Academic Success to Career Success

[cardinalduke]

For those of you who consider yourself highly successful academically, how were you able to transition that academic success into career success?

What obstacles did you face? What were a couple of the key areas of personal development that occurred to make the transition?

My undergraduate university was filled with highly successful individuals academically. They often possessed the level of intelligence and personal traits needed to show superior academic performance. (Example, self-disciplined, strong work ethic, strong problem solving skills). Yet these same individuals sometimes had astonishing troubles establishing meaningful and successful careers subsequently.

If any of you have had this sort of problem, do you care to share your experiences?

[estudiant9]

Originally Posted by cardinalduke

My undergraduate university was filled with highly successful individuals academically. They often possessed the level of intelligence and personal traits needed to show superior academic performance. (Example, self-disciplined, strong work ethic, strong problem solving skills). Yet these same individuals sometimes had astonishing troubles establishing meaningful and successful careers subsequently.

This is a very interesting question. I can't do justice to this question since I'm still in college, but my take on this issue is that excellence in college academics involves development of a very narrow skill set, often at the exclusion of other crucial skills. The classmates I admire and seek to emulate the most are "good" (not exceptional) students who actively cultivate non-scholarly interests, and know how to be flexible with their priorities. They are willing to let their hair down, come and do something crazy with you even if it means skipping a class once in a while, and are a delight to be around. They aren't perfectionists. They are simply excellent human beings.

A fellow who lives across my room is president of the debate club, an expert juggler, and a math tutor. He's respectful, down-to-earth, and a great friend. There's no end to the range of things he and I (or anybody else) can talk about. He's sharp enough, although not a 4.0 student, that he'll give any academic genius a run for his money, and is likable and motivational for all who are around him, which can't be said for most "perfect students." I doubt he worries too much about finding a good place for him in the "real world."

[CubicleBailout]

I know someone personally that suffers from this. Was very successful in school, got into a good Grad School and funded it themselves. Then entered the workforce and discovered they weren't any good at what they went to school for the hard way - by getting let go from several jobs in that field.

I think this comes down to personality and social skills mostly. You need to have some level of street smarts or common sense that guides you when you don't know something.

The above commenter has a good start - be well rounded. This will put you into a variety of social situations and meet a diverse group of people that will increase your street smarts. If all you know is book smarts, then you can excel well in the bubble-like school atmosphere, but then enter the working world and end up in situations or with coworkers or bosses that you don't know how to deal with.

Don't wait to start work until after college. Do different types of work on college breaks or do internships. I had a fair share of manual labor jobs before finishing college - these are real eye openers. This will also help you build a work ethic outside of school assignments. In the real world there is a lot of ambiguity and your ability to deal with it will help.

[ginkgo]

You can be the smartest guy in college but not be able to get along with people. The better that you can get along with people, the better your chance of being president of the United States. Being in business yourself takes a lot of guts and it is a gamble. Then there is the luck factor. At first Donald Trump was a failure when he bought Trump Towers.

He was going bankrupt and went to his investors and told them that since everything is going down the drain, he needs more money to save it and they gave him more money. In college they do not grade you on passion, but Trump had passion for what he was doing. Bill Gates likes computers more than money. The owners of Google love the internet with a passion.

[ucqwerty]

I am surprised to see that nobody is really arguing that there is a correlation.

I will agree that there are a lot of people who do well in school but have a hard time adjusting after school. I agree that usually it's those that have less developed social skills. They may do really well at school because it's just their personality to love the material they're studying, and no other particular strengths of character.

But, I think the skills that most successful people use to do well in school are the same skills required to do well in life. School isn't just about crazy amounts of studying, it's also about being resourceful, networking to make life easier for yourself, being original, and creating an image for yourself. The skills required to get a good research position are the same skills required to get a good job. The skills required to lead a good research project are the same skills required to lead a good company. Unless you are the type of student that lives for memorizing things and completing tests, the skills you learn in university are the same skills needed in life. I strongly believe that success in university is a stepping stone towards success in life. Of course, some people that do well in school don't do well after school, and some people that do well in life didn't go to school, but I think those are exceptions rather than the rule.

Also, if you take a look at the world's billionaires, you will find that the majority are highly educated. Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Warren Buffett, Donald Trump, Sergey Brin and Larry Page all had what it took to do very well in school (and they did do well). World Leaders are for the most part also well educated. Academics are obviously well education. I'm not too sure about humanitarians since I have not studied them extensively. But those categories take care of a lot of different types of success. Most importantly, if you're not planning to be a world authority on something, I don't have a statistic, but I bet you're more likely to have more "common" success (e.g. not world fame) if you're educated.

I realize that I am arguing something slightly different then what you are asking for. I just don't want this thread turning into an education put-down. Education is a stepping stone in life, and every step matters.

[ucqwerty]

Originally Posted by ginkgo

In college they do not grade you on passion

I'm not trying to argue with you, I just want to point something out.

Passion and grades in university need not be mutually exclusive. Those people you mentioned were all passionate in university. Sure, some of them found what they were looking for in university (Donald Trump completed his studies at Wharton, as did Larry Page, Sergey Brin and Warren Buffett from their respective schools, from my list) whereas some didn't (Bill Gates felt Harvard wasn't cutting edge enough in computers at the time, and Steve Jobs dropped out), but they all did well at their respective schools probably BECAUSE they were passionate.

I find that passion is strongly correlated with success in school. Why else would the top students be getting the top grades if not for passion?

Again, there are exceptions.

[ucqwerty]

Sorry for spamming this thread; just one more thing.

There are also plenty of people who did not go to school or dropped out because it wasn't right for them or they did not get the chance, but they are still wildly successful. The first person that comes to mind for me is Richard Branson.

All I'm saying is that many people tell themselves that "school isn't important", I'll flourish after university. If you are that person, kindly do not fool yourself. If school isn't right for you, take action. Saying that school isn't important for you because it does not build real world skills and being mediocre is the very antithesis of what this website stands for. University is a miniature "real life" and it can build whatever skills you want it to. If it can't, then go outside of school to get them. But please, do not give yourself the "Silent Approval" (as Steve says) of not taking initiative because it's "not important". Every moment in life is important.

Again, sorry for hijacking the thread.