What, exactly, can you expect to get from
an undergraduate degree? It's demanding, expensive and time-consuming.
It's also the richest time of your life, the years when the people and
parties and possibilities are all there, waiting for you to dive in.
For some, the answer is simple: College is
the path to a craft or profession that will form the centerpiece of their
life. Others, however, start on one path, pick up something new and move
on to a life -- or lives -- they never expected.
With the world economy creating and
shifting jobs every day, experts say college is your best shot at learning
how to live in this world, to think on your own.
We asked a handful of people with
unconventionally successful careers what college did for their lives as
professionals. We also asked if there was anything they would like to
rethink about their undergraduate days, and, finally, for a little piece
of opening-day advice to pass on to today's undergraduates.
DREW ROSENHAUS
SPORTS AGENT
After graduating from the University of
Miami in three years, Rosenhaus went on to law school at UM. Among the
most successful and aggressive agents in his field, he counts among his
clients some of the NFL's leading talents, including many of the football
players he befriended during his undergraduate days at UM.
WHAT I
LEARNED: I learned how to be a professional. It's organizing yourself,
being on time for classes, being an A student. I learned that I had to be
on top of my game when I was in college.
I studied broadcast journalism and
history. That turned out to be helpful, particularly in my dealings in
front of the camera and with the media, advising players I represent on
those skills.
IN
RETROSPECT: The one thing that I look back on with a little regret is
that I finished college in three years instead of four. It's not that I
wouldn't do it again. It's just a shame I missed an extra year of college.
Those were fun times.
ADVICE:
It's not so much about the curriculum as it is maximizing your
abilities. Don't take college for granted. It's OK to have a good time but
study hard. Don't settle for B's. A lot of people look for shortcuts and
that's not the point. Go for the A's. Learn how to be a student.
XAVIER CORTADA
ARTIST
A full-time painter and artist since 1997,
Cortada has been widely commissioned and exhibited throughout the world,
including at the White House. After getting his bachelor's, master's and
law degree from the University of Miami, he went on to work at juvenile
advocacy and crime prevention programs, traveling both locally and
worldwide.
Speaking to young men in Soweto, South
Africa, in 1997, he found that his drawings transcended the language gap
and he switched careers. Ironically, he failed his painting class at the
University of Miami, ''and it's the only class I ever failed, because I
didn't take it seriously,'' he says.
WHAT I
LEARNED: College transformed me. I was raised in an insular Little
Havana neighborhood, and it opened my eyes to new cultures and new
experiences. I joined student government and a fraternity. I dragged a
canoe across mud flats in the Everglades with a marine biologist, and I
took a road trip with fraternity brothers. I thought I was going to be a
doctor, and at one time or another I was a chemistry, biology, psychology,
religion and English major. All of these are both completely relevant and
irrelevant to what I do today. They taught me different ways of seeing my
world. Fifteen years later, I see it was the perfect education for an
artist, because it gave me different ways of perceiving how we approach
our humanity.
ADVICE:
Go into college looking to understand who you are. Go on road trips,
get to know people of other cultures. There are all sorts of fun, bizarre
things you can do. The university gives you a laboratory to experiment how
you're going to take on life. It's OK to make mistakes, to change your
mind. If I had just stuck to my honors courses and not gone into the frat
house and the university center, I think I would have missed the boat on
life.
DONNA E. SHALALA
PRESIDENT, UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI
Shalala received her undergraduate degree
in history from Western College for Women and her doctorate from the
Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University.
After a stint in the Peace Corps, she went on to a long and distinguished
career in academia, becoming president of Hunter College in New York City
in 1980. President Clinton appointed her to his Cabinet as secretary of
Health and Human Services in 1993, and she served for eight years, the
longest serving HHS secretary in U.S. history. She has been professor of
political science and president of UM since 2001.
WHAT I
LEARNED: I learned how to write -- I wanted to be a journalist -- and
I learned how to get along with people of many different backgrounds.
IN
RETROSPECT: I wish I had learned more math. I had to learn it the hard
way. The world has gotten more complicated. I studied through calculus,
and I needed a much more sophisticated level of math in my career.
ADVICE:
You have no idea what you're going to need for the rest of your life,
so learn the fundamentals: How to read, how to write and how to be open to
new ideas. You have no idea how much a course you took because you
couldn't get into another course will help you in the future. That's why a
broad education is so important. We have to educate you to absorb new
technologies and new ideas, to understand history and appreciate people's
differences. All you can do is prepare yourself so that when that time
comes, you'll have the basic skills and you'll be nimble.
PAULINE WINICK
CO-FOUNDER, DIRECTOR THE PROTOCOL
CENTRE
Winick received her bachelor's degree in
education from Brooklyn College and went on for a master's in literature
from New York University. She began her career as a teacher. After
relocating to Miami, she went into broadcasting and later became the
executive vice president of the Miami Heat, serving in that job for more
than 10 years. She later held jobs at Florida International University and
with Miami-Dade County. Her firm consults and conducts seminars on
business etiquette and international protocol.
WHAT I
LEARNED: When I started at the Heat, I made jokes that I barely knew
that you took the leather ball and put it through the macram้. Because of
my education, I was prepared to say I could learn anything. Every time
there was an opportunity to take a risk, I knew I could apply myself. It
gave me confidence to learn. That's the best gift education can give you.
Thirty-nine years later, I still feel the same way.
IN
RETROSPECT: I wish I could have studied more languages. I studied
French. I wish I had studied more Spanish or Russian or Chinese.
ADVICE:
Follow your passion. Sample different fields. You're going to be
working for the next 40 or 50 years of your life. You have to have the
passion to face it every day. When you stop loving it, change. Don't be
afraid.
JULIE HUNTER
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, AFRICAN-AMERICAN
RESEARCH LIBRARY AND CULTURAL CENTER
Hunter got her undergraduate degree in
mathematics from Claflin College in Orangeberg, S.C. Just shy of a second
major in English, she gravitated toward writing, but wound up working as a
schoolteacher. She found the classroom didn't click for her and left the
profession for college teaching at her alma mater.
When a librarian noticed how Hunter
frequently brought her class to the library, she urged Hunter to pursue a
career in library science. A Rockefeller University fellowship followed,
as did a graduate degree in library science.
WHAT I
LEARNED: I don't think it's just about the academics. It's about
relationships. It's about how you function in a small community. You play
a political role, a family role, a financial role, a social science role.
We had sororities and fraternities, which taught us how to live with each
other.
IN
RETROSPECT: I wish I had steered more into the area of history. Young
people don't get enough of a sense of what happened in the past.
ADVICE:
This is the most important period of your life. Learn how to share, to
give and take, to function in a society. Learn that your ideas aren't so
brilliant and they aren't always the only ones on the table. Learn how to
work in groups to get a project done, to share what comes from home.
Learn that you're not out there alone.