About ten years ago, I started incorporating a lot of career readiness into my English classes. I started with my 400-level students, since they would be graduating soon, but I quickly realized that the 400-level was way, way too late.

Eventually, I created a one-credit class called "Career Discovery" and offer it at the 200-level. Before students can start "hacking college," they have to be deprogrammed. Here are some misconceptions my students always have.

• "Every major tracks you into a particular industry. English tracks you into teaching and publishing."

• "My major is the job I will search for after college and will do for the rest of my life." 

• "It will mean more if I can figure out how to pivot from college to career by myself. Getting help from others is a form of nepotism."

• "I’ll be lucky just to find any job after I graduate, let alone one that pays okay, offers health insurance, and means something to me."

• "People like me don’t do fancy jobs like that." 

• "I can’t work in business without a business degree. I can’t apply for a job in the tech industry without a computer science degree."

• "I guess I’ll have to work in the service/retail industry after I graduate. That’s all that’s available in my hometown."

• "I majored in CW. If I don’t become a published writer, I will not be using my degree."

• "All I have to do is get good grades and graduate, and then I’ll be able to find a decent job."

I teach at a regional public, and many of my students are first-gen, low-income, BIPOC, come from small towns or rural areas. Students need an early intervention from a professor, academic advisor, career advisor, peer, or mentor, etc. before they "get" that there's a lot of work to be done in order to get where they might want to go.

Seriously, I tried so many ways to provide that intervention! An alumni career series. Presentations on "Networking for Introverts." Alumni advice shared on our blog. Bulletin boards. So many emails and FB posts/Tweets/Instagrams.

All of this happened outside the curriculum and attendance/engagement was optional. Our best and brightest attended events, sought out resources, but not the students who needed it the most, the ones who were most likely to wind up underemployed or unemployed.

The only way I know to provide every student with X is to incorporate X into your curriculum--which (for now. at least) is still in the hands of faculty. I've been working to get buy-in from my department for ten years now. I was told that convincing my colleagues to add a one-credit career class for sophomores to some (not all) of our majors was a huge accomplishment. But a one-credit class cannot impart all (or even most) of the lessons of Hacking College.

Everyone I know who works in administration (department chairs, associate deans, deans, associate vice provosts, all the way up to the president) plays a constant game of whack-a-mole day in and day out. Higher ed went into austerity mode after 2008 and stayed there. Then Covid. Then the demographic cliff. Now the attack on higher education at the federal and state levels. We have so many moles to whack, so many wicked problems, and no bandwidth.

One thing I've noticed during my decades in higher ed is that books about higher ed play a significant role in determining priorities. In the early aughts, it was Wiggins and McTighe and assessment and backwards design and SLOs! Ten years later, it was Arum's Academically Adrift and rigor rigor rigor! A few years ago, it was Levine and Van Pelt's The Great Upheaval and change change change! Hacking College is the first book about tackling wicked problems in higher ed that I've read and not wanted to throw across the room.

I've decided that if the only way to get the ear of and resources from my administrators is to stop calling the work I'm doing "teaching" or "service" but rather "research," and write a book myself, then that's what I'll do.

(I've been writing a lot here on the padlet, sorry, but I may have to miss the Zoom and breakout sessions--I'm taking my nephew to his freshman orientation. I'll be very sorry to miss the conversation.)

This change is reshaping the conversation. Retention is no longer seen as just an advising issue; it’s becoming an institutional priority. The shift is creating space for earlier, more intentional engagement, the kind of proactive, student-centered work Hacking College champions.

One effort we’ve launched in response is a self-discovery assessment to help students explore how their interests, skills, and values connect to areas of study. It’s not about declaring a lifelong path on day one, but about helping students find a sense of purpose and belonging earlier in their journey. Faculty and advisors use the tool to spark deeper conversations that move beyond “What do you want to do?” and instead ask, “Who are you becoming?”

The feedback from students has been striking: “I’ve not been this excited about my future in a long time.”  “I wish I’d had this sooner.” “I finally feel like I’m headed in the right direction.” “I don’t feel stuck, I feel like I have options.” That kind of clarity, knowing what you’re good at and where you fit, can be a powerful turning point.

If you're curious, you are welcome to this free resource at the University of Southern Indiana’s Library at:  https://doi.org/10.58090/usi.1596525

Karen Jolly, University of Hawai`i Mānoa

We start with a career exploratory course that helps students identify who they are and who they want to become. This early focus on identity and purpose helps guide more intentional academic and career choices. We've also revamped our capstone to include professional development, including resume and cover letter writing, interview prep, and strategies for navigating the job market.

Before that, I created an internship course within our major because it’s essential that students connect with the workplace early. Not only do they gain real experience, but they also start networking. Many of our students are hired by the companies where they interned. Employers often ask, “When are you graduating?” because they’re eager to talk with them afterward.

Something interesting happened as we built all this: our program became the fastest-growing on campus. We’re not just recruiting students, we’re retaining them, preparing them, and giving them the tools they actually need. Parents have even told their students, right in front of me, “Stick with her, she’ll make sure you’re employed when you graduate.”

Now, as our institution places more emphasis on retention and graduation, due to the changes in our state's funding formula, I’m hopeful that this kind of intentional, student-centered design will take hold more broadly across campus.

Waiting too long often leads to what we see far too often, students deep into a major that doesn’t fit, with no sense of direction, and nearing graduation with regret. Early exposure helps prevent “empty degrees” by connecting students to purpose, clarity, and momentum from the start.

In my own experience, I’ve seen students completely reframe how they see college once they’re given tools for reflection and exploration early in their journey. They stop asking, “What do I have to do?” and start asking, “What course can I take that will help build a skill I need for where I’m going?” That shift changes everything.

Part of that is circumstantial: I’ve only been at my institution for six months, following 18 years at a different university. I’m still learning the ecosystem. But another part is systemic. Like many smaller private institutions, our systems, processes, and structures have largely been in place for decades. They’re consistent, reliable—but not necessarily agile. I don’t yet see mechanisms intentionally designed for cross-disciplinary collaboration or rapid response to fuzzy, complex, and unsolvable problems—the very definition of a "wicked problem" as discussed in Hacking College.

If I had to name a strategy, it would be the informal work many of us do: identifying challenges, raising them with supervisors, and slowly cultivating buy-in from colleagues across campus. But that’s more grassroots than structural. The fact that I don’t have a better answer may itself be a signal: we need better pathways and processes that empower faculty, staff, and students to engage in problem-solving beyond traditional departmental boundaries.

Reading Hacking College made me wonder: What would it look like if we treated wicked problems not as edge cases but as the central organizing principle of the undergraduate experience? And what if our institutional structure reflected that same urgency? For example, what if we allowed for greater autonomy and authority to directly address aspects of wicked problems rather than having to go through an outdated and slow shared governance system. I don't mean to suggest authoritarian or drastic decisions by anyone. Rather a revised process that better reflects the fast changing and evolving system we are working in.

We have faculty advisors that carry a load of around 15-20 students. These advisors meet regularly with students and through conversations, can help students through this process.

We have an ingenuity in action requirement that has students complete 2 different internship, volunteer, research, activity to gain experience in the cultural and social aspects helping their success in landing a job in their field of study after college.

In my experience, the most needed skills in most jobs are communication, time management, collaboration, and critical thinking. Helping students recognize the value of these skills independently of a knowledge domain (English, Data Science, Psychology, Engineering, etc.) is important - e.g., seeing that every major provides transferrable skills.

Additionally, every organization will have its own business processes and culture, so although a major (English, Data Science, Psychology, Engineering, etc.) provides valuable foundational knowledge, a new employee will still need to learn a lot about 'the job' and needs to be open to learning in general and learning about things outside their 'major'.

I am at a smallish private nonprofit, and the culture of campus with its departments and budget model does not incentivize these collaborations.

Another obstacle is that our academic affairs division is divided into 5 colleges, 3 of which are seen as vocational (Business, Natural& Health Sciences, and Education & Behavioral Sciences), making the other two (Humanities and Social Sciences, Performing and Visual Arts) non-vocational by default. I appreciate that the book calls out this kind of division. Many of our faculty know it's a mistake, but the signaling to families is problematic.

It also helps to form lasting connections with the people who help them acheive their goal; expands networks for the student and in turn has a lasting impact on that student as an alumni which in the long run benefits the college via advancement/donor relations.

I do however see this approach benefiting the more outgoing/extroverted students and the question is how do we engage the more introverted students. My question to the Hacking College model is how do we meet students where they are and continue to create engaging dialogue to support the diverse range of students across campuses.

All of the curriculum committees have a say in how this happens... that's a barrier.

Recommendation: Try saying, "I know, but if you did know, what would you be interested in doing if you knew what you wanted to do?"

Faculty will need to partner with departments, as many student serving offices are only offices of 1-2 people.

We feel that otherwise the financial structure will need to radically restructure itself.

 https://library.usi.edu/record/1596525