DISCOVER YOUR MOTIVATIONS. Students needs to discover what motivates them. In other words, ask yourself questions: What drives me? What pushes me forward? What am I trying to achieve as a result of my degree? These are critical questions, and this is a good starting point when entering college.
2. EMBRACE THE CHALLENGES AND THE REWARDS OF A NEW ENVIRONMENT. College is filled with all sorts of adjustments, uncertainties, trials, and obstacles that come with being in new surroundings. Use that new environment as an opportunity to challenge your thinking, the way you
see life, and who you are as an individual. You will do a lot of evolving in college. Who you are at the beginning of college should not be who you are when you finish, and that should be embraced.
EXAMINE YOUR PERSONALITY. Who are you? What are you like? Be honest about your character traits. Know if you work best in the morning or in the afternoon. If you are not a morning person, you may not want to have 8:00 classes every semester. However, unless you are planning
on having a non traditional career, you have to learn how to get up and go to work at 8:00 in the morning. All of this starts with you learning yourself. If a major does not fit you, don’t be afraid of new possibilities.
ACCEPT WHO AND WHAT YOU ARE AND KNOW WHAT YOU ARE NOT. Through a career services center like ours, we help students identify their strengths, and we help them become comfortable with their weaknesses so that they can begin game planning to make adjustments that will make them better at whatever those weaknesses are. A part of this is also helping students understand the difference between dreams and reality. Parents may dream of you being an engineer, but if you’re not good in math or science, there’s a problem. What we try to help students do is match their abilities, values, goals, and skills to come up with a career plan that fits them, not a dream of what someone wants them to be. Incoming freshmen have to quickly grasp that and understand what they are, what they do well, and what they don’t do well, and not beat themselves up because they don’t do that thing well. Work on the weaknesses, build on the strengths, and adjust accordingly.
SAVE THE EXCUSES. Students entering college have to learn to operate their lives with little to no excuses. Use reasons and explanations with caution. Things are going to happen. Take personal responsibility when necessary. Make sure that you take full control of situations. Determine your career and professional goals, and don’t take no for an
answer. You have to learn to embrace rejection; “not right now” does not mean “never.”
CREATE AND INCORPORATE A PLAN. You need a step by-step map of your destination. Whatever your plan is, be prepared to share it. We teach our students the art of the “elevation speech.” If you run across an executive who asks about what you want to do, you have 30–45 seconds to explain what your roadmap
or vision looks like. Know it like the back of your hand, and be able to share it. As a student, you want to guide your steps according to that plan. Be involved with things that line up with your plan: activities, clubs, organizations, community service, volunteer work. This will ensure that you have the experience, knowledge, and skills necessary to take what you do now and make it relevant to what you want to do tomorrow.
OPEN YOUR MIND, AND REMAIN FLEXIBLE. Change is inevitable. Things change; processes change. We encourage students to remain open to detours. Students have to learn to be open to new ideas, routes, detours, and things that come up that may sway you from where you are but will eventually help you get you where you need to be. It’s okay to question the plan, but that shouldn’t change your vision.
NAVIGATE EVERY CHALLENGE. The most important thing we stress to incoming freshmen is that you cannot quit. You can’t let failure or poor performance completely stop your ability and desire to keep going. Know that an unchallenged plan is an untrusted plan. If it’s never been under fire, scrutinized, or challenged, it’s not going to be a plan that you can trust. It is rare that when you
set out plans, they will go exactly the way you set them out to be. Navigate the storms that come along with the ride, and be okay with a little rain. There is no guarantee that it will be sunny every step of the way. Put on the wipers, and keep moving forward.
WHATEVER YOUR CAREER CHOICE IS, SEE YOURSELF DOING IT. Once you have an idea of what your career path might be, set a vision for it. Write it in a clear way, make it explainable, and keep it in front of you. Make sure you pursue internships and co ops that line up with your vision. We encourage our students to think, aim, and swing big. Shoot for high level success.
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KNOW THAT THERE ARE NO SHORTCUTS TO SUCCESS. Sometimes you have to go the long way around the mountain to really understand what it takes to be whatever it is you’re going to be. You have to be
willing to give a lot. Sometimes that means literally starting at the bottom, showing a strong work ethic, and working your way to the top.
HISPANIC ENGINEER & Information Technology | FALL 2016 15
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