Thinking you have taken the wrong path by going to university is a very disheartening experience, but often it just looks like the wrong direction. It’s really all about uncovering the hidden gems in the experience.

Take Maria, for example. Maria was in tears. Her father never wanted her to come to university, but she and her mother had convinced him to let her try one year. When she did so well with her grades, he changed his mind and thought “his” idea for her to attend university was an excellent one! Now what is he going to say as she gets on the “home stretch” and there is no job? Four years will be wasted. Most of it was his money from his brick laying business. Maria described how hard he worked to give her and her three brothers everything they needed.

In first year, Maria received her best marks in history and so she has steered her studies in that direction. At the time, finishing school seemed so far away. Now, it seems like it is going to be tomorrow and her options seem so limited.

“I can be a history teacher or I can do my doctorate and maybe become a prof,” she said.

Several of her friends, who were good students in different programs, had failed to be accepted into teacher’s college. Some had far more experience than she did. They had travelled internationally and worked with youth for years. They would have made great teachers and yet they still were not accepted. What made her even more concerned was that she did “not really even like kids” and she was tired of writing papers and the demands of school. She knew that pursuing a Ph.D. was definitely not for her.

Once things settled down, and with the help of the web, we brainstormed 50 immediately interesting career jobs that she could pursue with her liberal arts degree. Some of the ones she came up with included broadcaster, MP assistant, public relations staffer, lobbyist, and museum work. The National Occupational Classification lists 25,000 job titles in into 520 occupational group descriptions, so with some further research on Canada’s Human Resources and Skills Development (HRSD) website, Maria is going to uncover career jobs that she has never even thought of before.

Maria was surprised to learn that a Globe and Mail article recently reported that six of the nine sitting Supreme Court judges have Bachelor of Arts degrees – and so does the man who runs one of Canada’s largest pension funds, Michael Sabia.

Over the course of our discussion, Maria realized that it was not going to be the content of the history program that would propel her into the job market. It was what she learned, through the process of going to university, which would prove to be the most valuable return on her father’s investment. She had developed strong skills in planning, conducting research, solving problems, making presentations, and using her imagination combined with her creativity. In addition, she had become even more “web savvy” than she ever imagined.

She realized that helping others, while volunteering for the local help line had given her a lot of practice in listening. She also said that this year, she took on a part-time job and maintained her grades while still doing her volunteer work. To succeed, she had to quickly learn time management, priority setting, and multitasking. It is strength in these skills that is sought my many employers because they are difficult and time consuming to teach.

Experts agree. In presentations across Canada, Dr. Chad Gaffield, president of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, tells of “deep conceptual changes” that have “begun defining the 21st century as a new era. And the people and scholars who will be ideally placed to lead and embrace these changes are those with backgrounds in the social sciences and humanities along with other disciplines.”

According to a recent Ontario University Graduate Survey, 46 per cent of graduates do not work in fields closely related to their former program of study. The reason graduates are able to move into other fields is that they are able to leverage the transferable skills they developed throughout their university experience.

As we talked, Maria learned that she is likely going to change careers several time during her lifetime. While knowing where she would like to be five, 10 and even 15 years will give her a sense of direction, her current detailed planning and job search needs to focus on the next to two to three years. It is very important that she start her planning immediately, because she is going to need to do the career research and conduct several informational interviews. These tasks are not quick to complete. If she can complete this task while she is still in school, she will give herself far more chance of success. If she waits to do this until she graduates, she will be losing money per month of delay in addition to the cost of her living expenses. She should avoid this pressure, as it often squeezes new graduates out of career job search into finding a job to pay the bills.

In the process of starting her career job search now, she also is going to get a more realistic picture of salaries that she can expect in her first job. It is nowhere near the $60,000 that she is anticipating. Our experience is that the average starting salary for a new graduate from a liberal arts program is around $35,000 to $40,000 in the first year.

Mary’s father was partially correct in that Maria could have made almost as much money had she gone to college and spent less of his money at the same time. However, this is true just on a short-term basis. A recent report by HRSD showed that university graduates have a substantially higher growth in earnings over the long term. In 2000, the average growth in earnings between the ages of 25 and 54 was 53 per cent for those with a college diploma and 100 per cent for those with a university degree.

Maria’s first career position will likely give her two to three years to make a full transition from being a student to being in the full time job market. If she has her longer-term goal in the back of her mind, she will be able to build a strong network of business relationships and friendships, who will help her in making her next career move. She will also have a list of accomplishments, innovations, and examples of how she has contributed in her role in the company and in relevant professional associations. With this in place, doors will open for Maria within or external to her workplace.

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