|
Upstart
Business Journal
Want
a job? Get in touch with your
risk-loving personality
by Romy Ribitzky
March 30, 2013
It
was the combination of the photo
and headline that caught my eye. A man inside a cave, peering up,
unsure of how
he’s going to tackle the next step, but certain enough that a next step
is
coming. Coupled with the call-to-action, Wanted at Work: Take More
Risks in
College, I had to click.
In
his LinkedIn post, author Jeff
Selingo said, “We don’t create enough settings in college for students
to fail,
certainly to fail with grace (this is a problem across our education
system, of
course). Indeed, failure in college is largely seen in a negative
light—it’s no
wonder students don’t want to take risks when they get to the
workplace.”
And
yet, most entrepreneurs would
agree that experimentation—and the courage to put a risky vision on the
line—is
key to breakthroughs, disruption and success, so why the disconnect? Is
this
what’s leading to a growing skills gap that high-growth companies are
pointing
to when they say that despite a 7.7 percent national unemployment rate
they
can’t find qualified people to fill engineer, strategist and other key
roles?
Some
universities aren’t sitting
idle. Selingo points to Worcester Polytechnic Institute’s requirement
that
students work on “a rigorous project-based curriculum beginning in
their first
year.” But what about going rogue, ditching college and accepting a
Thiel
Fellowship, like Dale J. Stephens did? Talk about taking a risk. He
opted to
drop out of a tiny school, Hendrix College, in favor of networking with
high
net-worth individuals, take a chance on an idea, and make a learn from
his
experiences. In the process he also wrote a book Hacking Your
Education: Ditch
the Lectures, Save Tens of Thousands, and Learn More Than Your Peers
Ever Will
and at 20-years-old, he runs UnCollege, a Gap Year program that charges
$12,000
for participants if they're accepted (yup, there’s an application
process) to
hob-knob with Silicon Valley elite, travel to a foreign country, and
work on a
project...
Read
the rest of the article at
Upstart Business Journal
|
