I was glad to see these little green hexagons as I was walking on campus a couple days ago. It looks like the University of the West Indies (UWI) Mona Campus and the Environmental Foundation of Jamaica are teaming up to do a bottle recycling project, and I have got to say...GOOD JOB UWI :)
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Article Courtesy of Brazen Careerist
My business partner Yu-kai Chou and I started companies while we were undergrads. Not only did we have a great experience that added to our skillsets, but more importantly, we were able to find out what the entrepreneurial life was like before we committed to it full-time.
Here are the benefits and advantages of starting a company as an undergrad:
1. The safety net
As an entrepreneur, you will fail. The great thing with failing as an undergraduate is that you have your university safety net. You can take your failure as a complete learning experience; just another class you took for extra-curricular activities. You don’t have a mortgage to pay, student loans to pay, and you’ll most likely still have your parents support. Milk this time and take advantage immediately!
2. There are potential mentors everywhere
Find a professor that you admire and let him know about your startup idea. More likely than not, your professor will gladly give you advice or refer you to someone who can help you out. More importantly, a lot of professors previously worked in industry so they can potentially connect you with a lot of influential people. If you don’t have any professors with startup experience, go sit in at an MBA class until you find a professor you admire. Talk to him and make him your mentor!
3. Start a team with your peers
Not only is your university full of great potential mentors, but you also have a wide selection of peers that can hop onto your team. If you have a good friend that seems to have the entrepreneurial spirit, go ahead and start a company with him. There’s nothing better and more fun that starting a company with your best friends. Don’t have entrepreneurial minded best friends? You can go to the engineering school if you need a programmer, the art school if you need a designer, or the communications school if you need a business developer. Network within your university!
4. Leverage organizations
This is what Yu-kai and I did super well. We leveraged our business fraternity Delta Sigma Pi, we leveraged the organization we founded on campus called Bruin Consulting, and we leveraged the entrepreneurial MBA community by joining the Entrepreneurs Association. Find the business organizations on your campus, join them, and leverage your contacts to build a team, get mentors, and refine your idea. Remember, don’t start your company alone; you are exponentially more powerful with a solid team.
5. There is always more time as an undergrad
You can try to argue with me on this one, but as an undergrad, you have WAY LESS responsibilities and A LOT MORE time to do what you really want to do. Think about it: you don’t have to go to class, you can read business books during class, there is no wasted time on travel (if you live on campus), and there is no 40 hour work week. Utilize this time to work on your startup.
6. Beef up your resume and shine above your peers
You SHOULD have a corporate internship as an undergrad. Instead of adding another corporate internship the next year though, you should compliment your experience and resume by starting up your own company. You will gain a myriad of skillsets that you will not acquire while working the corporate world, and more importantly, you will stand out above your peers because most of them will NOT have started their own company. This can be the X-factor that gets you your dream job out of college.
7. Understand the lifestyle before committing to corporate
Out of all the benefits and advantages, this is #1 … or #7. Whatever, save the best for last, right? You need to know the entrepreneurial lifestyle before you jump into it post college. The nights are long, the pay is non-existent, and the passion has to be there. Once you have that experience, it gives you a complete understanding of your potential career paths. Take the leap, because the safety net is there and the experience is more valuable than anything else you can do in college!
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This just in: The Daily Show's Jason Jones is investigating a startling discovery about the 44th President of the United States.
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*umm, you probably don't
Article courtesy of Brazen Careerist
There’s a recession all over the world. Which is nice, because I like it when we all have something in common. I’ve written about the recession few times. I’ll write about it some more. Much like the Jonas Brothers or skinny jeans, it won’t last forever, but it’s definitely not going away for a while. So we’ve got to learn to cope.
Like any recession, there’s a lot of hype these days. Newspapers, maybe because they’re shedding jobs faster than everyone else, are banging a ceaseless drum about this presumed fiscal apocalypse. And yes, it sucks, and yes, it will suck for at least another couple of years, but it’s important for members of Generation Y not to take all this doom-and-gloom rhetoric and make bad choices in the short-term that could seriously screw with their long-term career goals.
It’s critical that us young people, in the face of the specter of soup lines and cardboard houses, to not give in to hype-driven impulsiveness and make mistakes. Don’t panic.
No one’s in greater danger of this than those who are looking at graduating college or university this spring. When I graduated in 2006, I was looking forward to it — there was something exciting about stepping out into the world. Now, it’s a little bit like walking The Green Mile.
Take this article from the Kansas City Star: The perils of graduating college in 2009:
With so many experienced people out of work, how is a new grad supposed to compete? Many companies prefer to hire someone who is tested and knowledgeable in their industry rather than taking a flyer on a new kid. And those laid off folks are desperate too, often willing to take significantly lower salaries to land a gig.
Columnist Michael Stahl is right, of course, in that you’d have to either be a supergenius or an incredible moron to expect lucrative employment right out of college these days. But, again, I have to emphasize how important the ‘not panicking’ part of this is. I’m hearing about a lot of grads who are making really dumb decisions in light of the economy.
Here are three big career mistakes you should avoid right now, no matter how safe and secure - and even sensible - they might sound:
1. Don’t go to grad school
Look, I’ve got nothing against graduate school in theory. And, by all means, if you’re the kind of person who legitimately loves learning and being in academia — if you could see yourself spending your life tangled up in it — than grad school could absolutely be the right path for you.
But don’t do grad school because you have some misguided notion that it’s going to magically help your employment prospects. Penelope Trunk already covered this pretty well::
Applications to the military increase in a bad economy in a disturbingly similar way that applications to graduate school do. For the most part, both alternatives are bad. They limit your future in ways you can’t even imagine, and they are not likely to open the kind of doors you really want. Military is the terrible escape hatch for poor kids, and grad school is the terrible escape hatch for rich kids.
Even short grad school programs (One or two years) tend to offer little more than lipstick on a pig. If you don’t have the drive toward academia - and especially if you’re considering paying for grad school through student loans that will bury you into your forties — all you’re doing is avoiding reality.
2. Don’t become a teacher
One of my big anger-triggers these days is the seemingly widespread belief that teaching is a universally-palatable career choice that pretty much ANYONE with a BA can get into, be good at, and secure sustained employment. It’s not, it shouldn’t be, and trying to push the teaching profession down that road will undoubtedly screw with the education of young people for years to come.
Ignoring the fact that teaching is an incredible important occupation that should be the domain of our best and brightest, teaching isn’t even really all that stable these days. It made all sorts of sense when birth rates were high all over, but demographics are changing. Teachers are facing layoffs all over because there are a glut of teachers and not that many students.
I have a BA in History. I know that a lot of BAs get fed crap about how teaching (or grad/law school) is the only career option out there for them. But that’s not true. Just because your pathway isn’t lit up for you with guide lights doesn’t mean it’s not there.
3. Don’t base everything on statistics
There is, and there has always been, a lot of merit to looking at statistics before launching yourself toward a certain career. Researching your employment sector, looking at employment trends and average salaries — these are smart things to do.
But the danger here is in putting too much weight on the stats. The stats will say, for example, that you’re far better off going into structural engineering than, say, journalism. Many orders of magnitude better off. The difference between those two career paths is literally hundreds of thousands of dollars.
But if you have no desire to be a structural engineer — and your whole life you’ve wanted to be in journalism — none of that will matter. Life is always easier when you have a ton of money in the bank and you’re not living off Ramen noodles, but it’s not necessarily always better.
Giving up on your passions is absolutely the biggest mistake you can make in this economic climate. Not only because it’ll probably make you miserable, but also because that which you’re passionate about tends to be what you’re good at. It sounds a bit cliché and kind of like something the Care Bears would chant, but I believe it: your talent follows your passion.
Accentuating the Negative
I know, I know — I’ve only told you what NOT to do, and not given you any kind of advice on what TO do. But that’s kind of the point. The current job market demands patience. The only proactive advice I can really give at this point is to be vigilant. And to get a job — any job you can — that will provide you experience and the money you need to get by.
The best thing you can do for yourself right now is NOT screw up. You don’t have kids, a mortgage, imminent retirement plans or other major liabilities. You’ve got patience that others won’t have. And time will reward Generation Y for that.
Take a look at Kanye West's "Welcome to Heartbreak" video, directed by Nabil. It was going to be the next single, but Kanye accused another video of using a similar video technique so he dropped it.
Enjoy!
KANYE WEST "Welcome To Heartbreak" Directed by Nabil from nabil elderkin on Vimeo.
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I was checking the UWI Mona homepage when i say a little icon in the lower right-hand corner of the screen. Being the information-seeker that i am, I clicked away with reckless abandon.
Upon entering this "UWI-TV", I see a video of the recent 2009 Bob Marley lecture put on by the Caribbean Studies Dept. at the Undercroft. Apparently, UWI has been streaming and archiving events from graduation ceremonies to open lectures since last year. UWI TV gives viewers the opportunity to watch events taking place on campus live on the Internet and is currently developing their service to offer more youtube-esque functionality. You can check out an early video about life on campus here. Who knows, you might even see yourself.
As a final year student, I often ask myself, "What am i gonna do with myself after I leave this place (UWI)?" For most of us, the answer to that question is, "Go look a Rerk." Now, that's not the only answer and it definitely ain't my answer, but, we all gotta weigh our options.
That's where the Annual Graduate Recruitment Programme (AGRP) comes in...UWI Placement and Career Services offers final year students a chance to be interviewed by local and international employers who "require candidates to fill permanent vacancies in their organizations." But before all the prospective corporate lemmings get recruited, UWI has to make sure that their prospects don't embarass themselves in front of the business community. How? By having us dressed-up in "corporate attire" and running mock interviews with mock companies.
If you know me, you know I'm not a ''corporate attire'' kinda yute. So take a goood look, cuz it might be the only time you see me like this.
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