Which college can I get into?

Which individual college courses can get you a job out of college?

• For instance, one can take a few computer programming classes, and with that knowledge one can potentially get a programming job out of college; no formal major or minor necessary. Are there any other individual college courses that might be useful in a similar way?  If not, are there any that might help a great deal?

• Answer:

  Note: My major was computer science and the majority of my credits are from that department. Classes that I use the most: 1) Speech: Small Group Communication. The class covered how groups form, power structures within groups and types of power, things that contribute to high performing groups and tensions within groups. How often do I use this class? Every single day for the majority of my professional life. 2) Technical Writing. Over and over again in professional life, I've had to prepare process documents for other people to follow, write specifications, etc. Getting through a few good writing classes taught me a great deal. 3) Statistics. Knowing how to work with data, analyze trends, etc is hugely beneficial. I look for patterns in things, and finding those patterns early allows me to respond quickly to situations as they develop. I've found myself called into meetings with directors and CEOs to answer questions about data and analysis, and to present alternate explanations for observed trends. 4) Business office applications. I live and die in outlook. Calendaring, meeting reminders, follow up reminders, RULES! My inbox gets hit with approximately 2,000 emails a day, most of which I don't need most of the time, but do need to be able to find sometimes. A good understanding of excel (coupled with that statistics class!) makes transforming raw data into meaningful data easy. Powerpoint, Word and Access all a bit less,  but all of them come into play regularly. Classes I don't use anymore: 1) Scripting with Perl. Seriously, it was required. I stopped writing Perl code a year out of college. 2) Mac OS. Really? I spent time in this class? 3) 20 credits worth of classes in Unix. Linux did not change the world in the year 2000 and I have worked with a staggering ONE employer since I left college that utilized the amount of skill I had with Unix. 4) Human Genetics. Yeah, it filled a science credit requirement, but I get more use out of my History of Japanese Civilization course than this thing. I guess what I want to say is: You can go to school and major in something, or decide that taking a few classes in computer science will get you as far in life as getting the whole degree without wasting your time on the unrelated fluff, but I haven't found that to be true. The value of the education isn't in the classes that relate directly to a job. Taking a few programming classes doesn't make you as good of an employee as someone who has all the other rounded skills of a full degree. The same is true in many fields. All of that being said, if you want the #1 class, if you take ONLY ONE COLLEGE CLASS EVER that will help you get a job, then take this one: Human Development: Portfolio Design and Resume Writing. I get more resumes across my desk than I like to think about. I spend an average of one minute looking at them. A poorly written and designed resume can and will sink your chances of getting a job. If you take no other classes to further your career, take that one.