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One of the biggest challenges I see with being a modern student — one that will warrant more conversation in this newsletter down the road — is the need to constantly navigate change within and between semesters. Within a single term, many students have to swing between in-person and virtual class attendance, written and electronic work, self-scheduled and professor-scheduled timings, closed-book proctored exams and open book unproctored exams, and more. Then, when those classes wind up, the next term brings a whole new set of specifics within which to adapt. Suffice it to say that adaptation is essential to managing student life.
Along with the wide variety of course formats and professor styles comes the need to manage ambiguity and uncertainty. For every course that has detailed rubrics, another has limited guidance. Students often hesitate to ask questions when they are uncertain, and even when they perceive that they have clarity, the way an assignment is graded may not reflect the rubric in the way they expected.
The next time you meet with a student who is balking at the work it takes to adjust to changes and navigate ambiguous instructions, I invite you to encourage a productive perspective shift, and point out that this work is one of the most important professional skills they can possess. Not only are jobs changing rapidly, but within any given job, even if it lasts for a while, change is a constant — in platforms, operations, structure, personnel, and more. And as a result of this constant change, ambiguity and uncertainty have become a feature of the modern workplace, not a bug. Coaches can:
- Notice energy devoted to unproductive attempts to manufacture certainty, and ask how a student might focus it instead on making reasonable choices in the face of ambiguity.
- Normalize ambiguity and uncertainty and change with brief stories from their working lives in coaching or elsewhere.
- Ask students to think of, and share, a story of navigating change in their own academic or working lives, and how it benefited them by building a useful skill or salient perspective.
As you move closer to the end of the semester, make time to grow your career-connected coaching with a LifeBound coaching training.
To learn more or explore which option is right for you, visit lifebound.com.
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