How Well does UVA Prepare you for the Real World? (pt. 1)

Whether you know what you want to do for a living or not, being ready for the professional world is a key purpose of attending a university. Without having experience in a field, it’s hard to tell whether you’ll be adequately prepared for the real world. Here are a few opportunities at UVA that help you to be confident in your abilities when it comes to your future career.

Classes

Academics are one of the first things people think about when they think of college. After all, these courses are intended to teach you everything you need to know. But take what you learn in class with a grain of salt. Courses have limited time to teach complex subjects, and they’re more focused on general foundational skills than the specifics of what you’ll be doing at work. Things move fast in the real world, and in my experience it’s not uncommon to do a lot of learning on the fly.

On the plus side, this means after taking a class you’ll have enough foundational knowledge to do a deeper dive into the subject with enough determination and time dedicated to surfing YouTube. And on the other plus side, just because you hate a class related to the field you were considering pursuing doesn’t mean you’ll hate the profession. It just means you might want to be intentional about the type of job you’re searching for in the field. Whether you love the class or hate it, talk to your professors and they might be able to offer some advice about the job of your dreams.

Clubs

The best way to know whether you’re prepared to pursue a career is to practice. There’s a club at UVA for just about everything, and a lot of them offer hands-on experience. Some are led by experts, while others are driven by passion and dependent on students’ experimentation. Want to be a professional at roller derby? Want to learn how to build solar-powered cars? UVA has got you covered.

But be aware - not every club is open to everybody. Some of the more competitive or more professional clubs at UVA, like the entrepreneurship start-up clubs, require applications to get in. These clubs aren’t always going to have a booth at the resource fair so it’s important to keep an eye out for emails or other posts about opportunities. If the resources fair passed you by and you didn’t find the club of your dreams on the first try, don’t lose hope. While our team hasn’t been able to find a definitive list of clubs at UVA yet, we recommend looking for chalk on the ground, checking out the posted flyers, or talking to TAs, professors, and classmates about clubs related to a course or major.

Don't stress too much about it

At the end of the day, your exact course load isn’t the most important thing about your time at UVA. Take it from someone with a degree in embedded engineering who’s going into a purely software-related field - your degree will get you an interview, but the skills and connections you make while you are at UVA are what will land you the job.