figure out what you're supposed to be doing and you are good at it, but you personally mentally don't think that you are good at it, and you think something is wrong with you, and you think, oh, wait a second, why am I going down this path when I'm, you know, you you really should be a, let's say an accountant, but you're not necessarily 100% great in a math class. Or what do you do when you're not, you know, 100%, you know, or you're you mentally tell yourself you're not 100% great at this. What do you do about that imposter syndrome?
SPEAKER_03Yeah. I'm glad you asked because it's something that I still struggle with. I do too. I am glad that you're gonna share us that that research. Before you jump into that though, because we've been talking about parents and what we've been talking about, the advice that parents sometimes give. I had pulled up an article on from Psychology Today about managing college transitions, a guide for parents. And it talks a lot about the the high school to college transition, but also when the students are are in college. And it just talks about the questions that we as parents might ask and addressing the fact that as parents, we want the best for our children, but we don't always have all of the answers. I know that's hard for me to admit, but we need to to guide and also understand what our role is in their educational journey at that point. Once they're to college, it's really their decision. So as students, remember that self-advocacy. Remember that it is your journey. Um, even if someone is helping you to pay for it. Um your parents are on your team, hopefully, um, but those conversations are are different for for everyone. So tell me more about imposter syndrome.
SPEAKER_01So imposter syndrome is not, everybody thinks it's a it is a mental issue, but it is not a it's it's a part of generalized anxiety disorder. Um and Valerie Young, probably the most foremost person in um researching uh impostor syndrome, basically says there are five different types of impostures. There's the perfectionist, so someone who feels as if they need to do everything perfectly, or else they've they've failed. Uh the superhero, so the person who will basically overload themselves with work because they feel like they have to work harder than everybody else, or else they are inadequate. The natural genius, the person who sort of judges their worth basically, you know, and how easily something comes to them. Um if it doesn't come easy, then obviously then they they start to panic. The soloist, so somebody who feels like they cannot work with other people, they have to do it themselves. And then the expert, so somebody who sort of judge their worth by how much they know. And they constantly feel as if they're not smart enough. And that is all from women's health, uh, but it's been in multiple sources, and that is um Dr. Young. So Dr. Young has come up with those five particular ones. Uh I think I'm all five. Anyway. That's what I was gonna say. Yeah, I think I've got well, not the soloist, but definitely the the other four. Although there are times when I'm the soloist when I feel like I can't there's nobody else who can do this except me, and I have to do it perfectly. And if I don't do it perfectly, when I was judging or when I was coaching, when I was running speech and debate tournaments. So when I was running speech and debate tournaments, that's how I felt. I'm like, I have to like, I wouldn't give students things to do, I would do it all myself.
SPEAKER_03So, what are the implications whenever a student is transitioning, like between majors or between freshman and sophomore year or whatever, if they feel like they are an imposter, if they feel like they don't belong, you were talking about if they are an accounting, if they feel like somebody said you would be really good at accounting. Why don't you consider that? If they feel like an imposter there, what does that mean?
SPEAKER_01I I I think it means more along the line, it's it's a mental, it's a mental breakdown, like it's in your head. It is very much in your head. And I've had numerous times uh as an instructor, as an educator, where I felt imposter syndrome, where I felt like it's in my head. And you have to, and and they talk about this, and it's funny they talk about this. You just have to keep telling yourself you are not an imposter. You are exactly where you're supposed to be. Uh make a list of the reasons why you're good enough. Right. Uh, make a list of the reasons, you know, why you deserve praise or accomplishment for the things that you've done.
SPEAKER_00But most students are we we're all like that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I mean, I've even gotten praise on this podcast. I don't ex, I'm just like, how can we make it like I'm still always like, what do we need to do to make it better? What do we got to do to get more people to listen? Yeah. What do we got to do to do all of these things?
SPEAKER_03You can also get the other people, you can build those relationships that are gonna speak truth, but they can tell you the things that you need to hear.
SPEAKER_01And that's what they say a mentor or fee or somebody else, a friend who can give you feedback and say and give you the praise that you need because you do need it.
SPEAKER_00Um I mean, as an advisor, that was my big just yesterday. A student comes in, she has taken all the classes, she wants to go to Texas Christian is that Texas Christian.
SPEAKER_01TCU, yeah.
SPEAKER_00TCU. She's looked at everything. She's she's a a five complete imposter on the imposter syndrome list. She's done them all. She's a soloist, she's an expert, she's everything. She comes in and she says, Hey, this is what I got, this is where I want to go. And I've done all the classes. And I said, Okay, so why are you here? Like apply. But she's like, Well, we'll do you really think I should do this? And I'm like, You have everything that you need to apply. Why are you not applying? She's like, Well, I can just take a I can take a gap year because if I don't get in, I'll take a gap year and and and then I'll apply then. And I my I kept going back to that same question, why haven't you applied now? Right. And she had no answer. So I was her little angel on her shoulder at that point saying, apply. Oh, and do it. Yeah. You have to do it now. And she's like, Well, what if I don't get in? But those transitions are hard. It's very hard. Yeah, to the point of we did it right there in my office. Yay! Pull it up, apply. You don't have to pay right now. All you have to do is go home and click submit with your mom and dad. But let's let's get this going. But what if I don't get in? You'll get in. And if you don't get in, there's like 20,000 other schools that want you anyway. Right. So we all need that person behind us that's gonna be our cheerleader because you could do all the right things like we do every day. But if you don't apply, you don't try, then what are you doing it for?
SPEAKER_01Don't let the one thing that may be something that you're not necessarily 1000% the greatest at block you from doing something. And it sounds like she just was afraid to put an application in it.
SPEAKER_00She was just afraid to send an application in it. And there's so many of her out there.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and that's what that's what psychology today says. There's so many people out there that one task just completely derails their entire educational career. They will quit going to college because they couldn't complete one class, complete math, or yeah, one class. They will quit college because or speech or biology. Right. Or and I I experienced this as an advisor too. When I was advising students at Prairie View, I had students who just couldn't pass one class. And it it was, it was, it was a very difficult uh rhetorical criticism class. And students just couldn't, you know, they they had to take it to graduate, and they were all just, you know, just like, how do I do this? Well, how do we do this? I'm like, I they came to me and they're just how do I do this? I'm like, well, you need to go and talk to the professor, have a conversation with them. You should be in communication. This is not you. This isn't just get this imposter syndrome out of your head, get it out, get it, get it gone.
SPEAKER_03I know there's yeah, it it has it affects a lot of people. So it affects us.
SPEAKER_01I mean, we already said that.
SPEAKER_03Now, there's one other little tiny thing. I know we're we're running short on time for this rotate.
SPEAKER_01We're gonna hold back. We're gonna hold back on that and move that into the next segment. So we'll talk about that, um, and which is gonna be talking about burnout, uh, which I think fits in with our our last thing we're gonna talk about. So we'll we'll hold off on that and get to that in the next segment right after this. And we're back, and we are here to talk about the last thing, which is transitioning out of college. Awesome. Uh getting out. And um, I know we sort of uh hinted at it in the last segment. I think we want to jump into it first, which is talking about burnout. Um, and I after four years of college, I was pretty burnt out. Uh, I was pretty done. I I will say that um it was very difficult to make the decision about whether or not I wanted to go to graduate school. Yeah. And I I find it took it took a lot of people. Uh it took a lot of people to come and talk to me and say, Andy, you're going to graduate school, right? You're going to go to grad school, right? You're you're going to go and be a forensics coach, right? You're going to go do this, right? And it it literally took two people who I knew on the circuit who basically reached out to me and said, Hey, we're interested in bringing you in for me to finally say, Okay, I guess I'm going to go to graduate school. So, um, and I think that one of them was very sad that I decided not to choose the school that they were they're at. But the other one was very happy when I chose the school they were at. And then they left. Oh no. So there you go, another transition that takes place. Um, but it it definitely is real. The burnout is real.
SPEAKER_00That's the reason why I didn't go to grad school right after college. Because I just couldn't look at another book right then and there. I but then on the back end, it took me 20 years to go back to grad school. Yeah. So looking at you and you going to grad school, I I would go back and just just go right back into Are you sure?
SPEAKER_01Pretty much.
SPEAKER_03Well, but you know, that's it's a really good point that sometimes transitions take very long time, right? So sometimes transitioning in and out of school for various reasons, they take a really long time. So burnout can take its toll on people. Um, I have an article that talks about the signs of burnout, and they can be physical and emotional exhaustion, lack of motivation, decreased performance. There's so many signs of burnout. And sometimes we look at them, and I know I've talked about books about like slow productivity and and combating that burnout as we see it coming on, but burnout can you gotta take a break, like we talked about in our last episode and then come back, transition back in, and or as we're talking about into the workforce, for instance, um, whenever it's appropriate. So let's talk about that. Let's talk about transitioning into the workforce or transitioning out of college. And so one of the things I wanted to talk about is the fact that it's not a magic fairy dust pop into the into the workforce.
SPEAKER_01Oh my gosh, I have a job. You gave me I have a job. How did this happen? Oh my gosh, they made paying jobs. You are not okay. Let's let's the the genie's out of the bottle. I hate to tell you this. You're not going to make a hundred thousand dollars a year the day you walk out of college. It's not gonna happen. Well, you might get that mentality. It's not going to happen for the majority of the people. I I haven't done it yet. I have a graduate degree in communication. I could go and work for a consulting firm and probably make $100,000 a year. I have no interest in doing that. You have to go and do the thing that you want to do, and you have to accept what that salary is going to be. And you, because if you don't, you're going to burn out. Um, but the other thing is you have to accept it and you have to realize that a starting salary is probably going to be a living wage, hopefully. Um, and it's going to be something that you're just going to have to accept and realize that you're going to have to work towards getting to a point where you make the the big bucks.
SPEAKER_03And and it's just, I just wanted to point out that it's not like the day you walk across a stage, you get a job. No. That's not how it works. And I think that that transition um takes people by surprise. Like the amount of time that it takes to get that job.
SPEAKER_01And we'll refer you back to the episode where we talked about resumes and interviews. To to look back at that. But it's not a process that is going to happen in two seconds.
SPEAKER_03Correct.
SPEAKER_01Now, some people, if you start the process while you're in the middle of your senior year, then yes, you may walk out of, you know, that that you may walk across that stage. Sometimes you might finish that last semester online because they want you to start today.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_01Um, so it's possible that you might have to finish and just, you know, then you're already in your career and you're already on your way.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_01Um, don't, don't stop, don't get the degree. Yeah, for sure. Get the degree because you don't know how long that company's gonna stay. Right.
SPEAKER_00Um, so the I mean the best thing with students is I see them all the time where they've been here for a while and they think that they just can't take anymore and they're going through the burnout. And we look at their classes and there's only two classes left. Right. And now you're at the the cusp of another fork in the road of what am I gonna do next? Where am I gonna go? I can get a job, I have a degree. Right. What what happens now? And that transition can becomes very, very real, and it could happen in the next four to six months. And so at that point is when you need to start transitioning and planning and going to other things, such as our career fairs, our transfer colleges, our um speaking with your instructors, talking to friends. There could be a job with a student that's sitting next to you. You never know. So those transitions of moving out of college into the world can happen just any moment. And they don't come from just going to your career fair and doing an interview. They could come from everywhere at that point.
SPEAKER_01When do you think you should start preparing?
SPEAKER_00It it really depends on your major, but if you're if you're starting to prepare, you need to really start to prepare your junior year.
SPEAKER_01That's what I was thinking.
SPEAKER_00If you're in a STEM major, you need to do an internship. It becomes very important because they want to see how you are in that industry. Right. And you want to see how you are in that industry. What if you don't like it? How do you you transition into something else? That junior year, when you get in there, that's when you'll really know that summer of that junior year. And then you really start to put yourself forward with your instructors, getting your recommendations ready, applying to wherever you want the January. If you're graduating in May, you're starting in January to get ready for May.
SPEAKER_03Well, that's a lot of planning. That's it. It's a lot of planning. You need to do it.
SPEAKER_01You you have to you have to get started in January.
SPEAKER_03I mentioned that because a lot of our students don't necessarily think about that. We've got to work backwards in that timeline. Uh, in an article on planning.org, it says managing the transition from college student to new professional. And it does, it talks about that. And it talks about the fact that you you do that, even emerging planners have to work backwards because there's also this work-life balance that we have to then account for. Because even though we think that high school is stressful, and even though then we think that college is stressful, having a new job has a new layer of responsibilities, and it is doubly or however it, you know, it there's always a lot of people.
SPEAKER_01You are trying to impress the people that you're working with. You are trying to learn what the new job is all about. You are trying to uh you're just, you know, you're trying to make your way in that career.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_01And those are stressors, those are things that are gonna stress you out, those are things that might lead to burnout. Um, so don't don't let don't let that be the case. But also I will say, I think one of the and we talked about taking a break. Don't be afraid of, you know, after graduation, taking a month. Take a month, take a month to just sort of, you know, you know, re-re-calibrate your bearings. Or summer. Or summer, and then then start working. I'm sure your parents will let you stay home if you're okay. Um, they'll let you stick around for at least another month or something.
SPEAKER_00It's okay to have a break. That's part of life. Because life is always life, right? This is what I tell my kids all the time. You're never not gonna be lifing. Whether you're in high school, whether you're in college, whether you have a job, you're always lifing. And life has all of these transitions in it so that it changes all the time. Right. So every once in a while, we all need a like I tell them in during summer, you need a brain break. Like chill out so you don't get burned out. But you also need a break after you graduate to say, okay, what's my next step? This is where I'm gonna be moving forward. Right. But you need that goal to not take that break and then take another break and then take another break because time waits for no one. Yeah. So you're you know, it looks like you know how weekends are. I think I blinked this last weekend and it was Monday again.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I know. Yeah, this weekend was gone.
SPEAKER_03It's a it's a really good point because I don't remember exactly what you said about the transition, but it's a it's a defined uh, you know, going into the next thing, right? So a transition. Um, there's an article uh uh by timely care class to career, essential soft skills that every college student needs. And I remember us talking about in one of our previous episodes.
SPEAKER_01Nine.
SPEAKER_03That some of the uh employers have indicated recently that students who are graduating don't have some of the skills that they want to want them to have, like things like collaboration and communication and and grit. Like we want to be able to to work through things. How do we how do we transition that gap? How do we um as professors help our students understand, you know, these are the things that our employees or employers are looking for? You're about to leave the classroom and go into the workforce. You need to have professionalism. You need to like, how do we help them help themselves?
SPEAKER_01Include those things in grading criteria. Um, include those things in how we present ourselves. Um, make sure that you know they see it. So when they see it, they know what real professionalism looks like. I think all of those things are are essential. Um, but also it's it's it's holding their hands through the two. It's you know, holding their hands and saying, you know, you need this, you need you, you're gonna need this, and constantly telling you're gonna need this. You are gonna need these communication skills. I tell this to my business and professional students all the time. I'm like, I have a PowerPoint, and I think I talked about this in in a previous episode, of a PowerPoint of the things that employers are looking for. And it is all of these things, analytical skills, it's listening skills, it's you know, it's communication skills, it's determination, it is, you know, reliability. All of these things are wanted. That's what they want. And when you don't bring those things to the table, or you bring you pretend to bring those things to the table and then don't deliver, that's when you're having to transition from an old job to a new job.
SPEAKER_00But I would also say as a faculty member, don't reduce your expectations of your students because when they think that they can can get away with something. So if there's a due date, they need to be expected to do it on the due date. When you start redo saying, okay, this is the due date, but I'm gonna take it five days later, then you know, those are just underlying expectations. Well, I can just talk to her and tell her I'm sick, and then it'll happen. But when here at the community college, we can do that. But when they get to the university, those expectations are really solid and real. And, you know, they need that at the at this level as well, to just say, hey, if it's due on the first, then I need to turn it in on the first, and they're not gonna take it on the second. And that's just a lifing skill. Like, that's just what happens.
SPEAKER_01And your job is not gonna accept something late. Your job's gonna fire you. That's just what's gonna happen if you don't, if you if you think you can turn in something late just because you don't feel like getting it done, you're just you you're not gonna have a job the next day.
SPEAKER_03That's really the way it is. Yeah, and I I really like the the conversation about the the communication aspect, but also there in the article it talks about engagement, engagement with each other. And it I think it's just bringing in that humanity piece. So there's been a lot of conversation about AI, and you know, AI is something that we're going to see more and more in the workforce, right? But remembering that our humanity is what brings us, like, why are they going to hire us if everything that we can do is just an AI doing it? So our maybe our skills are one of the things that they're hiring us for, but bring our humanity, our engagement, our emotional intelligence into the conversation as well.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely.
SPEAKER_03Exactly. So those those transitional pieces into the workforce from the classroom are are really valuable. I had one other thing I want to talk about, and that is the uh non-traditional students that sometimes bring lovely life experience back into the classroom. So they've been in the world and for whatever capacity, and then they come back into the classroom. So they're transitioning back and forth from the classroom and and the I'm gonna call it the real world. Um, so maybe they've been in the military, maybe they've been in the workforce, maybe they've taken some time off to be with their families. Um what advice do you have for those students and or for the faculty to to help them transition into the classroom and or kind of managing both, right? Because they there's an article um why non-traditional students are becoming the new norm. And I don't know that that's true necessarily here by Forbes that I don't know that they're the norm here.
SPEAKER_01I think it was a couple of years ago. I think it's starting to trend the other direction where a lot of younger students.
SPEAKER_03But I they call them anders. I love that. They're they're school and they call them anders. What what advice do you have for those transitions?
SPEAKER_01I think that it's hard because they tend to be the best students. I know. I love that. Like it's hard because they tend to be the best students. I don't know what I can tell them to make them better, but um, I think that it's because they already have that life experience. Like I have a student now who's who's telling me about all of these things that he's done, and he has he has three jobs right now. And I think that you know, part of the reason he's coming back to school is to try to get that down to one job. Um, but he's got it, he's got it. He's like clockwork, like he knows exactly what's going on, he knows how things are going, he knows what this, what's supposed to happen. And I think it's it's more of a matter of like take the life experience you've got and apply it again.
SPEAKER_03Right, right. That's I think that's exactly what I was gonna say is make sure that they know their leadership potential in the classroom because they they have it in the real world. But I I've had students who don't recognize that they are leaders in the classroom because maybe their GPA from way back when wasn't the greatest, for instance. Um, I have a couple of students in mind that that was the case, but they are exceptional people and people leaders, and they just don't see that in themselves. Maybe they are experiencing some of that imposter syndrome.
SPEAKER_00I believe they are because they're that's what it is, they're having that reverse intimidation because they they're in a classroom with someone who's younger and they're doing the shulda woulda coulda. And um, you should have listened to, I should have listened to my parents. I should have not gone to that whatever back in the day. Um so the their imposter syndrome is just reverse of what a traditional student is experiencing. Right. But they're great students. And, you know, they just need to come as a student. I would just come into the classroom with no regrets. Like that was the past. Like, you know, I I got it now, I'm doing better now, and I can teach the younger ones exactly um what to do so they won't have to go through the same things that I'm doing. Right.
SPEAKER_01Don't be afraid of bringing everything you've learned right into here because what you've learned, even just by life skills, is is important for these students to know. Absolutely. Yeah, for sure.
SPEAKER_00And that's what college is, right? It's a learning experience.
SPEAKER_01It's a learning experience. All right. Thank you so much, and we will see you next month. This has been Ed, a frank discussion about topics that matter in education. The views expressed in this episode are those of the host, co-host, and any guests. They do not reflect the views or values of Lone Star College. For further information about Ed, please visit our website at www.ed.buzzsprout.com. Next month on Ed, a discussion on speech communities. Ed was produced by Andy Luster and Twilekhoy, music provided by Laborio Conti.
