Do you know how to pitch yourself?
Who is a part of your team of mentors?
How do you define success?
Why did you choose your major?
These are four of the questions that we believe every college student should ask themselves at one point or another during their college career. As many of you all know our book, Don't Waste Your College Tuition, centers around the questions that we either did ask, or wish we would have asked, ourselves while we were in college. If you are going to get the most out of your college education, and we are strong believers that means coming out with more than the degree, than these questions are critical as you develop over the course of your college career and beyond.
Let's start with the first question: Do you know how to pitch yourself? This question is important because establishing an elevator pitch, particularly once you get to junior or senior year, is what will help you to begin to brand yourself. The truth is we all have a personal brand whether we are selling a product/service or not. Whether you run into an executive at the airport who could offer you a future job or internship or you happen to reach back out to an old teacher at your high school, you need to be able to share who you are and what you do succinctly and clearly.
Question #2: Who is a part of your team of mentors? Everyone needs someone else to help them become successful. Finding the right one, or two, or three people who you can help you make career decisions is extremely important for anyone's forward movement.
Question #3: How do you define success? We know, we know, this seems like a pretty easy question to answer for some of you, but let's take a minute to really think about what it means to be successful. If money is your measurement for success, what would success look like if money were not a factor? If you define success by your network, how might success feel if your network wasn't where you wanted it to be? Think seriously about what success looks like for you.
Question #4: Why did you choose your major? Is your major your passion? Did you feel like your major would help you to make more money? Did your parents influence that choice? We don't believe your major will determine your success or failure in life, but we do think its important to know why you made your choice. Get intentional!