When it comes to college, the focus should be on skills that will prepare you for the future, says David Coleman, president and CEO of College Board.
“We are thinking less about where you get in than what you need for success. It’s not really about what college you go to. It’s do you have the skills to do everything that college offers you?”
Coleman joined WorkingNation’s editor-in-chief Ramona Schindelheim for WorkingNation Overheard at his organization’s gathering – College Board Forum 2024 – in Austin, Texas.
“Do you have the math skills to do the full range of majors at a college or are you locked out of those? Are you ready with the skills you might need to be a nurse someday after college?,” asks Coleman.
He adds, “I think by the end of middle school, by eighth grade, it’s important in a playful way that young people are envisaging possible futures. That isn’t to say they’re on this track, but it is to say by eighth grade, students should begin thinking about what they might want to be. Why? Because it affects what they study in high school.”
Coleman adds, “I think the tedious question that all adults ask of children is, ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ But I think by the end of middle school, by eighth grade, it’s important in a playful way that young people are envisaging possible futures. Why? Because it affects what they study in high school.”
No matter what a student’s post-high school plans are, says Coleman, we need to prepare them with the skills for in-demand careers.
“We need to make sure the years kids spend in high school are much more productive for their futures. We have requirements in high school, you have to take a computer science course, but how about making sure that computer science course gives you a credential that helps you work in computer science?
“If we’re going to ask you to take personal finance or financial literacy, why not create a credential that employers in financial services will honor and help open doors for you?
“I think we’ve got to stop giving kids high school courses just for the sake of them doing that work without a clear sense of where they’re going.
“We have to really start again with the high school curriculum. Once you make that vital and strong, then college makes a lot more sense because families want a greater return for what they’re spending on college. And that’s much more likely to happen if young people have been envisioning their careers earlier before college, so they can know better what they want to get when they’re there.
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Dana Beth Ardi, PhD, Executive Committee, is a thought leader and expert in the fields of executive search, talent management, organizational design, assessment, leadership and coaching. As an innovator in the human capital movement, Ardi creates enhanced value in companies by matching the most sought after talent with the best opportunities. Ardi coaches boards and investors on the art and science of building high caliber management teams. She provides them with the necessary skills to seek out and attract top-level management, to design the ideal organizational architectures and to deploy people against strategy. Ardi unearths the way a business works and the most effective way for people to work in them.
Ardi is an experienced business executive and senior consultant who leverages business organizational transformation through talent strategies. She uses her knowledge and experience to develop talent strategies to enhance revenue and profit contributions. She has a deep expertise in change management and organizational effectiveness and has designed and built high performance cultures. Ardi has significant experience in mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, IPO’s and turnarounds.
Ardi is an expert on the multi-generational workforce. She understands the four intersecting generations of workers coming together in contemporary companies, each with their own mindsets, leadership and communications styles, values and motivations. Ardi is sought after to assist companies manage and thrive by bringing the generations together. Her book, Fall of the Alphas: How Beta Leaders Win Through Connection, Collaboration and Influence, will be published by St. Martin’s Press. The book reflects Ardi’s deep expertise in understanding organizations and our changing society. It focuses on building a winning culture, how companies must grow and evolve, and how talent influences and shapes communities of work. This is what she has coined “Corporate Anthropology.” It is a playbook on how modern companies must meet challenges – culturally, globally, digitally, across genders and generations.
Ardi is currently the Managing Director and Founder of Corporate Anthropology Advisors, LLC, a consulting company that provides human capital advisory and innovative solutions to companies building value through people. Corporate Anthropology works with organizations, their cultures, the way they grow and develop, and the people who are responsible for forming their communities of work.
Prior to her position at Corporate Anthropology Advisors, Ardi served as a Partner/Managing Director at the private equity firms CCMP Capital and JPMorgan Partners. She was a partner at Flatiron Partners, a venture capital firm working with early state companies where she pioneered the human capital role within an investment portfolio.
Ardi holds a BS from the State University of New York at Buffalo as well as a Masters degree and PhD from Boston College. She started her career as professor at the Graduate Center at Fordham University in New York.
