Life After College: The Importance of Letters of Recommendation

It is with great esteem that I turn today's column over to two respected faculty from Clark University.  The advice they share, in regards to landing that very important letter of recommendation, should not be missed by current students nor recent graduates. This piece is presented jointly by Colin Polsky, Associate Dean for Undergraduate Research & Active Pedagogy and Associate Professor of Geography, Clark University, and Amy Whitney, Associate Director, Innovation and Entrepreneurship Program, Clark University (Worcester, Massachusetts).  Visit www.ClarkU.edu.

Being able to network and ultimately land the backing of a professor will help you land that much needed job.  Please give them your attention and read the well written information below.

If you’re a student starting college this fall, then you might think you’re done worrying about applications for a long time. After all, you have four years until the next application, right? Wrong! Getting into a college that fits you well is a major accomplishment. Congratulations. Now, believe it or not, it is not too soon to plan a strategy for kick-starting your life after college by planning for your next applications (for example, to an internship, job, or graduate school). Here is a strategy you can adopt now – even if you don’t yet know what your major will be.

Let’s review the three main elements to your application to college: your high school transcript, an essay highlighting your interests both outside and inside the classroom, and a few letters of recommendation. These are the same three main elements for your future applications.

One thing will be different, though: the letters of recommendation written about your college performance can make or break your offers of employment or advanced study. This means you’ll want to choose very carefully the people who write those letters for you. For graduating college students, that means professors.

Unfortunately, relying solely on your professors to write your letters of recommendation can leave out critical capacities that a potential employer or graduate program may be looking for. Your professors can typically only write about your classical classroom performance – exam scores, attendance, classroom participation, etc.

Today’s employers and graduate schools are interested in your class-specific performance, but they are also looking for what makes you different from those other star performers. Of course, your academic performance is important – very important. But your college transcript will tell that tale. By contrast, your transcript will not communicate the full range of skills that employers and graduate schools are looking for. In other words, a student can be a genius in the classroom but weak in a professional or graduate school setting. The people reading your applications know this. In today’s difficult economic climate, those evaluating you must make successful hiring and acceptance decisions. Since these people are investing their hard-earned, valuable resources in you, you need to provide them with strong letters of recommendation that go beyond your academic performance in classroom settings.

With that in mind, it is important to find ways to allow your professors to speak about a broader range of capacities that are essential in the 21stcentury. At Clark University we have built a new model of liberal education to help our students develop skills and capacities such as creativity and imagination, self-directedness, resilience and persistence, and collaboration that we refer to as Capacities of Effective Practice. 

Where on your campus can you find opportunities that allow professors to assess both your academic abilities and your capacities? It might be easy to identify such skills as they are demonstrated in engineering and business courses. Does this mean you should not major, or take courses in, the arts, humanities, or social sciences? Not at all! Institutions like Clark, a small liberal arts research university, challenge students to cultivate these skills while deepening and broadening their intellects, in settings that involve professors, community partners and students collaborating on an authentic project or activity. For example, participating in a conference on Shakespeare, a water quality study requested by a local environmental group, reclaiming brownfields to support urban revitalization, or an international archeological dig – permit passionate students to develop both academic knowledge and Capacities of Effective Practice, regardless of their major. The key point is that students should engage in experiences with faculty, community partners and other students that can transcend the traditional classroom setting, where efforts are gauged only through homework and exams. Note that you don’t have to take every one of your courses in such authentic settings; a handful can serve to radically transform both your marketability and your views of how the world works.

Engaged learning opportunities like those at Clark mentioned above, are tangible, relevant and measurable projects where students discover, develop and then demonstrate Capacities of Effective Practice.  As a liberal education student, find a faculty mentor soon who also embraces these ideas, someone who can help you translate your passion for learning to a fulfilling life and a better world. Your professors are the people who can describe your non-exam skills in a letter of recommendation and help make you stand out when you’re ready to transition to life after college.  

So if you’re off to college this fall, it’s never too early to start seeking educational opportunities that not only deepen your intellect, but also develop the indispensable capacities that will enhance your career search or entrée into post-graduate studies. We give this strategy our highest possible recommendation.

To learn more, visit www.clarku.edu/aboutclark/leep/index.cfm .

Thank you so very much, Mr. Polsky and Ms. Whitney.  The readers and myself appreciate the time and effort you put into this piece.  If you want to continue this discussion, please follow the link above to reach out.

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