{"id":99142,"date":"2026-09-01T01:10:14","date_gmt":"2026-09-01T05:10:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/?p=99142"},"modified":"2026-08-31T18:24:30","modified_gmt":"2026-08-31T22:24:30","slug":"college-is-an-expensive-career-exploration-tool-heres-an-alternative-odonnell-dulin-salisbury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/2026\/09\/01\/college-is-an-expensive-career-exploration-tool-heres-an-alternative-odonnell-dulin-salisbury\/","title":{"rendered":"College Is an Expensive Career Exploration Tool. Here\u2019s an Alternative. [O\u2019Donnell & Dulin Salisbury]"},"content":{"rendered":"

College Is an Expensive Career Exploration Tool. Here\u2019s an Alternative.<\/strong> <\/a>— from humanistxyz.substack.com by Patrick O\u2019Donnell and Allison Dulin Salisbury
\n\u201cYoung people know that sitting in a classroom for twelve years isn\u2019t going to show them how to find a job, let alone a career they love.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

This interview is part of a series on AI, high school, and the Experience Gap. Our report,\u00a0Closing the Experience Gap<\/a>, makes the case for a high-school model in which at least 50 percent of formal learning is experience-based.<\/p>\n

College is an expensive career exploration tool. It is also poorly designed for the job.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Patrick O\u2019Donnell tells the story of a student who entered a four-year nursing program certain she wanted to become a nurse. Once enrolled, she discovered that the work was a poor fit. Earlier immersion in healthcare, she told him, would have moved that discovery forward by several years. Now she needed to transfer to a community college and remap her plans.<\/p>\n

Her predicament is familiar. We ask teenagers to choose a college and course of study with little direct knowledge of the work on the other side. Many spend their first years of college trying to answer a question high school gave them few opportunities to explore: What kind of work fits me?<\/p>\n

\n

From DSC:<\/em><\/span>
\nCollege is an expensive career exploration tool. It is also poorly designed for the job.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

This assertion resonated with me instantly — and I agree with it 100%. As a bit of background as to why I say this…I thought that I was going to be a doctor all through K-12 and even in my first year at college. But then I got to about halfway through my fall semester in my sophomore year, and I dropped out of pre-med. It was the best decision of my life. <\/span><\/p>\n

But then what? <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

I had very little idea of what I wanted to do in the future or what my skills, interests, passions, and abilities were. K-12 and college offered next to nothing in terms of career preparation back in that period of time. It wasn’t until my late 20’s that I even began to get a clue on what’s all out there. What were my choices and what was a good fit for me? What did I enjoy doing and what did I not enjoy doing?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So I agree completely…college is an expensive career exploration tool\/setting. But I’m glad to see more and better options these days within K-12. Colleges could do much better.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

College Is an Expensive Career Exploration Tool. Here\u2019s an Alternative. — from humanistxyz.substack.com by Patrick O\u2019Donnell and Allison Dulin Salisbury \u201cYoung people know that sitting in a classroom for twelve years isn\u2019t going to show them how to find a job, let alone a career they love.\u201d This interview is part of a series on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[174,115,302,72,343,347,3,419,46,838,353,199,226,66,321,214,445],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-99142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-career-development","category-colleges","category-community-colleges","category-daniel-s-christian","category-education","category-education-reform","category-higher-education","category-ideas-teaching","category-k-12-related","category-learning-experience-design","category-moralsvalues","category-more-voice-more-choice-more-control","category-passions","category-student-related","category-united-states","category-universities","category-youth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99142"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99142\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":99145,"href":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99142\/revisions\/99145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}