The College Connection is your guide to all things college.  It will provide parents and kids with useful tips, helpful insights and up-to-the-minute information about preparing for college, surviving the admissions process, as well as trends and life on campus.  Stick with me, and the transition from high school to college will be a breeze.

As most of us can attest to, we parents spend a huge amount of time, energy and money on our children’s extracurricular activities – whether it’s for ballet classes, athletic teams and training, saxophone lessons or a host of other childhood enrichments, we deem these involvements necessary for our child’s future. And, although these activities do contribute to their physical, emotional and social development, why stop there?  Many parents seem to equate growth and maturation with fun, but can’t we equate those two things with a little effort and hard work too?  Prepare your kids for college and beyond with these skills recommended by the National Association of Colleges and Employers:

TOP 10 SKILLS EMPLOYERS SEEK

• communication
  
• honesty and integrity
  
• interpersonal (relates well to others)
  
• motivation and initiative
  
• a strong work ethic
  
• teamwork (works well with others)
  
• computer
  
• analytical
  
• flexibility and adaptability
  
• detail-oriented
  
  
• Communication skills (the ability to write and speak clearly) top the list of employers’ most desired skills. They also top their list of the skills most lacking in new college graduates.

• Encourage your student to develop skills outside of the classroom through internships, summer jobs, volunteer work and extracurricular activities.  An internship provides an opportunity to gain exposure, learn professional behavior, experience what it means to work as part of a team, and necessitates the use of interpersonal communication.

• Rather than shielding your child from the post-graduate realities, have them seek out opportunities that will ease their transition from the sheltered “college bubble” to the real world of work. It will be far less painful, and quite possibly pave the way to an exciting and professionally rewarding career.