COLLEGES, CHARACTER & CAREERS

Hokitika Guardian, 1 March 1930, Page 8

COLLEGES, CHARACTER & CAREERS

Tile dean of one of the chief engineering colleges lias said that when the employment managers of the great electrical concerns come to him to “get a line” on the kind of men who are soon to present themselves as applicants for positions in the engineering field, they never ask to see academic records (says the “Christian Science Monitor”). These employers of men who are to plan superpower systems and devise improved electrical facilities in countless variety want to know most of ail the character of prospective workers. They give little heed to' scholastic grades. True, they usually want to know if the student is likely to graduate, and they assume that at least an average quality of academic work is being done. But after that they prefer to have a quiet man-to-man lalk with, hint, to discover his attitude towards his superiors, his attitude towards his work, how he gpts on with his fellows—in other words, to assay his social and moral metal. The engineering college must, therefore, in order to meet the actual demands of the field which it is established to serve, pay greater and greater attention to the other than scholastic qualities of its students. Recently the following came from one of the great professional centres of England .- “The social capacity that comes from mixing freely with one’s 1 contemporaries in a' university, and the broad culture it implies, are actually as useful in scouring a job as the intellectual distinction indicated by the best of degrees,.” Furthermore, one is constantly hearing of men and women obtaining good positions in tho piofessions because of the personal impressions they make, rather r,han because of the skill which they may have shown in their college examination. It is for all colleges, then, to give more and more consideration to these facts. The ability to work with others, aibly and harmoniously, is so important to-day that institutions of learning cannot afford to ignore it as an essential purpose in education.