Free Idea: Shadow University

Everybody knows the college system is broken. High school graduates are pressured to attend college without a clear understanding of what career they’d like to pursue. This blind attendance costs students a lot of time and even more money, leaving them confused and buried in student loans at the age of 22. Here’s an idea that would help to prevent some of the inefficiencies in the college system.

I call it Shadow University. Essentially, it’s an intensive job discovery program that helps high school graduates decide on a career path. Before embarking on college, students could attend Shadow University for one year and engage in various job-shadowing scenarios to figure out what they want to do. I imagine there being three streams of training: the first is Exploration. People who have no clue what they’re good at could choose three broadly different job shadow arrangements to participate in, and there would also be a series of quizzes and personality tests to help you figure out what you’re good at. The Exploration phase would last for one semester. Once you figure out an area or a field that you’re interested in, you would enter the Discovery phase which is the next semester. In this phase, you’d be paired with three new job shadow scenarios that are more specific to the field you want to enter. Lastly, I envision a third stream, which is called Curiosity. The Curiosity stream is for individuals who may already be working professionals, but are curious about other careers. They might be interested in pursuing a second or third career, or perhaps they’ve always dreamed of trying something different but have never had the chance. I think this could pioneer a new career-tourism industry.

The school would have a catalog of helpful professionals in various careers that would be available, and could provide a secondary income for working professionals who choose to participate. For students, something like Shadow University would eliminate the need to take Gen-eds until you “figure it out”, and it would help students realize that not every degree leads to a viable job opportunity. I’m not saying it would change the world or even fix the college system, but I do think it would save these poor students a lot of time and money.