Our ProTip series is designed to help Professionals on CareerVillage.org create advice that will become the best answer for any student looking for the answer to a question.
Introducing ProTip Nine:
“Anticipate the student’s needs to proactively educate users about things they might not ask about.”
Because students don’t always know what questions to ask next, the most educational advice anticipates what a student needs to learn next and often answers questions they didn’t know they would need to ask at all.
Why?
If you suggest something new that a student hasn’t considered, you may expand their mind and open up a new path for them to explore.
How do you know it when you see it?
This varies student to student, but most often it’s a piece of follow-up information or a recommendation for a new path to explore. If a student asks about becoming a doctor but hasn’t yet considered the lifestyle, explaining the daily stresses of the job could impact their feelings.
Examples from the Village
Cantalina shares amazing suggestions for paths to explore and new things to think about when considering a double major:
“I’d caveat this with making sure you have additional buffer space for changing your mind… Since I wanted to challenge both the qualitative and quantitative sides of my brain, I couldn’t imagine doing all English or all math, so I decided…”
-Cantalina
Mathew gives details on personal experiences that impacted his own journey through college, delving deeper into the process of becoming a lawyer:
“…start cultivating relationships with professors who may one day write you a letter of recommendation, as those are still an important part of….does not matter what you study in college — we went to law school with a piano performance major, a physics major, and everything else…”
What’s next?
- To see the next ProTip, head over to ProTip #10: Be Concise or go back to ProTip #8: Use Proper Grammar, Formatting, and Structure.
- Share your thoughts with us by emailing us (hello@careervillage.org) or in the comments below!