Slides from a talk Fri 30th Sept 2016 at Victoria University of Wellington New Zealand. Thanks Nina for the invite!

1. HAVING A
DEGREE
Expectations vs Reality
Presentation for Victoria University BCOMM Students
(wondering what exactly happens next and why?)

2. EXPECTATION
A degree will get you a job

3. REALITY

4. EXPECTATION
Uni will teach you all you need to know

5. REALITY

6. EXPECTATION
Employers need to see a degree to recognise your expertise

7. REALITY

8. So what do
Employers look
for?

9. Number One:
Experience

10. So what can I do to get a
job?
1. University Resources
2. Know some basics about CV’s
3. Things to do now

11. 1. Resources at Vic
1. Career Hub
https://careerhub.vuw.ac.nz/students/login?ReturnUrl=%2f
2. Vic Plus Certificate
http://www.victoria.ac.nz/students/get-involved/vic-plus
3. Become a Mentor:
http://www.victoria.ac.nz/students/get-involved/lead-mentor/te-putahi-atawhai

12. 2. Things to know about
CV’s
1. CV’s go through SEO before they reach humans. Use KEYWORDS
applicable to your job search (SEO Hack – look at the bottom of your
Google Searches where it says “Related Searches”)
2. Employers look for experience. Get experience. Gain experience for free if
you need to. Ask for a letter of recommendation (and offer to write it for
them)
3. Don’t worry so much about your grades (unless you have a reason to). Once
you have a degree its rare that individual grades will be a deal breaker

13. 3. Things to do now
1. Apply to become a Tutor (but tutor something you are passionate about, not
just good at – would you rather have a bored, complacent know it all expert
teaching you? Or a passionate, enthusiastic inquisitive personality that finds
out because they really need to know – and accepts that there is still a lot
more to know?)
2. Ask your favourite lecturer to be an academic referee (ask your favourite
tutor if you don’t like any of your lecturers…or if they don’t like you).
3. Create a LinkedIn Account NOW and post your recommendations on it

14. One last piece of advice…
Internships: Apply for ALL of them.
Internships are harder to get than grad positions
For additional learning resources:
Learn on demand is one of the top 5 angel investment categories (Silicon
Valley) 2016…and it’s taken off in a very big way
I’m using Udemy among others – it’s awesome
A basic Google search will pull up a large number of them…

15. Such as the following Google searches:
“best online study websites”
“learn on demand labs”
“top online learning resources”
“top online learning sites”
“e learning sites online education”
“top free learning websites”
This is a handy little article:
https://blog.todoist.com/2016/04/22/guide-to-online-learning-sites/
And the Reddit and Sub Reddit List:
https://www.reddit.com/comments/cktxy/reddit_lets_compile_a_list_of_the_best_online/
Because…Reddit.Is.Life.andtheuniverseandeverything

16. A small list. Wait until you see what they
offer for free:
Udemy
Canvas Network
Open UW
Howcast
Memrise
Schooltube
Coursera
Khan Academy
Academic Earth
Open Yale Courses
Codeacademy
MOZ
Clarity
Open2study
edX
Ureddit
Learnondemand
Microsoft On Demand (MS.IT.Academy)
Virtual Training Company
FAST
Joshbersin.com
Stanford engineering everywhere
Better explained
HOW design university
HTML dog
Skillcrush
Hack design
Ed2go
CFCLearnFree.org
Stack exchange
HippoCampus
Instructables
creativeLIVE
Do it yourself
Grovo
MIT Open Courseware
Open Learning Initiative
MIT Video
Stanford Online
Harvard Extension School
Quantum Physics Made Relatively Simple
UC San Diego Podcast Lectures
University of the People
NovoEd
Udacity
Apple Developer Site
Google Code
Code.org
Mozilla Developer Network
Learnable
Pluralsight
CodeHS
Aquent Gymnasium
ALISON
HubSpot Academy
iTunesU
Open Culture Online Courses
UC Berkeley Class Central
Carnegie Mellon Open Learning Initiative
University of London/Oxford/BBC
Podcasts
LessonPaths
TED-Ed
W3Schools
Peer 2 Peer University
Treehouse
The Code Player
Tuts+Network

17. And if you don’t want to do any of that…
Publish.
Publish everything you write.
Blog.
Share what you know.
Share what you don’t know!
(Hint: most people share what they think they know – lecturers, professors, tutors,
marketers and institutions alike).
Most people don’t publish or share because it’s really scary to give yourself
permission to fail, and to fail often, and publically.
Ironically, failure is a massive component of effective learning.

18. Further Resources:
If interested in more about what I consider highly intelligent views on the education
system as we know it I encourage you to consider researching John Taylor Gatto
I consider him to be one of the best teachers I have been fortunate enough to have
had ( albeit online)
I applied some of his ideas to some of my own classes and achieved what I consider
remarkable results
http://www.filmsforaction.org/news/the-public-school-nightmare-why-fix-a-system-
designed-to-destroy-individual-thought/
http://www.filmsforaction.org/articles/10-provocative-quotes-from-ivan-illichs-
deschooling-society/

19. clinton den heyer
(expectation approximately equal to reality)
c_den_heyer@hotmail.com
nz.linkedin.com/in/clintondenheyer