Are colleges actually preparing students?

This semester, I have been working a public relations internship for a local company, which is one of the requirements for my major. I am very grateful that I have gotten this opportunity, especially since job searching during the pandemic has made it much more difficult for people. My mentor has taught me a lot during my time there, but there have been many times where I couldn’t help but wonder why she was having to teach me things that I felt like I probably should have already known how to do.

To make it clear upfront, I’m very grateful for my education here at ETSU. I have had a mostly positive experience while working toward my degree, but that does not mean I think every program is perfect. Based off my own experience, I do not feel that my classes completely prepared me for the workforce, and I know that many students around the world have felt this way before, too. During my first two years or so of college, some of my classes felt extremely repetitive to the point where I essentially felt like I just took the same class three times.

I also feel like the curriculum or class options need to be modernized a bit. For example, my concentration is public relations and advertising, and yet we had no social media-focused class. In 2021, where most professionals in that particular field are probably going to be exposed to or working with social media at some point, this seems like an obviously needed addition to the program.

We are lucky that ETSU offers us many opportunities to further our education outside of class with guest speakers, conferences and more. However, I have not been able to attend many of those events that relate to my career field because I have had class, work or other obligations at the same time. I believe that a certain level of knowledge, such as social media, for my degree in particular, should be a base level class that all programs at ETSU should provide.

At the end of the day, we are paying thousands of dollars every semester to get an education in our chosen field, and I think that college programs need to reevaluate whether they are truly giving their students the baseline knowledge to succeed or if they are relying too heavily on outside programs such as internships or guest speakers to educate their students.