“6 years of college….”
Joe, a parent from Simsbury, CT, called.
His son had just completed his 5th year of college and still had one more to go.
He had switched his major twice, and given the challenges of getting classes in order at UCONN was now faced with a 6th year.
“I thought we were saving money by sending him to UCONN…”
Joe figured as do many parents that their children will figure out what they want to do when they get to college.
But things are changing… and parents who are not cultivating a college-to-career mindset for their children perhaps should consider starting the conversation.
When I built Career Counseling Connecticut about 18 years ago, the focus was to help those we helped through the college counseling process who were now twentysomethings attempting to figure out their career path. Most were unhappy but perhaps not unsuccessful. By this I mean that most had career-building jobs but they had chosen a mismatched career.
Now, the calls related to career unhappiness remain the same but calls related to failing to launch have skyrocketed. The number of students – particularly boys – who are not getting through college and/or getting through after five or six years but floundering thereafter has become common. The core reason is often a lack of career focus. Almost everyone who is similarly situated will say: “I should have met you before.”
Now as part of our college counseling, we offer career counseling if desired. We are not necessarily pinpointing the career path but rather starting the conversation earlier so that the student has a better sense of which college programs match their potential career track.
College is awesome, so staying for 6 years would be great…. if you weren’t paying for it!