10 Essential Skills They Don’t Teach You in College
Tags: Skills Development, Students, College, Skills

Progression is the key to laying the foundations for a successful life. This trait is the reason for our evolution and advancement over the years. After graduating from high school, getting enrolled in college is a natural progression in my academic career. Colleges can teach all the things theoretically relating to a specific course; however, they fail to teach some essential skills that can be useful for students in their practical and professional life. Colleges don’t have to teach these skills, but a little consideration can help many students deal with issues in later life. These skills should be considered a duty for colleges to teach their students to be beneficial members of society. Following are some of the essential skills that colleges fail to teach:

Earning and Managing Finances

Colleges can teach you all the rights and wrongs of your degree, but they fail to teach you how to earn with it properly. You might be an ace student, but it doesn’t guarantee that you will also be a successful learner. Learning theoretically and then applying it practically can be two very different things. A little help from colleges in teaching how to get your first job and progress in it successfully can be helpful to all the students.

Similarly, colleges don’t teach how to manage personal finances. Students are always short on cash, while some can manage, but most don’t have that skill. Even if you are a financial management student, that doesn’t mean that you will be good at managing your own finances. Students mostly take up part-time jobs to manage some of their finances, but managing finances for your family or a household is a whole different ball game. Many of us fail financially in our practical lives even if we earn handsomely, resulting in a lot of personal and professional issues. Colleges should have small sessions where they should teach at least the basics of managing expenses irrespective of a student’s degree.

Avoiding Burnouts and Managing Failures

This has to be one of the most important skills that colleges ignore to teach their students. There is no doubt that a college is a place of extreme highs and lows, but lows are more common and damaging. Students are expected to write numerous assignment, research papers, a dissertation, and then finally a thesis, and to top it all off, they have to study for exams. Nearly all the students have suffered from burnout at some stage. Colleges should make it a point to teach students how to manage pressure and workload.

Not all the students are geniuses; most of them are average and looking forward to completing a degree so they can have a comfortable life. Naturally, a lot of them will suffer failure during their degrees, but only a few can manage failure and start again. Most will eventually drop out or look for a short cut. This trait of giving up will follow a student in his future life as well. Colleges should at least try and have some sessions with those students and try to motivate them.

Leadership and Being Innovative

There are born leaders, and then there are the ones who are molded into a leader. It’s a very wrong misconception that leaders are born; anyone can be a leader as long as they are taught how to be one. Colleges mostly fail at teaching about this skill; they will teach you how to write an assignment but don’t tell you how to take charge of it. You can be a project leader, but that doesn’t mean you can deliver a successful one. Instead, colleges should have little sessions on teaching how to take charge of a situation or a task without getting panicked.

College does encourage you to be innovative in your academics but not in your life. Many of the students will write a paper according to their professor’s guidelines, but the ones who are innovative and are not afraid to think outside the box will ace it. Most successful people are innovative, but they are born with this talent; on the other hand, others who do not cultivate it might find it hard to survive in their professional life. Colleges should counsel such students and encourage them to be innovative without fearing failure.

Time Management and Self-care

Colleges are all about managing deadlines and staying on top of your degree. During a semester, a student can write hundreds of assignments and research papers, all the while focusing on their deadlines. A deadline is the most dreadful thing for any student in his academic life; failure to meet one can have a negative effect on their grades. If a student is not good with managing his time between writing papers and studying for exams, he will feel exhausted and eventually lose interest. Before giving deadlines, if the professors also teach time management, it will also help make students more efficient.

Self-care is the most important skill that most colleges fail to recognize. Self-care for any student is an essential skill that will help them in their future life. Physical and mental health make up self-care; however, physical health is not taken seriously in youth; the fact that mental health is also ignored is alarming. Most students suffer from some form of mental health issues, which can be harmful in professional life. Colleges should make teaching about mental health a priority.

Fun and Vacations

Students can have a lot of fun during their college life, but they rarely enjoy it completely. The thought of a pending assignment or exams will always be at the back of their minds. Education is important, but that doesn’t mean a student can’t have fun activities. Students who ace their degrees rarely do enjoy life and ones that do enjoy suffering from bad grades. A college should teach students that having fun is as important as the final exam; a student’s state inadvertently affects his grades.

Vacations are important, be it for a student or for a professional. They can reenergize anyone and give them a break from their normal life. Colleges put so much pressure on the students that they cannot even properly enjoy the semester breaks, resulting in students losing motivation for studying. College professors should go easy on the students and encourage them to take breaks in the form of vacations so that they feel fresh and motivated.

Conclusion

Colleges are a unique place; you meet new people, have new experiences, learn new things, and prepare, at least in theory, for the future. Many students enjoy college life as it’s fun and a chance for most of them to be free. Colleges don’t have to deal with education only primarily; they can be institutes where futures can be forged, and success can be taught. If colleges started teaching some life lessons and essential skills, a lot of students would not feel lost when they step into their practical life. The failure to recognize this necessity results in students attaining moderate to no success in the future. If a student is taught some of these skills, it might help them be good learners and successful on a personal level.