How much did your college experience contribute to your success?
Our reader poll today asks: How much did your college experience contribute to your success as a leader?
– Tremendously — I am forever indebted to my alma mater: 13%
– A lot — My college education has had a big impact on my career: 31%
– Somewhat — It’s contributed but only in certain areas: 28%
– Not much — My success doesn’t have a lot to do with my education: 22%
– Not at all — I didn’t attend college or it hasn’t contributed at all: 7%
Hail Alma Mater Dear. You get out of something what you put into it. If you feel you’re not getting a lot out of your college experience (as 50% of you indicate), perhaps you’re not taking advantage of all the assets available to you. Alumni networks, LinkedIn connections, alumni events, ongoing research, and volunteer opportunities abound. By taking a few simple actions to engage with your alma mater, you may be surprised by the new connections and opportunities that arise from doing so. In a networked world, the stronger your network, the stronger your career.
Do you agree with these poll results? Let us know in the comments below!
– Mike Figliuolo at thoughtLEADERS, LLC
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These results were originally a SmartPulse poll in SmartBrief on Leadership which tracks feedback from more than 210,000 business leaders. Get smarter on leadership and sign up for the SmartBrief on Leadership e-newsletter.
Why would we be surprised that the college experience impact would vary? The term “college experience” is so broad as to include meeting your soulmate at a dorm party, the posing of an intellectual question that has driven you from that day forward, and getting caught cheating on an exam. In addition, people tend to get out of any experience in direct proportion to what they put into it. I had a high school classmate with perfect scores on math and high 90th percentile score on verbal for SATs who went from full scholarship in engineering to taking a final course seven years later that brought his GPA UP to 2.0 so he could graduate in a major considered to be quite easy at that college. Clearly he didn’t get much out of the experience…it reflected his effort and attitude. I know another person who got a second chance in life to get their undergraduate degree while in their late 30s and that person squeezed every bit out of the experience, including living in the dorms with us teens and twenty somethings. They went on to get a great job. I knew another who used their experience in running for the student government president while in a technical major to launch a career in politics. They have yet to spend a day in a job directly in the profession for which they earned a degree, but they have used the education in support of their current successful career.
How could you expect the answers NOT to vary?