Now that we have the internet, and blogging, it’s easy to surf around and find a whole lot of people talking about a whole lot of things, from lousy service to lousy products, pet peeves to rants about former lovers. And it seems like some people forget that it’s not a case of “what happens on the ‘net stays on the ‘net”. Uh-uh. Anyone who’s ever used Google’s cached pages knows stuff can hang around a long time. So that rant you posted about the company you work for when you were having a bad day is still out there, and maybe it’s been copied and pasted and printed who knows how many times by how many people and shared with people outside your immediate circle. You are leaving your legacy. It used to be people had cute little locks on their diaries. Now they put it out there for the world to read.
Anytime I’ve ever researched any college or university, public or private, if I dig around enough I will find dirt. Always. Huh. Isn’t there a perfect school out there who pleases all of the people all of the time? Guess not, but there certainly are charlatans in the business, and it’s disheartening to those who really take education seriously.
Any of us who remember our college and university days remember blowing off steam and railing against the authorities who ran the place and didn’t get it. We did not know, or care, what challenges they may have been facing in terms of their budgets, staffing issues, office politics, and who knows what. And should we have? We were there to get an education, without necessarily realizing all the ramifications of that word, “education”. I always liked that Mark Twain quote about never letting my schooling interfere with my education.
But if we were railing against our schools 30 years ago, why haven’t these problems been solved? Why should anyone have to still be complaining about incompetent teachers or inadequate courses, etc.? Well, one of the trickiest aspects of delivering education is that it’s a moving target. In my lifetime, I have already had jobs THAT DIDN’T EXIST when I was in college. So how did my specific schooling ever train me for that?
Anyway, if you’re thinking of publicly lambasting your school or teachers on the ‘net, let me offer two points to consider (albeit, from my middle-aged out-of-touch perspective, but hey, don’t rub it in, alright?). As you’re probably at that point where you’re trying to start a career in your chosen field, and this will invariably require you to work with other people (whether you work for them or they work for you), if you slam your schooling, your prospective employers and employees will learn two things about you:
1. You make poor decisions
You picked the school, right? It cost a lot of money, and you did the research, right? And you still blew it on a big, expensive, important, decision that could affect your entire life?
2. You don’t take responsibility
Who is ultimately responsible for your education? Apparently not you—it’s all up to your lame teachers and the crooked, bonehead administrators who created the living hell that was your school experience.
I am not advocating putting up with crap, or shrugging off inept, or worse—academically unsound—schooling. Of course you should do something about it.
But if you really want to kick start a career, despite a dodgy educational experience, maybe you would stand out from the crowd a little better if you expressed what you learned from your poor experience, how you would apply what you’ve learned in the future, what you would suggest the culprit school do to mend their ways, and finally what advice you could give the next batch of prospective students to help them pick the right school, or at least make the most of the school they’re already at.
I mean, picture the job interview. “It says here you graduated from the” Acme School of Everything”, and you reply “Yeah, but it was a crap school and they ripped me off. I never learned a thing there.” Ooh, impressive. Next!
No, I’m not suggesting you blow smoke. If the school sucked, it sucked, but put the emphasis on what you learned from that experience, if not what you learned from the school. Rant to your friends. Rant to the school. But rant on the ‘net and you just may be closing yourself off from some golden opportunities.
I’ve read (so it must be true!) that as many as 3 in 4 HR execs google prospective hires. I’ve done it myself. What if googling your name brings up some blog where you’ve posted a poorly-spelled, petulant hissy fit, running people down and making derogatory comments about your peers, colleagues, or alma mater? What would a prospective associate think of that? You can bet it won’t do a lot to make you look like someone other people would want to work with.
