Briefly. Issue 6

Student Activism is Great Skill Builder Says Career Office Director (Imagine an IFE social-engagement internship abroad)

In a contribution to Inside Higher Ed, Jovana Ardeljan, Director of career, professional and community development at the Graduate School of the University of New Hampshire, describes the ways she has found that student activism and change advocacy can boost skill development, and vice-versa. Analyzing how students have recently organized an effective response to power in her native Serbia (massive anti-corruption demonstrations triggered by the deadly collapse of a newly-built train station), Ardeljan drew on long experience helping students build and exercise transferable skills to distill a list of six areas where student activists can learn through doing:

• Knowledge application: take classroom learning in your field and find a way to apply it to a situation or problem.

• Leadership: acquire leadership skills collectively, by sharing and rotating leadership roles in various areas and projects.

• Communication: seize a real-world opportunity to sharpen communication skills while gaining attention and support for a movement, and building consensus.

• Teamwork/collaboration: change only occurs as multiple groups collaborate across difference; learning how to do this will prove invaluable career-long.

• Fundraising: change is rarely instant, and inspiring people to see themselves as stakeholders and contribute the time, talent, materials or money needed to keep a movement going is a creative engagement, and a valuable school.

• Networking and advocacy: the Serbian student movement has “united Serbs worldwide... As many career advisors point out, networking can happen anywhere at any time”.

From its own experience, IFE concurs. Opportunities to join in on local causes provide access -- at all IFE sites – to these learning curves, in another language and culture.

Experiential Education – It's not Just About the First Job: New study from NACE

The National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) recently released a study of some 1,200 post-grads, who at the time of the study were one-to-three years into their career, to determine what impact if any experiential learning has had on their career further downstream than simply landing their first job. The control group – those who did not participate in any non-classroom learning experience (internships, apprenticeships, coops, study abroad, research, practicums, etc.) accounted for one-fifth of total respondents.

Although the methodology of the study does not permit any conclusion of causality, the significant differential between the two groups across a range of outcomes maps closely to the standard intended outcomes of experiential education. These include:

• career progression that matched or outpaced expectations more often for experiential learners (ELs) than for non-experiential learners (non-ELs);

• significantly higher average salaries for ELs (30% higher);

• greater likelihood to have established a professional network (25% more Els).

Interestingly, the study found a clear correlation between experiential education and greater alumni satisfaction looking back on a) the choice to go to college; b) the choice of school; c) how well their school prepared them for their career; d) how relevant their degree is to their job; and e) confidence in their ability to pay back student loans.

According to the authors of the study, “these new findings support the power experiential learning has on career success for college graduates... Previous NACE research identified the effects on the graduate’s initial job offers and salary, these current findings demonstrate... the effects of experiential learning... beyond graduation, with positive impacts on salary and career progression” while suggesting that “the benefits also extend to career satisfaction and perceptions about the value of higher education”.

Imagine, then, a combination of internship, research, and study abroad!

A Penny for Your Thoughts  -- Any topics you'd like to see addressed here? More IFE alum profiles or host organizations? Authors or ideas for treatment in the Reading in Europe feature? Reply to the email you received or contact info@ife-edu.eu. 

Looking forward to reading you!