Book Review

Issue 26(1)

Featured Review

Ready or Not, Here Life Comes. (2005). Mel Levine. New York: Simon & Schuster. 304 pp., $26.00. ISBN 0-7432-6224-7.

Review by: Virginia Gordon

Assistant Dean Emeritus

Ohio State University

Career Readiness: Preparing Students for Work and Life

Most academic advisors have encountered students who are in a state of uncertainty about a career direction or who are unable to envision their future personal or work lives. Although educators and advisors often associate this dilemma with undecided students, many of these career-uncertain students have selected and are pursuing a major. Some graduate without any idea of where they are going in work or life. Others find themselves stuck in entry-level jobs that are boring or not suited to their interests or abilities. Mel Levine, in his book, Ready or Not, Here Life Comes , offers some insights into why some students are unstable or unable to make solid or realistic future plans. Academic advisors will find that some of Levine's ideas and premises resonate with their own experiences with college-aged youth, and some can use his ideas to help students through "work-life unreadiness" (p. 4).

Young people who feel uncertain, even to the extent of anguish, about a career direction while in college or when they enter the job marke t may have never learned to formulate specific work or life goals. Others feel they have made some awful mistakes in their career choices. This unreadiness for work and life may be revealed immediately after the student leaves high school, while attending college, or when faced with finding employment or starting a job. Although Levine concedes that some emerging adults take longer to establish a stable work life than do others, some are frozen in their attempts to envision a future for themselves. He claims this population of career-unready adults is growing. (One example, the "boomerang children," who return to live with their parents after college, demonstrates this claim.) Academic advisors occasionally may feel a sense of frustration when confronted with these individuals. Understanding why some young people have such a difficult time moving through this stage of life can help advisors recognize their particular dilemmas and devise ways to help them.

Levine provides a model that can help advisors understand why some students are so unready to plan their futures. As a pediatrician, he watched children grow from childhood to the "startup adult" years ( p .19), which he defined as the transition from adolescence to adulthood.

Levine's Four Predicaments

What are some of the causes of the career unreadiness that is pervasive in young people today? Many personal and cultural forces can set the stage for an individual to be work-life unready. Levine identified four predicaments that may help to explain why some are caught in one or more career bind.

Trapped in Their Teens

As Levine noted, most young people experience adolescent-type exploring and experimenting. When individuals are floundering or confused about their future plans these problems appear, and students may delay adulthood for one or more of many reasons. The culture currently celebrates adolescence, and the media is replete with examples of teenage coolness. Some young people are so accustomed to immediate gratification and so saturated with the pleasures of being a carefree adolescent that the demands and structure of the academic environment or the adult workplace are poor substitutes. They prolong adolescence when they feel protected by their peers (and sometimes their parents) and have little responsibility.

Levine described "cool dudeship" ( p . 22) as a collection of personal marketing strategies that students use in college to receive peer adulation. Coolness includes a dress code, certain physical gestures, an appearance of confidence, and a loyalty to an inner circle of friends. Learning to fit in and being accepted by those around them are hallmarks of being cool. Some adolescents will sacrifice family life and education to remain cool. Extending this behavior and attitude into their work life will inhibit their readiness to engage in serious career planning. Levine asserted that potent forces in society encourage young people to select each other as role models in place of adults. However, these teens must connect with adult role models if they are to succeed in the adult world.

Fallen Idols

The cadre of the unready includes some young people who may seem like least likely candidates. They are former heroes who had been successful in everything they had attempted. They coasted through childhood and adolescence academically, athletically, and often socially. Levine indicated that "intoxicating levels of gratification and stimulation can drain kids of motivation or ambition" (p. 41).

Levine also suggested that parents sometimes shield their children from adversity too much. If a child is having a problem in school, for example, some parents intervene immediately. When they constantly intervene, children are not allowed to learn how to settle their own problems or become effective decision makers. When children are overindulged at home or made to feel overly special in school, they may feel that the world owes them. This feeling of entitlement may carry over into college or the workplace.

Takers of Wrong Roads

Levine said that more work-life options exist today than in any other historical period. These opportunities add complexity to the situation, and with so many career possibilities, some young people are bewildered by all the options. As a consequence, they make choices for which they are not suited or have little interest. They have never realistically examined their true interests or abilities in the context of work. Some select a career for superficial reasons and are well into it before they realize it is not as they had expected. Making money, for example, may take precedence over any other job characteristic. In addition, the educational system has not prepared them to choose a career path that matches their values nor their strengths and interests.

Many students are naïve when they begin a job and do not understand the workplace or their responsibilities. This can lead to problems in identifying expectations and relationships with coworkers.

Minds in Debt

Levine claimed that public educational policies impose standards that assume all students' minds are the same. As a result many students' potential strengths and talents are not recognized or cultivated. When the assets and deficits of students' minds are misunderstood, not adequately defined, misread, or not read at all, "developmental debts will be carried well into the startup years" (p. 65). Levine indicated that human differences tend to be categorized and oversimplified. Therefore, advisors need a better understanding of the working of individual students' minds so that they can help them exploit their uniqueness. Some students need help in developing an environment in which they can feel good about who they are becoming.

Levine outlined many dysfunctional "mind debts" ( p . 63) that can reappear when a student enters college or the workplace. Examples include communication problems, organizational deficiencies, inadequate conceptualization, underdeveloped social thinking, and memory limitations. Students need to develop good work habits, work rhythms, and a work ethic. These are important characteristics that can be learned and cultivated during the college years.

Advisors' Role in Promoting Readiness

How can advisors help young people through these transitions from high school­­ to college and college to job? Levine outlined four general growth processes that involve students' readiness for adulthood. Advisors can help students recognize these growth areas and guide them to the activities and resources that can help to develop and refine them.

Inner Direction

Advisors sometimes come in contact with students who have difficulty in identifying the kind of person they are or who they are becoming. This evolution is a lifelong process, but one that is most challenging during the adolescent-to-adult transition. Advisors are familiar with students who initially choose academic majors or career areas for which they have no interest, background, or ability. Some students make decisions based on little consideration or knowledge of their personal values. Levine noted that young people need to assess their strengths and weaknesses by getting in touch with their patterns of moods and feelings. Feedback from parents and teachers, as well as school experiences, can offer insights into what students "may want to keep and what they need to work on" (p. 101). Active self-assessment is key in probing the questions such as "Who am I?" and "Who am I becoming?"

Interpretation

Students also must be able to understand the world around them and how their surroundings influence them. They need to understand ideas, issues, expectations, and processes. They need to be able to interpret new knowledge and integrate it with their learning from everyday experiences. Some students go to class without an awareness of how they process key concepts or ideas. They can answer questions in class or on a test without understanding the concepts behind the information they are learning. Such poor processing carries over into a work environment and often leads to failure.

The components of accurate interpreting include being able to process information actively and effectively, recognize patterns, and make judgments about "products, people, ideas and opportunities" (p. 141). Levine summed up accurate interpretation as "blending the basic understanding of information with pattern recognition and evaluative thinking" (p. 140); it is also essential to good decision making and nurtures a positive attitude that carries over into work life.

Instrumentation

Another growth process essential to the transition into adulthood is the acquisition of skills related to working efficiently and thinking productively. Most advisors have talked with students who do not know the skills or competencies that are needed to succeed in the occupational areas they are considering. Advisors can encourage students to compile a list of the skills needed in specific career areas, emphasizing those that can be acquired or refined in college, for example, through course work, extracurricular activities, and volunteer or work experiences. Work efficiency involves organizational skills, such as time management and learning to prioritize when expending time and energy.

Another critical skill is competent decision making. Levine made a distinction between problem solving and decision making by indicating that problem solving is just one form of careful decision making. Advisors are familiar with students who are poor decision makers. These students are unable to recognize when a decision must be made, determine possible solutions, or weigh the merits and consequences of these alternatives. Helping a student with this process may begin with advisors modeling good decision-making behavior or teaching the skills inherent in the process.

Interaction

The last set of growth processes are those that involve interpersonal skills such as communicating with and relating to others. The interpersonal skills that worked with adolescent peers are not necessarily those that succeed in the workplace. Translating one's thoughts into understandable ideas and points of view is a critical skill. Levine claimed a "dramatic downgrading of oral language" ( p. 179) among children and adolescents. If students have difficulty expressing themselves clearly and coherently, advisors can suggest courses or campus resources to help them improve their communicative abilities.

Levine also discussed the need to form cooperative and constructive alliances. Abilities to interact with others and become a team player are critical in the workplace. Career survival often depends on one's political savvy (i.e., how to know who the power brokers are and how to interact with them). Advisors can encourage students to become involved in campus clubs or activities where good political behavior can be learned and practiced.

Conclusion

Levine offered many suggestions for helping students prepare for their work lives. He called for educators to make revolutionary changes in how growing minds are prepared for contemporary career needs. He claimed that this important mission is largely overlooked by colleges, in which educators should be stressing the growth processes that foster work-life readiness within a liberal education. These core growth processes can be integrated into the curriculum through a variety of methods that demonstrate their applications to work and life.

Levine stated that education should foster self-analysis, encourage future thinking, and offer a safe place to take intellectual risks and demonstrate personal initiatives. How to adapt basic skills, such as reading, writing, math, and science, to the work world can be taught. Soft skills such as "communication, decision making, evaluating thinking, and collaboration" (p. 231) can be perfected at every level of education. The social skills needed in the workplace, such as verbal communication, alliance formation, and political behavior, can also be learned.