#510 – Preparing Students for College Success and Meaningful Career Pathways, with Dr. Matt Mayhew

If you are listening to the podcast with your instructional team or would like to explore this topic more deeply, here are guiding questions to prompt your reflection:

• How can we help students develop greater opportunity knowledge before college?
• What experiences beyond academics can help students discover their strengths and interests?
• How can educators help students become more confident in face-to-face communication?
• What does healthy risk-taking look like for students?
• How can we encourage students to see failure as part of learning and growth?
• What role should AI knowledge play in college and career preparation?
• How can families support students while still allowing them to become independent?

• How College Affects Students: 21st Century Evidence That Higher Education Works (Volume 3) (written by Matthew J. Mayhew, Alyssa N. Rockenbach, Nicholas A. Bowman, Tricia A. Seifert, Gregory C. Wolniak, with Ernest T. Pascarella, and Patrick T. Terenzini)
• How to maximize college, then land a job you love (on repeat) (The Ohio State University Inspire podcast)
• Matt Mayhew (The Ohio State University)
• Roadtrip Nation (official website)

#510 Preparing Students for College Success and Meaningful Career Pathways, with Dr. Matt Mayhew

AVID Open Access
47 min

Transcript

The following transcript was automatically generated from the podcast audio by generative artificial intelligence.  Because of the automated nature of the process, this transcript may include unintended transcription and mechanical errors.

Dr. Matt Mayhew 0:00
I think the ability for humans to exchange fruitfully and effectively with other humans is going to become critically important, regardless of the major you’re in. How to have a conversation? How to negotiate differences when differences arise? How to be civil with one another when they disagree? We were focused on those before, but we have to focus on those more than ever now as educators.

Paul Beckermann 0:23
The topic for today’s podcast is preparing students for college success and meaningful career pathways with Dr. Matt Mayhew. Unpacking Education is brought to you by AVID. AVID believes in seeing the potential of every student. To learn more about AVID, visit their website at avid.org.

Rena Clark 0:42
Welcome to Unpacking Education, the podcast where we explore current issues and best practices in education. I’m Rena Clark.

Paul Beckermann 0:53
I’m Paul Beckermann,

Winston Benjamin 0:54
and I’m Winston Benjamin. We are educators,

Paul Beckermann 0:58
and we’re here to share insights and actionable strategies.

Transition Music with Rena’s Children 1:02
Education is our passport to the future.

Paul Beckermann 1:07
Our quote for today is from an episode of the Ohio State University Inspire podcast titled “How to Maximize College Then Land a Job You Love” on repeat. In it, Eric Perfelli, interim dean of the Ohio State University’s College of Education and Human Ecology, says, “Career exploration is the dance between looking around broadly and then focusing upon something that captures your attention.” All right, Winston, what are you thinking about the quote today?

Winston Benjamin 1:37
I wish I had that advice when I was in college. I think the figuring-it-out part… My dad—I’m an immigrant, first generation to go to college. So my dad just said he only knew a couple of things about the future. He said, “I know that economics does [something] and talks about money. Go to that. They have that.” So I went into that thinking that I would have a future, and I am doing nothing with that degree.

I have my PhD in education. Having the opportunity to have gotten that advice when I was younger, looking around trying to figure out where and what my skill sets were, I would have had an easier time actually finding my passion instead of after four years of school, then really figuring out where I wanted to go. This really is… hindsight’s 20/20, but also knowing this is out there, this is really good advice for young people.

Paul Beckermann 2:36
Absolutely, and it’s what we talk about at AVID: opportunity knowledge. You need to know what opportunities are out there for you and what choices are available because usually, we only see that tiny world that our parents occupied in our lives and maybe our neighbors. But we need that opportunity knowledge, and it is kind of a dance. We have to get ready so that we are prepared to take action when that opportunity comes to us.

So, I’m looking forward to talking more about this with our guest, Dr. Matt Mayhew. Dr. Mayhew is the William Ray and Marie Adamson Flesher Professor of Educational Administration with a focus on higher education and student affairs at The Ohio State University. He has focused his research on examining the relationship between college and its influence on student learning and democratic outcomes. Hey, welcome, Matt.

Dr. Matt Mayhew 3:30
Oh, thanks for having me. Glad to be here.

Paul Beckermann 3:32
Absolutely. That was just the general introduction of you. Could you take a few minutes and tell our listeners a little bit more about yourself and the work you’re doing?

Dr. Matt Mayhew 3:42
Oh, sure. Well, I’ve been a professor now for over 20 years. Writ large, I study how college affects students. In fact, if you go online right now and look up the title of that book, I’m the lead author of that book. So it’s really trying to unpack what is actually college, who it is working for, and what students actually learn as a result of going.

I combine all of those things into different research lines of inquiry, and then I pursue those lines of inquiry, usually with questions that lend themselves to statistics-based answers. So I can say, “Oh, well, in general, this is what we need to do for students to learn X, Y, and Z.”

I would also say, by way of introduction, I am a father of a second-year college student that I dropped off today. So I moved him in, three flights of stairs, after leg day. It was a mess and a nightmare, and I’m hurting. I showered, and I’m here to talk about it. So you might get an emotionally turbulent father who also happens to be a professor today for the time we have together.

Paul Beckermann 4:43
Hey, but the experience is fresh.

Dr. Matt Mayhew 4:46
So fresh. Yes.

Winston Benjamin 4:51
Just thinking about my own experience and remembering what it was like applying to college and even the fear, but also thinking, “This is the best thing ever. I get to be a person on my own and enjoy my life.” I know sometimes young people, especially me, not knowing what career path they could take, find it really hard to think how to best maximize college.

One of the questions that I would have, since you’re an expert and a parent—you’ve gone through both sides: How can students both gain a better understanding of what career choices are available to them, and also which ones might be the best fit for them? What role does knowing themselves play in the process? I wish that I had the chance to do some reflection. Could you give us a little bit of your understanding of that?

Dr. Matt Mayhew 5:48
Absolutely, and I think it differs for each student. Every student presenting has a different personality or a different level of engagement, interests, and all of those kinds of things when they approach college.

But I would back up first. You’re talking about the application process, and when we talk about the application process, there’s a whole sense of how do you find fit with the college based on what you did in high school or who you think you might be now, and understanding that who you are now is going to change, hopefully, by the time you graduate. Also, career options and pathways have the ability to change, to morph, to iterate. You can do that as a first-year, brand-new student dropped off in a dorm. I would never tell somebody, “You better have your college choice ready. You better know exactly what you’re going to do and exactly how you’re going to do it.”

I told my son when he went last year, “Listen, one thing I’m not paying for is a hotel experience where I drop you off, you eat, you sleep, you shower—hopefully, hopefully, you use the gym—and then you go to class and come home.” I said, “College is way more than that, so I want you to really take advantage of the smorgasbord of all college provides, whether that’s in the classroom with classes that you’re required to take—your major classes—but also all these amazing co-curricular opportunities.”

I could go on and on about this. My son is in data science, but he has joined the sports broadcasting club, so he is calling games on the radio. Last year he got two Michigan basketball games, and this year he is able to call the Michigan–Michigan State football game, and he loves sports. So I’m telling him to lean into his love of sports, to occupy some of his time in college by doing those kinds of things he loves in addition to what he’s studying.

Paul Beckermann 7:36
Well, let’s talk a little bit more about that because I think a lot of times when students go to college, they don’t really think about that part of it. They don’t even have an idea of what that smorgasbord of opportunities is. So, first of all, what kinds of things are available to kids, and secondly, how do they learn about them? How do they become aware of even what’s there for them?

Dr. Matt Mayhew 7:57
It’s such a good question. If you’re totally unaware and you just want to explore everything, usually colleges have a college fair day, and you walk around, and there are tables set up in different parts of the campus, so you can actually see: “Oh, here’s an organization that might be interesting,” or “Here’s something else that I’ve never tried that I really want to try.”

I have a friend who has a rising senior in high school who is a Rubik’s Cube person—just amazing at the Rubik’s Cube. So I was talking to him about certain colleges and college choice, and he asked, “Well, the first thing is, do they have a Rubik’s Cube Club?” And I said, “Well, I have no idea.” So I Googled it, and sure enough, this particular college did have a Rubik’s Cube club.

So it gets back to some of the earlier ideas about what you were interested in during high school and whether there is a way to accelerate that interest in college. What you spend your time doing that you love in high school is probably not going to leave you just because you move to college. It’s probably going to stay with you, like my son in his sports or this Rubik’s Cube idea. Now how those interests get expressed is definitely different, and you can imagine in college that you can innovate given the different opportunities—whether it’s the sports broadcasting club, a data analytics club, or a sports analytics club. They have all of these different ways to really exercise, at least in my son’s case, his interest in sports beyond just attending the games,

Winston Benjamin 9:23
beyond just attending the games (laughter).

Dr. Matt Mayhew 9:25
Oh, let me tell you, that’s a priority. Don’t get me started. I will not hear from that child on a football weekend.

Winston Benjamin 9:33
See, again, if I had known that, I would have been… the amount of sports I watch! That jumps into the next question that is important. There are so many different colleges, universities, majors, and opportunities. But as an expert on the college experience, thinking about narrowing down to what some of the skills are: what should students start developing to help them be successful both in college and their careers? Thinking about how wide the scope of college and career are, what potential skills could students start thinking about developing that would help them in their future?

Dr. Matt Mayhew 10:16
This is a great question and one I’m asked frequently. I think, again, it’s student-by-student, college-by-college, but with AI upon us in every way, the ability for humans to exchange fruitfully and effectively with other humans is going to become critically important, regardless of the major you are in.

What does that mean for somebody selecting a college? There are certain colleges that lend themselves to smaller class sizes, and if your child learns most effectively in that environment, then you might want to choose a college that has a smaller faculty-to-student ratio, where the student will actually be called upon in class. Other students are shyer; they’d rather not get into that. They’d prefer large lecture halls because they can disappear and learn on their own. But that disappearance doesn’t take away the mandate of having to learn or exchange with other human beings, figure things out, and move through life by getting off the phone and actually having conversations with each other in order to problem-solve and make sense of what is going on around them.

I think about the skills of the future. It used to be that I could say if you have quantitative reasoning skills, you’re ahead of the game—whether that’s analytics, statistics, economics, or whatever that looks like. I’m not so sure anymore because we have AI now that can run algorithms, and it’s getting very good at doing that, as well as coding. Computer science was a major I would tell students all the time was worth investing in, but with AI, one never knows.

I do think it’s going to be incumbent upon colleges to teach students again how to exchange, how to be human, how to have a conversation, how to negotiate differences when differences arise, and how to be civil with one another when they disagree. Those kinds of soft skills are things that we are going to have to teach in college. We were focused on those before, but we have to focus on those more than ever now as educators.

Paul Beckermann 12:16
And how do you see that happening in a college setting? Do you see that integrated into every class, do you see that as a separate class to try to help students prepare for that, or what do you see?

Dr. Matt Mayhew 12:27
Such a good question. If I had to change the universe with regard to how colleges should run, if I had the power to do that, I would mandate all colleges to make sure that whoever is teaching their students is a good teacher. Good teachers can break a large classroom down and create class assignments or pedagogical routes into having students actually learn from each other in meaningful and effective ways. It’s not about class size; it’s about the educator in charge of the class, and if the educator knows how to teach, that is a huge win.

The structural fault in higher education—here is one of them, though there are many—is that most of the professors in the classroom were never formally taught how to teach. They may have received a doctorate in history and they may have been a TA for a famous professor, but they never learned how to put a syllabus together in ways that would help every student learn. They never learned how to put assignments together in ways that help students actually learn the material rather than just regurgitate or memorize information. They have no idea how to do it, and they are the ones in front of your students.

So, if I had to change the world, it would be about effectively managing whom we hire into the classroom as teachers. We have to focus on teaching, even at major research universities. There are enough people in the market right now with doctorates that you could get really strategic about hiring professors who know how to research as well as how to teach, and we really have to double down on teaching. It is a major problem in college and university life.

If the professors know what they’re doing, that would help. The second piece of this is creating opportunities for students to learn from each other. These are your co-curricular opportunities, like the sports broadcasting club, the Rubik’s Cube Club, or whatever that looks like. Here are opportunities for students to lead in their own spaces: Where do you want to go? Where do you want to compete? Do you want to do the color commentary, or would you rather do play-by-play? What are your strengths in one area, and what are your weaknesses? How do we come together? What is your cadence? What is your tone?

All of that kind of stuff helps build the confidence that students need sometimes to engage with each other and other human beings effectively. I don’t necessarily think high schools are even primed for this, and with students coming to college using their phones as their primary outlet for networking, it’s reasonable to think that college might be the first time they’re ever asked to actually engage in effective human exchange.

Paul Beckermann 15:07
Well, you mentioned networking.

Dr. Matt Mayhew 15:09
Yeah.

Paul Beckermann 15:09
What do you say to young college students about networking—perhaps how to do it or the importance of it? What do you tell them?

Dr. Matt Mayhew 15:18
I think it’s critically important to get to know the folks in your residence halls. They might be from different majors, but if you get to know them, get to trust them, get to rely on them, have some good times, and build some memories, you might not be able to do the finances behind a Shark Tank pitch, but they might. Meanwhile, you might be able to convince Mark Cuban to fund your project in ways that they could never articulate.

So it’s not just about whom you’re meeting in your major, and it’s not just about learning the same material and coming together to do group assignments. It’s taking advantage of the whole of campus as much as you can—embracing all the differences that the people on campus provide. Get to know them and learn how to trust them, so that when you grow out of it, you know your own strengths and weaknesses. You can speak to those, and then you can bring the right people around you. If you are limited in one way, you’ll have access to a network of people who don’t have those same limitations, so you can make some strides forward.

Winston Benjamin 16:18
I really appreciate the context of how students need to engage in the world and in college in order to be successful. You described an idea of risk-taking: How do you come out and speak in the classroom? How do you engage with the people around you? Not only in the networking piece, but what role does risk-taking play in both success in the career pathway as well as in the academic college experience? You’ve described the social experience, but how does risk-taking benefit? And how do you define healthy risk-taking? Because sometimes people think, “Jump, be the frog, leap,”

Dr. Matt Mayhew 16:59
right, right, right, right.

Winston Benjamin 17:00
But you might get hit by the car! So how exactly do you do that?

Dr. Matt Mayhew 17:04
It is a really good question, and I don’t pretend to know how old you all are, but I am going to assume we’re all in a similar generational space. When you ask this question of our generation, it is going to get a very different answer than when you ask it of actual students going to college now.

Students going to college now have so much anxiety. Mental health is off the charts, and mental health issues are very prevalent on college campuses. When we talk about risk-taking to that generation of students, it evokes anxiety right away. The hair on their arms and the back of their neck stands up because they are just not confident enough in social situations to even think that taking a risk is an option for them.

One thing I do advocate for is: if you have an idea and want to take it in front of a professor, write it down. Write open-ended questions on a piece of paper, in a notebook, or on your phone. When you go to office hours, say to the professor, “I was thinking about this. What do you think about this?” Reading off your phone or paper takes away some of that anxiety. It is not like you are walking up to a professor hoping a conversation happens or that something great comes out of it. It actually helps the professor, too, if you have a list of pre-written questions because they know this is something you are taking seriously, and they can pour into it.

In college, taking a risk often means having an idea that might be a bit off the charts and might not fit the assignment perfectly. You really want to explore it, but how do you communicate that desire to the person grading you? With the anxieties of this generation, writing it down ahead of time is a huge help. Present your ideas to the people you need to present them to.

Remember that the beauty of college is that you can take risks, totally fail, and totally recover. You are not fired, and you do not take a pay cut. You can go for it in ways that you cannot once you actually graduate.

If you do not struggle with anxiety at all and you want to go for something that you think is a great idea, but you hit a wall and the faculty member says, “That’s not going to work out. We’re not going to grade you with the A or even the B you expected—you might get a C or a D because it just does not align with what the faculty member wants,” that is okay. You can move on. You might take a lower grade for that class, but you can take another class and everything is fine. In college, there is a softer landing, so you might as well go for it. But for the majority of college students these days, because the anxiety is so strong, writing things down and presenting your ideas with something pre-written is probably the best way to go.

Paul Beckermann 20:25
What about beyond the classroom? You mentioned students coming in with high anxiety and living their social lives on their phones. Then you also said they should go out and join clubs and organizations. How do you see those variables marrying together?

Dr. Matt Mayhew 20:42
It is so difficult because we do not want to suggest in any way that students should not talk to their families, talk to their friends from high school, or engage with the network they had before they got to college. The phone is great for that.

What I worry about and what I have seen, though, is students going to the dining halls alone, getting their food, bringing it back to their table, sitting down, and then watching their phones the whole time—whether it is doom-scrolling or whatever that looks like. It used to be that without a phone, you did not have a choice. You had to get to know people because eventually, people gathered and sat down. Someone would ask, “Hey, can I sit here?” and then you would strike up a conversation.

I do not know if our college students are prepared to know how to go out, put their phones down, and go for it. I think that is something we have to work on as educators. And by educators, I mean: Who is running the residence halls? What kind of programming are they doing? Are they gathering the students on the halls and saying, “Put your phones away. Now, what we’re going to do is take a couple of hours to go around and talk to get to know each other. We’re going to have a pizza party and no phones are allowed, so you are all going to have to talk about why you chose this college,” or whatever that looks like?

We have to start at square one because if students have their choice, they are going to lean heavily into their phones where they are comfortable, rather than pushing themselves out of their comfort zones to engage with other people.

Paul Beckermann 22:31
Well, you talked about pedagogy too—even in the classroom and the interactions that happen there, rather than just sitting there taking notes, getting engaged with each other during an academic experience.

Dr. Matt Mayhew 22:43
That’s right. That is key, and you hope a faculty member knows how to do that. I love my business school colleagues and business students—they are always a hoot—but a lot of the business school faculty think to themselves, “When folks graduate from here and they are in a small business situation or a corporate environment, they need to learn how to work together.” That makes sense. “So what I am going to do while these business students are in college is tell them, ‘Okay, you have a final project. These four people have to work on it together. Go and do the project.'”

My own research has borne this out: what ends up happening without structure or intention behind that group work on a weekly or twice-a-month basis is that students will get together initially, say, “You do this, you do this, and you do this,” and then they will come back the night before the presentation is due, throw the PowerPoint together, and go present it in class, pretending like they worked in a group when they never really did.

Paul Beckermann 23:49
Sure.

Dr. Matt Mayhew 23:50
That is a problem. Again, getting back to teaching, if you are a good teacher, you would not allow that to happen. You would say, “Okay, every two weeks, I’m going to check in with each group. Now, tell me how you worked together. How did you come together? What ideas were competing with each other? How did you make choices about who was going to do what?”

It is tricky. But if you have students in the classroom, you have to have teachers who know how to do these things. Otherwise, you are compromising a lot of learning potential.

Paul Beckermann 24:20
For sure.

Winston Benjamin 24:21
I appreciate the conversation about the experience of young people right now, because a lot of times we say, “Prepare for the future.” But I am going to try to switch it up a little bit to get a parent’s perspective. Thinking about how someone could have spoken to my parents about what college could mean—what kind of opportunity knowledge, as AVID always talks about, could there be? You’ve written about your own children’s experience going to college as a parent. What is something you would like to share with parents who are just getting their students started in this process?

Dr. Matt Mayhew 25:08
I think the hardest lesson to learn is to let them go and let them fail. Do not swoop in, even if they say, “I’m having a hard time on this assignment.” No. Go talk to your professors. Go talk to the TAs. Go talk to your peers. And if they fail the class, they fail the class, and that is it.

As much as you want them to spread their wings, they also have to learn how to fly. They cannot just spread them from the nest; they have to be launched from the nest. If you swoop in, you are delaying their ability to do all the things we hope college is going to do for them. I will tell you, my friends, that is so hard. It is hard for every parent.

My partner has a real hard time with this. She will love that I said that, but she is highly engaged. She wants to see the syllabi and know when the assignments are due because she is used to having that level of connection with him as a high schooler. She knew everything, so she really wanted to replicate that. I kept saying we have to resist that temptation. He is on his own. We did the best we could. If he ever truly needs us, of course we are there. But “truly needing” does not mean saving him from failing. I think that is really important.

And failing socially—I have some wonderful neighbors who sent their child to a college very local to where they live. The child was not getting along with a roommate, so he wanted to come home every single weekend and started doing so. Finally, the parents said, “You know what? You cannot come home. I know we are only 20 minutes away, but you are not allowed to come home. You have to deal with your roommate. You have to go through homesickness. You have to figure out a way not to be bored. You have to figure out a way to have fun or find a hobby. But I am not going to let you come home because that is thwarting what you are supposed to be doing.”

That is so hard, though. That is the hardest thing as a parent because you are so used to wanting to help them, especially if you have kids who are anxious. Going back to the mental health issues, many of us are launching children into college knowing their limitations better than they do, and we want to step in and support them. But it is not support if we go in and completely do it for them, or if we completely take the reins of what is going on and do not let them fail.

Winston Benjamin 27:49
I have a quick follow-up to that.

Dr. Matt Mayhew 27:51
Yeah.

Winston Benjamin 27:52
Thinking about the student whose parents do not have that background knowledge—what advice would you give them as they begin the college process? Because they are there. What are some of the things that you would say to them to help them navigate this new frontier? Yes, go out and take risks, but how would you help them when they do not have that parental support from a knowledge space—not support in the love space, but in the experience space?

Dr. Matt Mayhew 28:26
I want to say congratulations, first of all, for your kids getting to school. That is really cool that they get to go to college when you have no idea how that works or what goes on there.

I would ask them when you check in—and I’m not saying you shouldn’t check in, but maybe during that once-a-week phone call—”Hey, what are you learning? What’s interesting? What would I not know? I didn’t go to college, so tell me something cool about your experience that I would have never guessed.” Ask about the surprises: “What surprised you this week about what you went through?” Let them take you along on their journey; they would love to do that.

Ask open questions like that, focusing on surprises or how they got over their nerves, and what it is actually like. Dream big with them. If you can afford it, try to get to Parents Weekend. But do not do the things you want to do. Ask them, “Take me on your college tour. Where are the places you like to go? Where is your favorite pizza place, coffee shop, or movie theater?” Let them take you around. If they ask what you want to do, say, “I want to experience your world. Just take me into your world for a couple of days.”

I would say that for all parents, but especially for the ones who did not go to college. They might not know about Parents Weekend, or they might think it is something they have to wait for their student to invite them to, or that there is some special thing they have to do to attend. I would say: “No, you just say, ‘I really want to do that,’ and if you have the resources, try to make that happen.” I see you pumping your fist. Are you happy with that?

Winston Benjamin 30:22
I love that.

Dr. Matt Mayhew 30:23
This is the first time you pumped your fist, so I’m having insecurity issues over my answers.

Winston Benjamin 30:27
No, I pumped my fist because, sitting back, I wish I had invited my parents to that. I wish I had done that. I wish I had said, “All the things you taught me, I’m actually using them and being successful.” Even though they did not teach me these academic subjects or we did not play these games, all the lessons they taught me about how to be a man, how to interact with people, and how to be kind are things that I’m using, and they are helping me succeed. I appreciate that you bring that up as an aspect of support for parents.

Dr. Matt Mayhew 31:05
Yes, and even when you go visit—when I went to visit mine, I said, “Show me where you do your laundry.” The one time he might do it a month—we could get into that another time. The boy is brilliant on paper, but ask him to match his socks and we have a problem. But show me where that is. Show me: where is your laundry? Where do you do it?

Just little things like that. Give me the picture in my head so that when you text me, “I’m going to do laundry,” I can see it. I can visualize where you actually are because, as parents, we love that. We want to know all about you, and even those small things that people think are not important to parents are everything.

Winston Benjamin 31:50
Absolutely, absolutely. And as a next step in trying to support our kids in moving forward in life, I grew up in the Bronx, so I had a very limited New York perspective. Even though it’s big, it’s still very limited in the scope of people. You run into very different but similar people. I moved to and went to college in Massachusetts, and I learned how to deal with different people.

What are the benefits of diversifying learning experiences and getting abroad or going to different places? How do students take the initiative to go, innovate, and learn new things? Why is that important to do?

Dr. Matt Mayhew 32:37
Absolutely. There are benefits to all of these things, and it is really hard for me to say of all the high-impact practices—study abroad, living-learning communities, an honors college, a particular type of club, a fraternity or sorority experience—which is the best one to do. It is just not the case that one yields the most gain over time.

That is why you have to lean into a full-circle moment: What do you like about yourself, and where does that fit with the different opportunities on campus? I have some students who loved to travel with their families before they went to college, and they love exploring different cities. In that space, study abroad, if you can afford it, might make sense for you.

For other students, maybe not. In other cases, they love sports, theater, or music, but they are not quite at the level to be a music major or play the violin in college. So instead, why not go to a music appreciation club, or visit the coffee houses where you can listen to different artists with friends who have similar interests?

That is how you maximize the benefit: play to your strengths and play to what you like. That gets you thinking about the different facets of what you enjoy. Not everything you are passionate about has to wind up in the classroom. You can explore different sides of your passions through other opportunities, and colleges—whether a large school or a small school, whether in the Bronx or Framingham—will usually provide access to many of those practices.

Paul Beckermann 34:46
I want to go back to something you mentioned earlier: the student anxiety piece. One of the things that I have been hearing is that students are anxious about their career futures because of AI. They are very unsure of what this is going to do to things, even if they are in a major already. What does this mean for them? Any advice about that?

Dr. Matt Mayhew 35:10
One hundred percent: study it. Nobody knows what is going to happen with AI and how it is going to affect our different worlds.

One thing I do know is that I would have to take time out of my schedule and money out of my wallet if I wanted to strategically study AI—the different platforms, the different uses of it, how it actually works, and what it can do. For me, as an older person, that is daunting. I hope it does not take my job before I retire!

But you would be remiss if you did not find a class on campus—I think there are actually majors and minors in it. At Ohio State, we require every undergraduate to complete some formal coursework on AI. If you are not sure about it, go study it, learn about it, and learn how to use it while you can. This is part of your tuition; you might as well go for it.

I would tell students not to worry about it, because ultimately, nobody quite knows how it is going to land. As long as you lean into the interests you had coming into college, those interests will exist after college. Maybe you can work alongside AI because you are able to go to the job market and say, “I have always had these interests, and here is how I pursued them in the classroom and in co-curricular activities. Since I wanted to learn how to work alongside AI, I took AI courses to figure that out, and now I am versed in these platforms.”

Students have a rare opportunity to learn about it in ways that our generation has to actively seek out. They have it right there if they want it.

Paul Beckermann 37:04
It could actually become an asset for them going into the job market.

Dr. Matt Mayhew 37:09
Exactly. “Yes, I studied it. I know it.” A business might say, “Well, you’re an English major, so you can write and communicate, and you know AI. Come on in!” Because those of us who are older started our companies twenty years ago; we can do the budgets, but we do not know AI. We need more people who know AI to come and work for us.

Winston Benjamin 37:27
That is great advice for people who are in college right now and starting their journey. What advice would you give a rising senior who is getting ready to begin that journey?

Dr. Matt Mayhew 37:44
I have so many pieces of advice for this. I was just going through this with my own child, whose friends would turn to me and say, “Oh, you’re the professor on this, you should know everything.” I say, “Yeah, I should, but I don’t. But I will give you what I know.”

It sounds trite and somewhat simplistic, but if you have children who really love sports—and I will go back to sports since that is where my son’s head is—go to a school that celebrates big sports. If you love sports so much and you know that what is going to make you happy is attending games in the student section, go to a school that allows you to do that.

I have seen it with some of my son’s friends—true stories. They loved sports, but they went to a small, private liberal arts college. Now they are traveling from that small liberal arts college any chance they get to meet their high school friends at big sporting events, because that passion never went away. They just did not find the right fit.

If you are in high school and there is an element of fit that you really want to pursue—whether it is music, theater, or an urban environment—keep that in mind. If you really want an urban feel and you have lived in the country for a while, test it out. Go to Ohio State, or go to New York University. The CUNY schools are amazing; go to Hunter.

If you are sick of the city and you want to be able to drive and go on road trips, do not go to an urban school. Pick a different kind of school. There are all of these different ways of thinking about who you are and what you like to do in high school. There is no reason to abandon who you are to go to college. You want to align who you are with a college that fits you, at least to some degree.

Winston Benjamin 39:59
All right. That is really good advice for everyone. That is a great tool for our young people as they think about fit. It is time for our last segment: What’s in your toolkit?

Transition Music with Rena’s Children 40:16
Check it out. Check it out. Check it out. Check it out. What’s in the toolkit? What is in the toolkit? What’s in the toolkit? Check it out.

Winston Benjamin 40:27
What’s in your toolkit, Paul? What are you thinking about?

Paul Beckermann 40:30
I’m going to throw back to another episode we did on Unpacking Education about Roadtrip Nation. There is a website, roadtripnation.com, where they have taken road trips across the country exploring different careers. They put these segments together so that students can watch them and get introduced to different career possibilities. It is just another way to look at some of the variables that are out there. It is not specifically college, but it helps target what you do in your college experience. That’s what I’ve got.

Winston Benjamin 41:04
I love that. I am going to take networking—talking to people. Being able to communicate with someone, finding a common interest, finding something that makes sense in that conversation, and then leveraging that into something later on is a learned skill. Paying attention to how we teach students to network, and the reasons for students to network, is a really important tool they can walk away with for the rest of their lives. Matt, what would you add to a teacher’s or student’s toolkit?

Dr. Matt Mayhew 41:39
So many things, so many ideas! But I am going to drill it down to one: the movie Son in Law with Pauly Shore. If you have not seen it, you must watch it with your loved ones, your siblings, or whoever. Just watch it and talk about it. It will touch on almost everything we have talked about in this podcast in a very funny way. I am one hundred percent behind it; you cannot go wrong.

Of course, accompany that with other podcasts we have done on the topic, as well as some readings. How College Affects Students is a 700-page book that I wrote. Never look that up—never read it unless you need a doorstop! But there are some nice, pithy pieces out there on college-going that you could look up. Many people write in this space, and getting versed in it and getting your minds used to what it looks like is a good use of time.

Paul Beckermann 42:44
We are actually going to link to your book in the show notes, so it is not quite the way you are describing it. It is much better than you make it sound.

Dr. Matt Mayhew 42:53
It is so long! But if you do read it, read chapters 1, 10, and 11. You can skip all the rest. Those will give you everything you need to know.

Paul Beckermann 43:01
And I need to watch your movie. I feel left out; I have never watched it.

Dr. Matt Mayhew 43:06
When we finish this, go find it. Right, Winston, am I wrong? Have you seen it?

Winston Benjamin 43:13
I’ve seen it. I’ve seen it.

Dr. Matt Mayhew 43:16
It’s genius. I’m not kidding.

Paul Beckermann 43:22
All right. Well, we are going to boil our episode down to our genius moments and hop into our “One Thing.”

Transition Music 43:29
It’s time for that one thing. It’s that one thing.

Paul Beckermann 43:38
Okay, it’s “One Thing” time—time for our final takeaways of the day. Winston, we will have you go first, I will go next, and Matt, you get to clean up today.

Winston Benjamin 43:50
One of the things that has been consistent is to be okay with changing yourself and your dreams. Try something, do something. You might actually learn, “Hey, this is fulfilling my dreams,” or you might realize, “I didn’t really think that was my dream, and I don’t like doing that.” It is important to try new things and not be afraid of letting those experiences change who you are as you grow.

Paul Beckermann 44:20
And I’m going to hop on this human-to-human connection piece. How important that is! Get out there and immerse yourself in the college experience. If you are a college student, connect with other people. Seek out those opportunities to be face-to-face with others. It could be lunch, a club, in class, or wherever, but connect with people. That is what I have got. Matt, how about you? What would you like to leave our listeners with today?

Dr. Matt Mayhew 44:50
Expand your notion of fun. It is fun to learn things that are new. It is fun to connect with people whom you may have never connected with before. It is fun to go to all of these different sporting events, athletic events, or whatever those things are. Expand your notion of fun beyond just what you do or think you do in order to have a good time. Embrace that everything can be a good time, and college is the perfect place for that.

Paul Beckermann 45:20
Awesome. And before we leave, I just want to call attention to another podcast episode about this topic, and Matt is on that as well. It is from the Ohio State University Inspire podcast, and the title is “How to Maximize College Then Land a Job You Love” on repeat. We quoted that at the beginning of the episode, and I will link that in the show notes as well. As for your book, if somebody wants to read those three chapters at least, where should they go?

Dr. Matt Mayhew 45:49
Nobody is going to want it. It’s fine! I think I make a cent and a half off of every sale, so it’s fine. Again, it’s great as a doorstop, and I appreciate anybody who thinks otherwise, but it is too long. It’s huge; there’s no need. But thank you, I appreciate it. Chapters 1, 10, and 11. Go to your library, or find a copy.

Paul Beckermann 46:08
I’m linking it anyway, Matt! Thank you so much for joining us. It has been a pleasure having this conversation with you.

Winston Benjamin 46:19
Absolutely.

Dr. Matt Mayhew 46:20
This is so much fun! Anytime you need me to come back, I am more than happy to do it. You all were great.

Rena Clark 46:26
Thanks for listening to Unpacking Education.

Winston Benjamin 46:29
We invite you to visit us at avidopenaccess.org, where you can discover resources to support student agency and academic tenacity to create a classroom for future-ready learners.

Rena Clark 46:43
And remember: go forth and be awesome.

Winston Benjamin 46:46
Thank you for all you do.

Paul Beckermann 46:49
You make a difference.