Career chats: How to set yourself up for career success in school
About this video
Professionals share advice on preparing for a career while still in school. They recommend trying a variety of activities, surrounding yourself with ambitious and kind people, having small genuine conversations with people like professors, practising real-world skills through clubs, and building a reputation for good character.
You'll be able to
- explain why trying a variety of activities in school helps with career choices.
- describe simple ways to build a network, such as talking to a professor about their career.
- explain why character and reputation matter as much as, or more than, grades.
Key words
- burnout
- Feeling worn out and unmotivated after doing too much of one thing for too long.
- well-rounded
- Having a broad mix of interests, skills and experiences rather than just one.
- network
- The people you know who can share advice, information or opportunities with you.
- elevator pitch
- A short speech, about 30 seconds long, that explains who you are.
- initiative
- Starting something yourself without waiting to be told to do it.
- reputation
- What other people believe about you based on how you have acted over time.
Transcript
(upbeat music) - But having variety in the things that you do in a way either confirms that science is for you or at least triggers some sort of curiosity that you could combine science with something else or you could go elsewhere, and I think that variety was so important to not only prevent burnout, but just to make yourself like a very well-rounded individual.
- And something I've done throughout this journey is always surrounding myself with smarter people than myself. People that are very ambitious, but also like very kind, people that are very knowledgeable and like ready to share and plug me into their networks or what they're working on.
Because you'd always be surprised by that friend you made in college, like freshman year or whatever, that is now, like, the VP of, like, some, like, large company or, like, working on their startup and can give you a job opportunity. You never know, right?
- Here was something that I was interested in. It wasn't offered at the school, but I went out and I took the initiative and I made it happen.
- At school, they talk to you about the elevator pitch, right? Going into an elevator and having 30 seconds, a 30-second speech about who you are and presenting that to somebody and then immediately you'll get hired. That's a lot of pressure to put on yourself.
But now working can be as simple as reaching out to your professor and be like, "Hey, I really enjoy your class. I'd love to know more about how you became a professor. I would love to know about your career. I would love to know about what made you teach this class."
You know, having those small conversations like that proved to be very vital.
- Like, getting real world experience, even though it may be a taste, even though it may be fictitious, if it helps build up the habits, you know, maybe there's an investment club where you're all getting $1 million to invest and you pretend like you invested that into the stock market.
Like yeah, it doesn't have to be a real job, but like pretending like it's a real job builds up these skills and it teaches you how to manage other individuals and deal with other humans and other people, which is like the most important part about growing a career.
- You wanna build a reputation of being someone that can be trusted, someone that's excellent, and someone ultimately that has a good heart. And so I would focus more on that than I would GPA. GPA is important, but if you have to choose, I think character should really be the thing that you focus on over sports, over GPA, over any of that.
Character has to be the thing that guides you. (upbeat music)
Video © Khan Academy, used under CC BY-NC-SA. Watch on Khan Academy. Puzzicle is not affiliated with Khan Academy.