Bishop’s graduates find their degrees aren’t the golden ticket to a steady job.
At some point during their time at Bishop’s, many students invariably wonder what they can do to ensure employment after graduation – but a startlingly high number don’t.
Concerns have been raised about the career preparation skills that Bishop’s students graduate with. Students here, it seems, often do not know what they want to do or how to achieve it.
Additionally, they often lack the interpersonal skills required in a professional environment. The university has created a special task force in order to address this issue.
The body is composed of school administrators, as well as current and former students. Its goal is to explore the issue of providing students with the tools and skills necessary to be successful after graduation, and suggest solutions as to how to assist students in this regard as soon as possible.
The task force was initiated at the beginning of this semester, so work is still being done to explore the issue in a general way. A wide variety of options are currently on the table, from voluntary workshops to mandatory sessions.
However, members of the task force are reluctant to indicate a preference for any one solution this early in the process.
Bishop’s Director of University Advancement, Dave McBride, spoke broadly on the objectives of the Task Force. It will, he said, prepare students by giving them access “to tools and resources to help with life after Bishop’s”.
Programs and strategies currently implemented by other universities will be used as a model for Bishop’s. However, McBride added, the task force will have to “modify them so that they work here”.
He also spoke of creating “stronger synergy” between the offices of Career and Employment and Student Advancement. He commented that assisting students with career preparation can impose certain “pressure on staff,” given the limited number of people in these offices.
Despite the remarkable services provided by these few individuals, the task force must ask itself, what are realistic expectations?
Part of the impetus for this task force was media coverage of post-secondary education: one Globe and Mail survey, mentioned by McBride, found that “67% of students and families indicated academic reputation and career preparation [as] the most important factors when choosing a university”.
The administration’s hope, with the new task force, is that improvement in this area will make Bishop’s more attractive to potential students.
However, other major factors also explain the creation of the task force. One such factor is recent graduates’ negative opinions on the career preparation and advice they received while at Bishop’s.
Principal Michael Goldbloom commented that, “The data has been showing that our students don’t rate us as high in terms of our support [in] helping with their careers once they’ve left here.”
The spotty success of some Bishop’s graduates may also have something to do with the university’s reputation. Goldbloom conceded that a degree from Bishop’s “doesn’t open as many doors as having a degree from McGill or U of T”.
Some of the criticism may be a result of unrealistic expectations. Therefore, the task force must be clear on what it can do to help students.
“[Bishop’s is] not going to be able to guarantee people employment,” Goldbloom said. The mandate is rather “to make sure that our students are well equipped for success when they leave here…[and] to do the best job of marketing themselves”.
Goldbloom added that a final factor motivating the task force is the attitude of Bishop’s alumni towards students appealing to them for career assistance. Some have expressed that they are not necessarily prepared to continue meeting with students.
“They were unimpressed with the preparation that the students had prior to the meeting,” the Principal said.
The task force is expected work through the end of the semester, and it is likely that pilot projects will be introduced before then to test various strategies. If you haven’t yet considered what you should be doing to prepare yourself for life after Bishop’s, you will soon enough.
