College students can benefit from on the job experience in their chosen field.
Pierce College should partner with local businesses to provide job outreach, job training and work study opportunities for students.
Students are working toward degrees in fields in which they have never worked, and they have little real world experience.
Its entirely possible for students to work for long semesters, taking grueling classes in their chosen field, only to realize years later that they hate working in their chosen career, thus wasting an enormous amount of time and money.
Likewise, it is always wise to gain experience in your area of expertise, preparing for graduation. This is the same reason colleges foster academic clubs and conventions.
Local businesses would benefit from cheap, motivated labor and students would benefit from increased knowledge of working in their field as they work toward graduation.
Businesses are always looking for ways to cut costs and internships are highly sought after.
Students and businesses have work together for mutual benefit.
There’s no reason to limit these opportunities to internships, in fact, instead they should be expanded to include work-study financial aid recipients as well.
Pierce College currently has an employment office and work-study, but these programs don’t go far enough.
Work-study positions are often designed to let the student do homework while performing little or no actual work. They do nothing to train students for their future.
It would be far better if these same students were able to learn and earn at the same time.
The employment office offers job listings to motivated students seeking off-campus jobs.
However, many of these jobs are low paying, low level retail jobs in which students learn nothing more than how to deal with an angry public.
In these tough economic times many businesses would be happy to accept a cheaper labor pool. All that is needed is someone to approach them.
The purpose of an education is to garner a higher paying job, however, recent graduates often find it hard to find jobs because they lack experience.
This is one reason some people are tricked into high-priced private schools that promise employment in as little six months; they are hooked by the guaranty of work experience.
Recent studies indicate that graduating students who have work experience on their resume find employment much faster than graduates who don’t.
Community colleges would fulfill their mission to serve the working public by offering work experience to their students.
