Last week my friend, Dr. Jim Clifford, shared an article by William Pannapacker on Slate.com that painted a pretty grim picture about the plight of graduate students.

First, you should watch this video montage, which is brilliant:

Second, the above video is only mostly true.

Third, it’s not just the Doctors of Humanities who are struggling to get into the “romantic world of post-secondary professordom” – everybody leaving higher education needs to be more than just their degree when they enter the world of work. Academic credibility is just part of the career conversation. People need to be able to demonstrate the following skills in myriad ways, not just academic ones:

[Editor’s note: in order to put them in context, I use the professional example of a circus clown to showcase what each skill looks like in an accomplishment statement]

1. Effective Communication – delivers comprehensive water-spraying instructions to five-person team with no verbal cues, just first-class miming techniques.
2. Critical Thinking and Analysis – based on research and analysis of previous five (unsuccessful) attempts by colleagues, removed head from lion’s mouth in timely fashion.
3. Teamwork and Collaboration – collaborated with 89-person team to seamlessly enter and exit a three-cubic-metre car in under seven minutes.
4. Innovation and Creativity – continually include fire and roller skates into components of show, such as when engaging with young audience members during the “trampolines and shark tank” performance.
5. John’s bonus skills: Adaptability (new employee) and Leadership (experienced employee) – demonstrated flexibility by securing myself in a cannon, resulting in a post-explosion-travel of approximately 96 metres (new); or, demonstrated comprehensive knowledge of safety procedures – such as location of 13 different fire extinguishers, medical personal and digital camera – during the rookie-clown-cannon-experience component of Circus’s closing ceremonies (experienced).

For the record, I used the Circus Clown example instead of Doctor, Lawyer, Teacher, Lab Technician, Financial Analyst, Economist, Historian, Web Developer, Professor, Nurse, Engineer, Researcher or Social Media Guru so that you – our students and readers – couldn’t just copy the examples for each competency. We’re all about learning and personal development here at The Potentiality.

Basically, you need to get these skills from non-academic experiences that live in a world beyond books, articles and the grad student pub.

One comment from Mr. Pannapacker’s article particularly grabbed my attention:

Graduate programs must stop stigmatizing everything besides tenure-track positions at research universities that almost no one will get. They should cultivate an “alternative academic” sensibility by redesigning graduate school as professional training, including internships and networking opportunities, and working with other departments and programs, including partnerships with other institutions, granting agencies, government, and business to cultivate humanists who are prepared for hybrid careers in technology (“the digital humanities”), research, consulting, fundraising, publishing, and ethical leadership. They should cultivate new ways for people with humanities sensibilities to build entrepreneurial projects outside of traditional academe, and make these alternative paths the norm, without shame. Successful programs should be celebrated as credible alternatives to traditional programs with poor academic-placement records.

I couldn’t agree more. We know our stuff about work – and the history of it – here at The Potentiality. We know about wasted talent, too.

Look. I’m a huge, positive proponent of people following their passions down, around and through rabbit holes of academia. The comment thread from Mr. Pannapacker’s article is flush with passion for the Humanities. To all those graduate students out there, though, just be sure that your degree isn’t just a degree. Make it an experiential education that is made up of internships, service learning, cooperative education, meaningful study abroad opportunities, and please, please, please expand your network beyond academia by connecting with the Career Services units at your school as well as people who work in different industries – people will always have use for smart, well-read thinkers; you just need to explain to them how you can benefit their organization.

Yes, universities and colleges need to change their approach to education grad students (especially in the Humanities). Yes, many – if not most – of them are doing just that. And you can speed past the slow bureaucracy of an academic institution by entrepreneurially seeking out and harnessing the above mentioned opportunities. Bonus points for learners who find paid and volunteer work that intersects their interests, passions and studies, too.

Most importantly, be more than your degree so that you can laugh at the Simpson’s montage like every good Humanities grad student should: with deep thoughts about comedic theory.