- I think the most important thing, and I tell this to students all the time, is don't ever say no or turn your back on something that's intriguing to you.

Just try it.

But also begin to understand that all the experiences that you're having are building you up for whatever career it is you decide to pursue.

The key is you've got to learn to understand how your education and how your educational experiences are preparing you.

So, a class that you may think is not related at all to what career you might wanna pursue, may actually be teaching you a whole lot about individual research, collaboration, teamwork, communication.

And the more you can take that experience and say to your parents or a future employer, "In this class, I did this project, and here's what it taught me, and here's what I can now do because of that."

A lot of people worry about the value of a college education these days, and particularly about more traditional types of education, like a very traditional liberal arts degree.

"What job are you gonna get?

What are you gonna do with that?

What will your earnings rate be?"

I think the key is not so much tied to what the degree is but how we're preparing those students to go out into the world, to understand what they've learned, to understand their value, to understand how the skills that they have done...

I think you could talk to any graduate and say, "Think back to your college experience.

What were the things that you didn't realize at the time were going to be invaluable to you in your careers?"

And learn how to talk about those things.

Learn how to explain what that Spanish class did for you.

Not in terms of how well you speak Spanish, but in terms of the ways that you learn, in terms of the ways that you now know how to communicate with people of other cultures.

There's a whole lot out there that I think remains untapped when you think about how to apply what you've learned to real-world situations.