Edstar Analytics

Category: Edstar Updates

  • Not Your Grandmother’s Community College Anymore

    In your grandmother’s day, or possibly even in your parent’s day, manufacturing jobs were abundant and paid a good living with benefits. Community Colleges offered a way to earn credits that could transfer to four-year colleges or programs to train for a few professions that required specific skills, such as auto-mechanic or plumber.

    How Things Have Changed

    Your grandparents remember vocational education offered in high school. Most boys took some vocational education classes, and built birdhouses or bookends, while girls took home economics and made aprons and apple pandowdy. But, they probably remember the training program as being for students who were academically challenged.

    Times have changed. High schools no longer have vocational education programs. These have been replaced with Career Technical Education (CTE). The change has been gradual, and we may have been slow to realize the difference.

    As with any significant change, nothing happens all at once in a clear shift. Change is gradual, and people are informed at different levels.

    A federal study on Career Technical Education found that although these types of classes used to be for students “without a strong academic orientation,” now students of all kinds take these classes. CTE is no longer a track for low-achievers; it becomes a valid pathway to many lucrative careers. And although the array of students taking these courses has grown, numbers of students concentrating on CTE (taking three or more CTE courses) has been declining since the 1980s (U.S. Department of Education, Office of Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development, 2013, p. vii).

    Guided Pathways

    Guided pathways are academic plans that lead to being prepared for careers. These channels can begin in high school in the CTE programs, then continue in the community colleges.

    Career Pathways

    Today, many professional careers do not require four-year degrees. Students can prepare for these beginning in their high schools and continue on a guided pathway through their community colleges. Many students don’t know about these career paths. North Carolina developed a website that provides information about the career paths available.
    http://nctower.com/

    Some of the more lucrative careers that can be obtained through community colleges include cardiovascular technology, radiation therapy technology, nursing, dental hygiene, medical sonography, and cardiovascular sonography.

    community-college-admission-requirements-for-career-paths

    Today’s career paths in Community Colleges are not for low-achieving non-academic students. To enroll in credit-bearing courses for many of the career pathways offered at North Carolina’s community colleges, students must either meet the ACT Benchmark scores of 22 on the math subscale and 18 on the English or take developmental courses, not for credit.

    Students need to have a good foundation in math and English to meet these benchmarks. CTE students should enroll in rigorous high school courses to prepare for these career opportunities.

    On the Horizon

    Beginning in 2018-2019, (Section 10.13 of S.L. 2015-241: Career and College Ready Graduates) high schools in North Carolina will provide opportunities for college remediation for students before high school graduation through cooperation with community college partners. This program will be mandatory for high school students in their senior year who have not met benchmarks established by the SBCC in their junior year.

    Guided Pathways to Careers are Available

    Students and school counselors need to know about the career paths from CTE programs in high school to Community Colleges, and on to careers. There are much higher academic expectations for today’s CTE programs than in your grandmothers’ day. People who don’t understand that may discourage students from this path.

    Explore the career information on nctower.com.

    Try Our School Counselor Apps

    References

    U.S. Department of Education, Office of Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development, Policy and Program Studies Service (2013). National Assessment of Career and Technical Education: interim report. Washington D.C. Retrieved from https://www2.ed.gov/rschstat/eval/sectech/nacte/career-technical-education/interim-report.pdf

  • Getting the Most Out of College

    It starts with focus on life after college.

    When you get to college, it will be tempting to sign up for the classes taught by professors with reputations for being easy and letting students slide. Remember that getting that sheepskin is no longer a guarantee for a good job upon graduation. You want to leave college with skills that will make someone hire you. Have a plan.

    It may change sometime during your freshmen or sophomore year. That’s okay, but by the time you’re a junior, you should have a good idea of the type of work you’ll want upon graduation, and you should establish a plan. Even if you get an easy prof, do the job. Read the assignments and make sure you understand. Just because many sheepskins are meaningless doesn’t mean yours has to be. It’s up to you to make sure you graduate with skills needed for the job you’re looking.

    What could improve your chances of being hired upon graduation? The Social Science Research Council (SSRC), with the authors of Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses, set out to discover what could improve learning among college students. They found the following to improve performance on the Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA):

    • Studying alone (rather than in groups)
    • Taking courses that require reading more than 40 pages per week
    • Taking courses that require writing more than 20 pages over the semester.

    The researchers also found that students perform better when they have instructors who have high expectations. They also found that studying in groups and spending greater hours in a sorority and fraternity activities actually diminished learning, while working and doing community services did not (Arum et al., 2011).

    Not all industries are looking for four-year, bachelor degrees. In 2012, about half the college degrees awarded throughout the U.S. were short-term degrees (termed “subbaccalaureate” degrees, these include certificates and associate degrees). Employment with these degrees can be lucrative, and many employees who have earned them make more money after graduating than their peers with four-year degrees. Subbaccalaureate degrees that take more than a year to earn have more value than those that take less than a year (M. Schneider, 2015).

    What does industry want?

    Research tells us some of the things most industries desire in their workers. First and foremost, they want employees who can write. According to a 2006 Conference Board survey of 431 human resource professionals, writing skills are one of the biggest gaps in workplace readiness (Spiegel & Nolop, 2013). Basic math and computer skills are necessary for many jobs. Because our economy is so technically oriented, applicants with computer skills are usually hired before those who lack them (Doyle, 2016). “Soft skills,” are important in any job. Common soft skills employers look for

    Basic math and computer skills are necessary for many jobs. Because our economy is so technically oriented, applicants with computer skills are usually hired before those who lack them (Doyle, 2016). “Soft skills,” are important in any job. Common soft skills employers look for are communication, decision-making, commitment, flexibility, time management, leadership, creativity and problem-solving, being a team player, accepting responsibility, and working well under pressure.

    Although many of these skills can’t be taught, their importance could be stressed in college. Certainly, passing students who mismanage their time or refuse to accept responsibility only discourages these soft skills, and makes job applicants believe the world outside of academia will continue to cut them slack. Employers want people who will show up on time and work hard (National Careers Service, n.d.).