Academic librarians connect with students during their college years in different ways, but we often know little about what happens to them once they depart our halls of learning. Sometimes we do keep in touch with those we met as students, possibly just by being Facebook friends, or a stronger friendship develops. Perhaps you’ve had that experience more than I have, although even in my own big city I’ve run into students I’ve known, and it’s rewarding when I discover they are establishing themselves as working professionals in their chosen careers.
In one less fortunate situation I kept contact with an MBA student who helped the library with a focus group project. This student was bright, articulate and just the quintessential go getter. I thought for sure he would have no problems with career success. However, for at least the next year after he graduated I continued to run into him in the campus fitness center. Month after month he told me how frustrated he was with his job search, and how he even began to question whether pursuing the MBA was a good choice. It was equal parts sad, depressing and frustrating to see this once vibrant and energetic student in such a state. I have not seen that student for a few months now, and I hope that’s because he finally found a job – or it might be that his access to the campus fitness center expired and that he cannot afford the monthly alumni fee.
That’s why watching “A Generation Lost in Space” was a challenge to view all the way through. It really brought back memories of my own encounters, and raises questions about what we can do as academic librarians to help our students acquire the skills that will help them get that first big career opportunity.
A Generation Lost in Space: Overeducated and Underemployed in America from Nick Padiak on Vimeo.
I would imagine that many academic librarians are already doing what they can to provide their students with resources and assistance to help them as job seekers. Likely strategies could include:
* creating resource guides specific to using library research tools for job research
* collaborating with colleagues in the career center to make sure they are aware of all the great tools we have for competitive intelligence research – and knowing that they are pointing students to them
* organizing library sponsored workshops on doing company and industry research that is job oriented
* allowing alumni to access business research resources on site (when allowed by licenses)
* providing one-on-one career research consultations with students
These are tremendously challenging times – as the video documents – for students heading out into the job market, especially when the students are graduating with less marketable majors. As academic librarians we often state that our mission is to provide students with lifelong learning skills – and that is often found in our mission statements or our information literacy goals. Granted, lifelong learning skills should be about more than finding a job. Those are important skills that will help students when they inevitably do find a satisfying career in their desired profession, and it will help them to keep growing and preparing them for future careers – among other things – such as being effective and productive community members.
When I see a video like this one and through personal encounters with students, I cannot help but feel we need to be doing more than talking about delivering lifelong learning skills (which always strikes me as somewhat ambiguous and impossible to measure or evaluate), and figuring out what more we could be doing to help our students have the best possible edge in a highly competitive job market. We can say that our job is to help them succeed academically during their time in college. What happens after that is not our responsibility – and given the nature of our work I’d agree with you. I’m just asking if there is more we can do. I do know that when I encounter our graduates who are feeling overeducated and underemployed, I am not about to ask how those lifelong learning skills are working out for them.
What an insightful article. I just started a new position as a reference librarian at a small university library and have been given t he task of creating a walk-in clinic. How obvious it is that we should be helping them build practical work skills, not just good researching/catalog searching/finding scholarly sources skills. Perhaps that is the job of their professors, to prepare them for the practical application of theory, aka ‘a job in the real world’, but I want it to be my responsibility as well. If we want them to be library users for life, we must show them why we are so useful.
Thanks!