OPINION: Having a degree isn’t quite cutting it
Most of us will spend about four years — give or take — going to classes here at Utah State University. While some of these classes may seem completely appropriate, we’ll walk out of others feeling like we’ve actually lost a few IQ points after a full semester.
Regardless of curriculum or major, the end goal is to put on a gown, mortar board and possibly some honor cords, stand in a long line, listen to people use big words and look important, and walk away with a $40,000 fancy piece of paper that proves we’re now viable to join the workforce — should the unemployment rate ever come down out of the rafters.
A sizable proportion of us will come down off that stage on graduation day and — after the adrenaline rush wears off and our most distant of family members drive back home to Illinois — we’ll wonder, “What the heck am I supposed to do now?”
That’s the point at which, if we knew any better, we’d realize the err of our ways. While we were walking around at every stereotypical college-trainwreck social event chanting “C’s get degrees, baby,” until 3 in the morning on a test night, there were over-achieving go-getters sitting right next to us every day in class who took every opportunity they could to set themselves apart from the 4,000 other people who looked just like them while marching to “Pomp and Circumstance.”
These are the people who not only diligently worried about their GPA — something arguably less important in the competitive job market — but also got real-world experience working multiple internships, networking with people who have already made it in their field and gaining knowledge that goes beyond memorizing the sequence of events that led up to the Battle of Gettysburg.
Whereas we won’t dispute the more one knows, the better off they are — after all, “Knowing is half the battle” — but some might say, “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.” Cliche’s aside, the truth is one could read every book ever written and still not be able to talk their way out of a paper bag.
Just like the journalism student who, when offered a job writing for The Utah Statesman, shrugs and says, “I don’t think I’m ready for that.” There’s no time like the present for a moment of truth. An internship is the only way to find out what it takes to make it in any given field; and no one will be worse off for exploring the world of possibilities available to college students beyond their dorm room doors.