02/15/2017
Parents,
This past weekwas the day that football recruits signed their letters of intent for a specific school. Players are rated on a 5 star system. WVU got mostly 3 star players while the national powers got mostly 4 and 5 star players. People make a big deal about these ratings.
In most Super Bowls, the average star rating of each team’s starters was less than 3 when they were recruited from high school. Think about that for a minute. The starters in the biggest football game of the year wouldn’t even be given a chance by most universities.
Students are like football players. I really don’t care about their star rating (in this case: test scores or GPA’s). What does matter is effort, ambition, and focus. I’m really proud of the many “low star” students I have taught who have had incredible careers and personal lives. To me, that’s the real story of WVU. We build success when other universities say no. We add value when the elite schools just polish. We build success in those who never imagined the future they could have. I can’t imagine teaching at a school where every student I teach is a 4 or 5 star recruit.
One of the questions that I get asked a lot concerns with what students will be doing when they graduate. The best way for me to answer this question is to share with them stories of this year’s graduates.
Clay, Mike, and Luke will work for consulting firms. They will have an opportunity to see how a number of different organizations function.
Emily, Michelle, and Josh will be working as sales engineers. This will put them in a position to have a major impact on their businesses. All three of them had significant sales engineering experience with their internships. They will be selling high dollar value technical solutions to other companies.
Alexis, Shealyn, and Denna will work in manufacturing, bringing about operational improvements to keep manufacturing jobs in America.
Josh and Zach will become project managers working in construction. They will be responsible for everything that happens at a construction site.
Frank and Grace will be working in supply chain positions where they will be responsible for making sure that products get to customers on time.
Hassan will be a project manager in the petroleum industry in his home country in Saudi Arabia.
Many students graduating in May accepted jobs last semester. Others are going through the final stages of their job search. Getting a job (and an internship) is like anything else. Success comes to those who make the effort. I haven’t seen a major emphasis on GPA by employers. Many companies only hire students who have been interns. Most companies want students who have overcome hardships. All employers value professional experience.
Several of our students will be working for companies where they did their internships. In these cases, they will start their careers with a major head start over other new hires.
I would like to offer you some generalizations from the hiring experiences of our students.
■Internships or co-ops are vital to getting a job. Students who have no engineering experience away from campus are at a real disadvantage.
■Location should not be a factor in the student’s job decision. If the students are any good, they will be moved around for a while to groom them for high level positions.
■Salaries will be good. Almost every graduate this year should begin at a compensation package between $60,000 - $70,000 with signing bonuses.
■While many engineering students are inherently shy, they need to overcome this. They don’t need to become extroverts, but they do need to be able to express themselves in an interview.
■Finally, whatever they imagined for a career will probably turn out very different in reality. But the difference will be far more than they ever expected, not less.
■Our students really need support in their job search. It’s rare that I won’t meet with 5 or more students a day to help them find career opportunities. I take great joy in helping our students find jobs.
Let me conclude with the story of Brooke. Throughout her college career, Brooke was extremely shy. She would often panic when she had to do presentations. But in her last semester everything changed. She took a class where she needed to facilitate a team of her classmates. Suddenly, she went from being a shy student who rarely spoke up in class to one of the best facilitators I’ve ever seen. The difference, I believe, was simply confidence. In the past, the presentations she gave were short and she never got comfortable doing them. In this class, she was in front of her peers for the entire class period. She got comfortable and the real Brooke came out.
After graduation, I received this email from Brooke:
“Everything here is going well. Work is really starting to pick up. I have been preparing for a big presentation that we have at the end of October, to get approval on our direction from the BIG BOSS, and to roll out Operation Support in January. I am leaving for Ireland on Friday for a week. It is an Engineering Regional meeting, and I am going to make a presentation about our work in front of about 40 to 50 engineers. Yes, I think that I am the one who is actually giving the 30 minute presentation. I am getting a little nervous, what a way to make my public speaking debut. There are many other fun activities planned for the trip as well. We are touring the Jameson Distillery, the Guinness distillery, and Cruiserath, one of our facilities that just underwent a 5,000 Million Dollar project.”
“I am making the same presentation in Nov. in Puerto Rico, and another in Dec. at a location TBA. I am also going to CT this week to help facilitate another project. Who would have thought that I would be traveling this much at the beginning of my job, and to such cool places?!”
Could Brooke ever imagined this career? I doubt it. Furthermore, I imagine her parents have a hard time seeing their daughter becoming such a world traveler and experiencing so much, so early in her career.
I have found that there’s a “button” in every one of our students. Once you find the button and push it to “on”, you just have to step back and marvel at the results.
If you would like to read more career profiles for graduates of our college, go to wvuieleaders.com. I taught most of the people profiled on the website.