Career Readiness

At a February 2, 2011 event releasing the Harvard Graduate School of Education study entitiled “Pathways to Prosperity: Meeting The Challenge of Preparing Young Americans for the 21st Century (Pathways Study),” US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan emphasized the necessity of career readiness by our students:

“[A] career ready student must also have the knowledge and skills that employers need from day one. That means having critical thinking and problem solving skills, an ability to synthesize information, solid communication skills, and the ability to work on a team.”

According to the Pathways Study, however, our US high schools and colleges by and large are not preparing students with the critical skills they need for the workplace, in strong contrast to edcuational institutions in Europe. Don’t our young people deserve better?

Paula Argento advocates that our educational and guidance systems can and must be reformed to give our young people the upward mobility and career readiness they deserve. In How To Avoid the Law School Trap and Achieve Lasting Success in the 21st Century, she has examined this concept in the context of legal education, while proposing methods to obtain multi-faceted executive skills and pursue career alternatives to law that may benefit a broad range of students and young professionals, regardless of their interest in the legal profession.