by Brittany D’Alesandro

A four-year degree is broader and more functional than one that is vocation-oriented as the degrees students receive from two-year technical schools such as Linn State.

While other universities aim to improve their transcripts by including job readiness, scores and attendance records, MSU relies on the integrity of its transcripts to accurately reflect a student’s academic achievements.

Once graduates have to face the job market, it is questionable whether a broader degree is worth more than a specific degree in one field.

Registrar Darla Inglish said an academic transcript at the university level is a record of the student’s grades for completed academic courses.

A transcript should not report anymore than a student’s GPA and coursework; employers rely on previous experience than on job readiness when making hiring decisions.

While academic transcripts give them some good information, they want to know what kind of work experience and how the person performed in other jobs, where references come into play.

An employability rating like the one Linn State Technical College has implemented is more useful. The difference lies in the mission and goal of each university’s program.

“Their mission states, ‘our role is to find them a job in this vocation’. It’s a little different than Midwestern’s mission and role,” Inglish said, “We are a part of bettering their life.”

Graduates do not necessarily get to stay in the same career they originally trained for.

Maybe that is part of the reason most four-year degree plans require some kind of internship or work-related program that give students first-hand experience in order to graduate.

When undergraduates begin student teaching, faculty hold them to the highest professional standards. Professional standards are expected of them in the workplace, because it reflects their future careers.

Less defined programs should be  required to complete internships act ing as the university’s version of a job-readiness evaluation.

An internship is a required element of a degree plan in some majors, but not all of them. Without some kind of working experience in the specific fields graduation should be unforeseeable.

Dirk Welch is the director of the Career Management Center and works closely with students, helping them build resumes, teaching them how to network and preparing them for a career ahead.

“Transcripts are rarely, if at all, requested by employers as part of the employment determination process,” Welch said, “Given this, adding attendance or job readiness to a transcript would play a negligible role, if any, in a hiring decision.”

MSU will not be adding any kind of work ethics score or determination of employability to transcripts.

In today’s difficult job market, students should be fully prepared for the real world behind the secure walls of a college facility.

A broad knowledge about one subject is not going to help  to succeed outside of the classroom.

Employers look at different qualities as reliability, team play and the ability to communicate. These skills need to be acquired outside of the classroom.

MSU should focus on preparing students more effectively when targeting graduation than only one internship, because it shows students a wrong image of what the real job market is like – a battle.