On a Friday in late August, parents of freshmen starting at Wake Forest University, a small, prestigious liberal-arts school in Winston-Salem, N.C., attended orientation sessions that coached them on how to separate, discouraged them from contacting their children's professors and assured them about student safety. Finally, as their portion of orientation drew to a close, the parents joined their students in learning the school song and then were instructed to form a huge ring around the collective freshman class, in a show of support.

8月底的一个周五，规模不大却享有盛名的维克森林大学(Wake Forest University)召开新生培训会，大一新生的父母们来到这所位于北卡罗来纳州温斯顿-塞勒姆市的文理学院参加会议，这些培训教导他们如何适应与子女分开的生活，劝他们不要联系子女的教授，并向他们确保学生的安全。最后，在他们的培训进入尾声时，家长与学生们一起学唱校歌，然后围成一个巨大的圈，把大一新生围在中央，向他们表示支持。
When it was time for the parents to leave, their children kissed them goodbye — fully independent for the first time and on the brink of academic adventure — and headed, en masse, to their next session, one that catapulted them directly from orientation to the job market: "From College to Career."
家长们该离开了，他们的孩子与他们吻别——第一次完全独立，站在学术探险之旅的边缘——然后一起走向下一个培训环节，它把他们直接从培训地点弹射到了求职市场：“从大学到职场”。

Rock music played as the students entered the school's chapel, and then Andy Chan, vice president in charge of the Office of Personal and Career Development — the O.P.C.D., it is called — introduced his team with a video spoof of the television show "The Office." The students played a game in which they could guess, by text, which majors had been chosen by various gainfully employed alumni of the school. (Human-capital analyst at Deloitte? And the answer is . . . German!) And a panel of students shared their own glamorous work experiences: a fellowship in Paris, an internship at a start-up.
摇滚音乐伴随着学生们步入学校礼堂，负责个人与事业发展办公室（Office of Personal and Career Development，简称O.P.C.D.）的副总裁陈安道(Andy Chan)用一个模仿电视剧《办公室风云》(The Office)的视频来介绍他的团队。学生们玩起了游戏，从给出的资料中猜测多位收入不错的本校毕业校友当初都选择了哪些专业（比如说德勤[Deloitte]的人力资源分析师？答案是——德语专业！）还有一群学生来分享他们自己独特的工作经验，像是取得巴黎的奖学金项目，或在一家初创公司实习。
Staff members from the O.P.C.D. had handed out forms asking the students what fields they'd like to work in and where they'd like to live. At the end of the session, Chan directed the students to fold them into paper airplanes. Then, as a group, they let them fly, a symbol of "them launching their careers," as he had put it. Some planes soared, others took nose-dives. A young man flinched when someone else's plane clocked him on the side of his head. Celebratory in midair, planes quickly littered the floor. The career-office staff, who would input the information on the forms into databases, walked around with boxes, picking them up. A few students helped, but many watched, as if curious, but not that curious, to see what would happen next to their professional dreams.
个人与事业发展办公室的工作人员们分发表格，询问学生们想要工作的领域以及想要生活的地方。在培训的最后，陈安道让学生们将表格折成纸飞机。然后，作为一个集体，他们一起放飞纸飞机，用他的话来说，这象征着“他们职业生涯的起航”。有些飞机翱翔高飞，其他的则俯冲急降。一只别人折的纸飞机直直地撞到一个年轻人头部侧面，他只好往边上避了避。在空中快乐地飞翔过后，飞机很快就落满一地。办公室工作人员拿着箱子四处走，将它们捡起来，以便稍后把表格上的信息录入数据库。有一些学生帮忙捡拾，但许多人只是看着，好像是好奇地想要看看他们的职业梦想将会变成怎么样，可他们其实也并没有那么好奇。
For years, most liberal-arts schools seemed to put career-services offices "somewhere just below parking" as a matter of administrative priority, in the words of Wake Forest's president, Nathan Hatch. But increasingly, even elite, decidedly non-career-oriented schools are starting to promote their career services during the freshman year, in response to fears about the economy, an ongoing discussion about college accountability and, in no small part, the concerns of parents, many of whom want to ensure a return on their exorbitant investment.
用维克森林大学校长内森·哈奇(Nathan Hatch)的话来说，许多年来，在管理优先次序上，大多数文理学院似乎都把就业服务办公室的重要性放在“停车位之后的位置”。但越来越多地，甚至连那些根本就不以就业作为导向的精英学校也开始在大一学年就向学生推广他们的就业服务，用以回应对经济的恐慌与对高校责任的持续讨论，还有很大一部分是为了回应家长们的担心，他们之中的很多人都想要确保自己这笔昂贵的投资能得到回报。
The University of Chicago has extensive pre-professional programming and a career center that engaged with roughly 80 percent of its freshmen last year. Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn., has a new career center prominently located on campus; its Web site urges freshmen to stop by and start their four-year plan. Michael S. Roth, the school's president, says he wants the career program "to work with our students from the first year to think about how what they're learning can be translated into other spheres." Like Chan, Roth believes that the process can make for more thoughtful, meaningful careers choices; but he also told me that the demand from parents for better career services has pushed resources in that direction (for those schools that can afford it; many schools have been forced to cut back their career-center budgets). "My parents didn't expect me to have an easy time when I graduated," said Roth, who recalled finishing college in the challenging economy of the late '70s. "I think families atthese, dare I say, fantasy schools — they're used to kids getting what they want, and they expect that to happen at graduation."
芝加哥大学(The University of Chicago)拥有全面的职前教育项目以及一个在去年接触到了大约80%大一新生的就业中心。位于康涅狄格州米德尔敦的卫斯理安大学(Wesleyan University)拥有一个新的就业中心，坐落在校园中很显眼的位置；它的网站鼓励新生们去那里逛逛，开展他们的四年计划。学校校长迈克尔·罗斯(Michael S. Roth)说，他希望就业培训项目“和学生们一起从第一年就开始思考，怎么样才能将他们的所学推而广之到其他领域中去”。像陈安道一样，罗斯也相信这样的项目能够让学生们做出更多深思熟虑的、有意义的职业选择；但他也告诉我，是来自家长方面要求提供更好就业服务的呼声将资源推到这一方向的（那些负担得起的学校可以如此；可也有很多学校被迫将他们的就业中心预算砍掉）。“当我毕业时，我的父母并没展望我走得顺风顺水，”罗斯说，他回忆起自己在上世纪70年代末期不景气的经济环境下从大学毕业的情景，“那些孩子们在著名学府就学的家庭，我敢说——他们习惯于看到孩子们得到他们想要的，而且希望在毕业时也能如此。”
No other school has marketed its career center quite as successfully as Wake Forest (which, at No. 27, falls between the University of Virginia and Tufts on the U.S. News & World Report rankings but has struggled with name recognition nationally). In 2009, the university hired Chan, who was running Stanford Business School's career center and had led a Silicon Valley start-up. Chan has made a name for himself as an oft-quoted expert on getting young people employed. He has given a TEDx talk on the subject of reinventing career services and hosted, at Wake Forest, a symposium that was attended by representatives from some 75 schools. His theme: If universities want to preserve the liberal arts, they have a responsibility to help those humanities majors know how to translate their studies into the work world.
没有学校能像维克森林大学这样成功推销他们的就业中心（在《美国新闻与世界报道》(U.S. News & World Report)的大学排名中，该学校排在第27位，位列弗吉尼亚大学(University of Virginia)与塔夫斯大学(Tufts University)之间，但它一直在努力争取在全国范围内得到更广泛的品牌认知度）。2009年，这所大学雇用了陈安道，他是原斯坦福大学商学院就业中心负责人，还在硅谷创立了一个公司。作为一名在促进年轻人就业方面经常被各界引用言论的专家，陈安道为自己赢得了声望。他做过一个以就业服务再创新为主题的TEDx演讲，他在维克森林大学主办的一个专题讨论会有来自75所学校的代表参加。他的主旨是：如果大学想要保留博雅教育，他们就有责任去帮助这些人文学科了解如何将他们的研究转化到职场中去。
Chan, who can earn up to $350,000 a year, raised more than $10 million, mostly from parents, for a sunny, glass career center with video displays and healthful snacks for students ("It looks like Google," Chan told me). He likes to say he has "supersized" the career-services office, creating an elaborate Web site and hiring enough staff members — close to 30 — to offer conciergelike services to students.
年收入最高可达35万美元的陈安道筹集到了超过1000万美元的款项，多数是从家长们手中募得的，用以建造一个明亮的玻璃建筑作为就业中心，其中可以进行视频演示，为学生们提供健康有营养的小点心（“它看上去就像是Google公司一样，”陈安道这样告诉我）。他很喜欢说，他将就业服务办公室“超大型化”，他不仅建立了一个精美的网站，还雇到了足够的员工——将近30人——来为学生们提供礼宾式的周到服务。
At orientation, Chan gave a rousing talk to parents, encouraging them to let their children follow their interests, knowing that his office was looking after their employability: 95 percent of Wake Forest's graduates, he told them, were either fully employed or in graduate school within six months of graduating. (Eighty percent of the class of 2012 responded to the survey.) The room suddenly felt festive with affirmation. "Wow," one parent said, loudly enough to be heard across the room. The parent might have been even more surprised to learn that for schools in the high end of the U.S. News & World Report rankings, that statistic is not unusual. The University of Chicago's comparable number is 96 percent, and N.Y.U.'s class of 2012 was 93 percent. Dickinson College, a less competitive school in Carlisle, Pa., said that 92 percent of its graduates were either employed or had been in graduate school a year after graduation. Wake Forest didn't keep those statistics before Chan arrived, so it's hard to know whether employment has increased during his time there. The survey doesn't reflect students' satisfaction with their jobs, but tracking down the number was a high priority for Chan. And with good reason: citing it clearly reassures parents.
在培训中，陈安道在家长们面前发表了一场激动人心的演说，鼓励他们让孩子遵从自己的兴趣，让他们知道他的办公室会照管他们的就业情况：他告诉他们，在毕业后的6个月内，95%的维克森林大学毕业生都会找到全职工作或者进入研究生院学习（有八成的2012年毕业生参与了此数据的调查）。整个房间立刻就陷入了欢欣鼓舞之中。“哇，”有一位家长感叹道，声音响亮得全房间都听得见。如果得知对于《美国新闻与世界报道》大学排名前列的学校来说，这个数据并不罕见，这位家长也许会更吃惊。芝加哥大学的此项数据为96%，对纽约大学的2012年毕业生来说则达到了93%。位于宾夕法尼亚州卡莱尔的狄金森学院(Dickinson College)相对来说竞争力没那么强，但他们也表示，在本科毕业一年之后，有92%的毕业生都成功就业或者继续读研。在陈安道到来之前，维克森林大学并没有保留这些数据，所以我们很难知道在他任职后就业比例有没有上升。这个调查并不能反映出学生们对他们工作的满意度，但陈安道将大力追踪相关的数据。原因很有力：引用这些数据很明显能够安抚担忧的家长们。
Chan explained to me that his chief strategy is "to create a kind of ecosystem where everyone has a vested interest in helping our students be prepared for life and for careers and for work" — a universitywide, collective assumption that the faculty was there not just to expand students' intellectual horizons but also to help however it could in creating job-ready students.
陈安道向我说明，他的主要战略是“建立一个生态系统，在这个系统内部，每个人都有极大兴趣去帮助我们的学生，让他们为生活、为职场、为工作做好准备”——这是一个全校范围内的、群体性的期望，所有教职人员的工作不仅是拓展学生们的才智极限，也是为了尽可能地让他们为迈入职场做好准备。
A lot of that vision entails executing practical ideas, like improving the quality of mentoring on campus or persuading the faculty to encourage students to use the O.P.C.D. But Chan seemed especially enthusiastic about more innovative collaborations between the faculty and the O.P.C.D., some of which would have been unthinkable 20 years ago. He more than once mentioned a history professor named Robert Hellyer, a 46-year-old with a Ph.D. from Stanford, who had voluntarily transformed his teaching style from a straight lecture to a teamwork approach.
这样的愿景需要执行很多实际的想法，比如提高校园指导的质量，或者说服教职人员去鼓励学生们使用个人与事业发展办公室提供的服务。但看起来，陈安道对促进教职人员与个人与事业发展办公室之间产生更多革命性的合作有着特殊的热情，其中有些合作放到20年前是根本不可想象的。他不止一次地提到一个叫罗伯特·赫勒(Robert Hellyer)的历史学教授，这位46岁的教授拥有斯坦福大学博士学位，他主动将教学方式从直接授课转变为小组合作学习。
When I spoke to Hellyer, he said he was sensitive to widespread attacks on the liberal arts and was happy to work with someone from Chan's team to focus, in class, on fostering in his students two of the skills the career office has identified as "core competencies": communication and collaboration. He decided to have students in his Japanese-history class work in groups of three and take turns leading class discussion. And he invited the O.P.C.D.'s assistant director, Amy Willard, into his classroom on three occasions. "In the very beginning of the semester," Willard told me, "I presented to the class, Here are the skills that employers are looking for, and I had them actually analyze their syllabus and say what the skills were that they hoped to gain from this class." The hope was that when those students then went on job interviews, they could speak confidently about how their experiences in class prepared them for the skills the employers most needed. On a separate occasion, Hellyer and Willard brought inan alumna of Wake Forest, a history major, who was working locally at Wells Fargo, to discuss how her academic experience had helped her professionally.
当我与赫勒交谈时，他说他深切地意识到了现在社会上对于人文学科的广泛抨击，很乐意与陈安道的团队一起努力，关注在教学中如何让他的学生们掌握两项在职场办公室中被称为“核心竞争力”的技能：沟通与合作。他决定，在他的日本史课堂上，学生们三人组成一组，轮流带领全班进行讨论。他还邀请个人与事业发展办公室的助理主管艾米·威拉德(Amy Willard)参加了他的三次课。“在学期刚开始时，”威拉德告诉我，“我走进教室，然后告诉他们职场上雇主们都需要哪些技能，再让他们分析一下自己的教学大纲，分析一下他们想从这门课程中获得什么技能。”他们希望当学生们在进行求职面试时，可以自信地说，他们在课堂上体验到的东西是何以有助于他们储备雇主所需的技能的。还有一次，赫勒和威拉德邀请到了一位维克森林大学的女校友，她是历史专业毕业的，现在在本地的富国银行(Wells Fargo)分行工作，他们与她一起讨论学术经历如何对她的职业生涯起到帮助。
Many of the students later said that they loved Hellyer's innovative team-based approach to instruction and got more out of the material as a result; and some appreciated the professional component. But many complained frankly about the explicit career education. "I felt like I signed up to take a history course, and sessions on professional skills were not what I was looking for," one student said on a teacher evaluation. Another said, "I just think that the team-building exercises were a waste of time that could be better spent on class topics."
不久后，很多学生说他们非常喜爱赫勒极具创新精神的以小组为基础的教学方式，能从教材中获益更多；还有一些人很欣赏这一做法对职业发展的好处。但也有很多人直率地抱怨过于清晰的职业化教育。“我觉得，我本来选的是一门历史课，而那些关于职场技能的培训并不是我想要的，”一个学生在教师评估中这样说道。另一位则表示：“我只是觉得，这些团队合作的训练是在浪费时间，这些时间原本可以被更好地花在课堂主题上。”
Hellyer sounded almost relieved by the responses. "In some ways, I was gratified that students were saying, 'I really want to learn about Japanese history — why are you diluting what we're doing?' " he said. Even so, now he is brainstorming with Willard about how to make the history of the young, revolutionary samurai in Japan an explicit opportunity to talk about leadership skills.
对于这些回应，赫勒听上去简直松了一口气。“从某些方面来说，我很感激学生们这么说，'我真的是想要学习日本历史——为什么要稀释课程浓度呢？'”他说。尽管如此，现在他正在与威拉德进行头脑风暴，如何从年轻、有革新精神的日本武士历史出发，来阐述一下领导力。
Colleges and universities have noted parents' seemingly boundless concern for their children's well-being and have shifted strategies in response. They have boosted parental involvement, or engagement, as it is known in the fund-raising industry. Schools have doubled the number of on-campus parent associations in roughly 10 years, according to the Council for Advancement and Support of Education, and parents, in turn, have given generously, even as college costs have hit new highs. Parent donations to higher education, from 2001 to 2010, increased by nearly 50 percent, according to a study published by the Council for Aid to Education.
大学院校注意到了家长们对于他们孩子前途无休止的焦虑，并转变战略来对其作出回应。他们提高了父母的参与度，或者说投入程度，就像之前提过的资金募集。根据教育促进及支持委员会(Council for the Advancement and Support of Education)提供的数据，在最近10年内，学校们将校园内家长协会的数目提高了一倍，而在家长方面，即使大学学费又创新高，他们还是一直乐于慷慨解囊。根据美国教育财政资助委员会(Council for Aid to Education)发布的一项研究，由从2001年到2010年，家长对高等教育的捐助增长了近50%。
Andy Chan is particularly gifted at cultivating the bond between parents and Wake Forest. He writes a blog for parents about career development to help them guide their children. And he interacts with parents and employers as much as he does students: even during the school year, he is actually on campus only every other week, because his family is still in Palo Alto and he spends a third of his time traveling to raise funds.
陈安道尤其擅长于培养家长与维克森林大学之间的情感联系。他为家长们写了一个关于职业发展的博客，帮助他们指导自己的孩子。他与家长之间的交流，与和雇主以及学生之间的交流一样充分：甚至在学年之中，他也是隔一周才会在校园里办公，因为他的家人仍然在帕罗奥图，而且他将自己时间的三分之一都用来四处出差筹集资金。
This summer, Chan had lunch in San Jose with Alan Naumann, whose son, Bradley, is a sophomore at Wake Forest. Naumann, the president and C.E.O. of 41st Parameter, an online-security company, has pledged a significant amount for entrepreneurial programming. He had also spoken to a group of Wake Forest students and been part of a team of business leaders who gave rapid feedback to student entrepreneurs who presented their business ideas.
在今年夏天，陈安道与阿兰·诺曼(Alan Naumann)在圣荷塞共进午餐。诺曼的儿子布拉德利(Bradley)是维克森林大学的一名大二学生。作为网络安全公司41st Parameter的CEO，诺曼承诺为多项创业项目投入大量资金，与一群维克森林大学的学生交谈过，还参加了一个企业领袖团队，在学生创业者陈述创业想法之后，迅速给予他们反馈与指点。
Chan started by giving Naumann his professional assessment of Bradley, whom he met that summer. Bradley, an undeclared major who acts in a comedy troupe at Wake Forest, was working in a sports-marketing internship at Stanford (a position he learned of through his sister, who knew someone in the office). Chan told Naumann what a terrific kid he has. "The sense I have is that he's learning so much," Chan said. "I was telling him that at Wake Forest, there's tons of internships in the athletic program. And I said, you know, 'Obviously if you need any introductions, just let me know.' "
陈安道与诺曼的谈话，从他为之前在这个夏天见过的布拉德利给出专业上的评价开始。布拉德利就读的专业并未公开，他参与了一个维克森林大学的喜剧演出社团。当时他正在斯坦福做一个体育市场方面的实习（他是从他姐姐那里得知有这个职位的，她认识办公室里的某位工作人员）。陈安道告诉诺曼，他是一个十分优秀的孩子。“我感觉到他学到了很多东西，”陈安道说，“我告诉他，在维克森林大学，我们有无数体育相关的项目。我对他说，你知道，'显然，如果你需要任何介绍指导，就告诉我。'”
Naumann was most enthusiastic about the school's entrepreneurial program. Chan has raised money for a popular minor in entrepreneurship and social enterprise, which is open to liberal-arts majors. As Chan took notes on his iPad, Naumann talked about the qualities he thought were most essential for the school to cultivate in its students: fearlessness, communication, analytic skills and teamwork. Working well with others, he pointed out, was precisely the kind of skill that could not be learned online and one that brick-and-mortar liberal-arts schools could pride themselves on providing as they sought to stay relevant.
诺曼对于该校的创业项目尤为热忱。陈安道为在创业与社会企业领域的一个热门辅修课筹集到了资金，该课程面向所有文理专业的学生。陈安道一边在自己的iPad上做着记录，一边聆听诺曼谈起他认为学校最应该培养学生们获得的素质：无畏、沟通、分析技能与团队合作。他指出，和他人一同出色地工作，这正是那种不能在网上所学到的技巧，而传统的文理学院想要与时俱进地提供这种技能的培训，他们有理由为自己感到骄傲。
Chan asked Naumann for feedback on a board meeting Naumann had recently attended. "What I like to see is the big thinking," Naumann told him. And Chan, he thought, could be thinking more boldly. What about proposing an entire new building, a lab for creative innovation? His enthusiasm for Chan's mission was deep: it seemed that whatever Chan was asking for from parents, he could probably ask for more.
陈安道请诺曼对他最近参与的一次委员会议给出反馈。“我喜欢看到更大的想法，”诺曼这样告诉陈安道。他认为，陈安道应该思考得再大胆一些。提议再建一座新大楼，一个创造革新实验室，怎么样？他对陈安道的工作极具热情：看上去，不管陈安道要求家长们什么，他还可以提更多要求。
Some professors have welcomed Chan's role in managing parents' anxiety about the liberal arts precisely because it relieves them of the burden of doing it themselves. "The parents of one student asked me to have a meeting," recalled Alessandra Von Burg, a professor in the department of communication at Wake Forest. "I was kind of flabbergasted. They wanted to know what a communication degree could do for their son." (She agreed to meet with them and their son to discuss it.) Michael Sloan, a classics professor, fielded a similar call during which he found himself explaining to a mother how a background in classics could help prepare her daughter for a career as a lawyer. And if professors know to direct students to résumé workshops, Von Burg added, students won't expect those services from the professors. "They can be like demanding customers," she said.
对于陈安道担任家长们对文理教育焦虑情绪疏导者的这一角色，有些教授很欢迎，因为他将他们从亲力亲为的负担中拯救了出来。“有一个学生家长要求我与他们见一次面，” 维克森林大学传播学系的教授亚历桑德拉·范博格(Alessandra Von Burg)回忆道，“我当时大吃一惊。他们想要知道，一个传播学的学位对他们的儿子来说能够有什么用处。”（她后来同意与他们一家见面，并讨论了相关事宜。）迈克尔·斯隆(Michael Sloan)是古典文学教授，他接到过一个类似的电话，只好对着话筒那头的学生母亲解释，拥有古典文学的学术背景，如何能有助于她的女儿成为一名律师。范博格进一步说，如果教授们知道如何指点学生们去参加简历研讨会的话，学生就不会再要求教授提供此类服务了。“他们会跟非常难伺候的顾客一样呢，”她说。
Still, Susan Rupp, a professor of Russian history at Wake Forest, said she had misgivings about the push from the O.P.C.D. She said she would not be very likely to invite someone from that office into her classroom to explain the class's professional value. "It reduces an education to the marketplace," she said. Instead, she says, teaching history should be about helping young people to understand "the relationship of the individual to the larger society."
不过，维克森林大学的俄罗斯史教授苏珊·鲁普(Susan Rupp)表示，她对个人与事业发展办公室做出的种种动作感到疑惑。她说她不会请那个办公室里的某位工作人员到她的课堂上来解释这门课程的职业价值。“这把教育降格成了市场，”她说。她认为，与之相反，教授历史应该是帮助年轻人理解“个人与广阔社会之间的关系”。
Andrew Delbanco, a professor at Columbia, writes in his book, "College: What It Was, Is and Should Be," that colleges should help students develop "a skeptical discontent with the present, informed by a sense of the past." Can liberal-arts schools encourage students to question the status quo while simultaneously reminding them from their first days on campus to keep their employability in mind?
安德鲁·德尔班科(Andrew Delbanco)是哥伦比亚大学(Columbia)的教授，他在他的《大学的过去、现在和应有的未来》(College: What It Was, Is, and Should Be)一书中写道，大学应该帮助学生们“怀有对过去的感知，因而对现状质疑不满”。文理学院能够鼓励学生对现状发问，与此同时从他们进校的第一天起持续地提醒他们要时刻警醒自己在职场上的竞争力吗？
Michele Gillespie, another history professor at Wake Forest, has been receptive to the O.P.C.D. but has concerns about some of its innovations — among them, classes on career development for academic credit that teach students how to "brand themselves," how to identify themselves through personality tests and form a customized, consistent description of the self. "These kids' frontal temporal lobes are barely formed," Gillespie says; as teachers, she and her peers "are trying to open their minds, to see complexities and tensions." The emphasis on translating academics into skills also struck her as problematic. "They want to know what the calculus is: How will doing an honors thesis translate into my ability to persuade my manager to put me on the management track? How can I sell this? How can I market these things? I fear that the students see the learning as a means to an end and don't connect as much to the learning that's taking place."
另一位维克森林大学的历史学教授米歇尔·吉莱斯皮(Michele Gillespie)接纳了个人与事业发展办公室，但对它的某些革新有一点担忧——比如说，有一些计入学分的课程是关于职业发展的，教导学生如何“打造个人品牌”，如何通过性格测试来认识自己，形成一个规范化的、连续性的自我描述。“这些孩子的大脑前庭和颞叶还没发育完全呢，”吉莱斯皮说。作为教师，她和她的同事们“正在试图打开他们的视野，看清复杂与紧张的形势”。对于将重点放在把学术转化成技能上这一点，她也觉得有些问题。“他们想要知道这其中的运算法则：要怎么样将一篇优秀的大学论文转化成说服我的经理让我晋升入管理层的能力？如何才能让它有信服力？怎么样才能推销这些东西？我担心学生会把学习当作是达到某个目的的手段，而没有投入到当下的学习中去。”
Academics are expected to express reservations about the encroachment of career planning on intellectual development, but their doubts are not that different from those voiced by Brad Henderson, a 34-year-old partner at Boston Consulting Group, who is in charge of the firm's Midwestern recruiting. Henderson, an alumnus of the University of Chicago, does not object to career programming in principle but worries that at some colleges, "this race to get jobs becomes more important than the actual 'let's educate our students,' " Henderson said. "It's not uncommon to encounter a 20-year-old who has not benefited from the maturation you get from higher education, from true engagement in a classroom — it becomes more about taking classes as an extended way to build your résumé. You think you're talking to a 20-year-old who should have bright ideas and enthusiasm, and they can't get out of the mode of: 'What are the words I'm supposed to use in this conversation?' And you see that the risk has been taken out of résumés — that's the part that's most disheartening."
人们一般认为学者们总是表达对职业规划侵占学术教育的保留意见，但他们的疑问其实与布拉德·亨德森(Brad Henderson)的意见并没有什么不同。34岁的亨德森是波士顿咨询集团(Boston Consulting Group)的合伙人，他负责公司在中西部的招聘工作。作为一位芝加哥大学校友，他在原则上并不反对就业项目，但他对有些大学存有疑虑，“这种求职竞赛变得比真正的'让我们教育学生们'的那一部分更加重要，”亨德森说。“对一个20岁的年轻人来说，还没有从高等教育中变得成熟，还没能全心投入在学习中，这并不罕见——现在情况变成了，上课是填充简历的一种扩展手段。你觉得你在和一个本应拥有奇思妙想与热情的20岁年轻人聊天，但其实他们无法摆脱这样的思考模式：'在这次对话中，我应该使用哪些措辞？'你会看到，过于关注简历会产出风险——这就是他们会丧失勇气的原因。”
Some schools have expensive climbing walls; others have wellness centers worthy of five-star hotels. Wake Forest has Andy Chan. At orientation, he addressed the parents wearing a navy jacket and white shirt, roaming freely with a headset and using his hands for emphasis with the skill of a seasoned public speaker. "I believe, and many believe, that a liberal-arts education is the key to navigating the changes that come ahead," said Chan, a former political-science major, reassuring parents who may recall fondly their years studying 18th-century art history or the Romantic poets but who still want results for the high cost of tuition. He had a bit of advice for them: They should see themselves, he explained, as their children's executive coaches, there primarily to listen, to encourage their clients to use their best judgment. Your son wants to be a philosophy major? Chan paraphrased the response of many a parent: "How do you get a job in philosophy?" But hold your tongue, he urged them. Let them think big. Two months later, they might decide they love math anyway, he said. And even if they don't, he and his team will help them turn academic risks into résumé-ready experiences. They could take it from him, a Silicon Valley pro and Stanford veteran: Your child can be academically happy and still end up successful, like me, like you.
有些学校有昂贵的攀岩墙；另一些学校有如同五星级宾馆那样豪华的保健中心。维克森林大学所拥有的，是陈安道。在培训上，他穿着白色衬衫和海军蓝的外套出现在家长面前， 头戴式话筒解放了他的双手，他一边走来走去，一边在说到重点时用手势做辅助，这是极具经验的公众演讲者的一个技巧。“我相信，很多人都相信，博雅教育是指引即将来临的形势变换的关键，”陈安道向家长们一再保证，他本人之前的专业是政治学，这也让许多家长愉快地回想起他们当年学习18世纪艺术史或者浪漫主义诗歌的经历，不过他们还是想要知道，他们付出的高额学费将会取得什么样的成果。他向他们提供了一个建议：他们应该反观自身。他解释说，他们就像是自己孩子的高管教练，最重要的是要倾听、要鼓励他们的客户去运用个人的最佳判断。你的儿子想选哲学专业？陈安道复述了许多家长此时会给出的回应：“那你要如何去找一份哲学方面的工作呢？”但先别急着说这句话，他提醒道。让他们大胆思考。他说，两个月之后，他们说不定会发现自己还是更热爱数学。即使如果他们没有改变主意，他和他的团队会帮助他们把学术上的探险转化成为简历所服务的经验。从陈安道这位硅谷专家以及斯坦福毕业校友身上，他们可以学到这样一件事：你的孩子可以在学术上快乐探索的同时，最终仍能获得成功，就像我一样，就像你一样。
Sitting near the front of the auditorium were the parents of a freshman — an investment manager from Bronxville, N.Y., and his wife. The father went to Dartmouth, and when their son announced that he was applying for early decision at Wake Forest, his father asked, "Are you sure you couldn't do better?" Under the spell of Chan's reassuring message on finding a career, he turned to his wife and looked at her intently. "This," he told her, "is the greatest school."
一位新生的父母坐在靠近礼堂前排的地方——他们来自纽约州布朗克斯维尔，父亲是投资经理。这位父亲当年上的是达特茅斯学院(Dartmouth)，当他的儿子宣布自己在申请维克森林大学的提前录取时，他问：“你确定自己进不了更好的学校吗？”在陈安道对学生就业做出保证的讲话间歇，他转向妻子，热切地注视着她。“这所大学，”他告诉她，“是最好的学校。”