Collegiate Athletics Prepares You for Career Challenges

Conditioning, early morning practices, injuries, road trips, game days with huge wins, losses, or close games, are all constants during a collegiate sports season. Noted as one of the busiest times of your life, juggling athletics while working towards an undergraduate degree is emotionally and physically draining. The upside of course, is discounted tuition, which results in beating your classmates who leaves college with an average of $21,000 in government loans. Is that the true end of your experience? Absolutely not, you gain leadership and valuable time management skills, you experience highs and lows that mimic real life executive decisions and you develop a work ethic that will help you thrive in your career.

Collegiate athletics provides multiple contributions towards your resume, especially if you have a GPA above 3.5. Employers seek out multi-tasking and high achieving individuals. If you are a team captain of your collegiate team, it suggests that you have leadership, dedication, and communication skills. Awards and achievements you receive during your collegiate career signify passion and hard work and that represents a powerful resume.

Control, last minute game situations and making tough decisions all take place at some time or another during your collegiate athletic career. How will that translate into your business career? You acquire an understanding of how to cope with complex situations. Your ability to deal with conflict while working in a competitive environment is put to the test, and you obtain many opportunities during each season.

Did you ever receive a bad call during a game? Or have you ever been incredibly frustrated in your sport? During your business career -a colleague may leave unexpectedly- or the company you work for can make a sudden change. The famous football coach Vince Lombardi says "It does not matter how many times you get knocked down, but how many times you get up." Your familiarity with previous frustrations and diverse situations prepares you for difficult times to come in your future.

Most athletes develop skills to control frustrations to be successful in their sport. Do you externalize or internalize your frustration? Do you blame yourself or other people? Competition at the College level puts your true personality to the test. Almost every college athlete has suffered an injury due to the intense stress your body endures during four years of college level athletics. The patience and struggles you face teach you adaptability. Traits that are incredibly hard to teach are customary due to your experiences. Victories and failures you encounter give you experience in handling real life situations.

One of our own presidents competed at the college level. Gerald Ford our 38th President, played college football at the University of Michigan. He played center on offense and linebacker on defense. Ford helped Michigan win national championships in 1932 & 1933. He earned his BA in Economics and Political Science during 1931 to 1935. "Sports became a training ground for politics, because it taught Ford to handle the media glare, including sharp barbs from critics, which he learned should never get far under his skin" (Mieczkowski). Presidents Fords experience of playing college football helped him achieve many of his lifetime goals such as earning a degree in law from Yale University.

Collegiate athletes gain more than a scholarship towards education, they receive leadership, team and competitive learning skills. The physically intense work outs faced as an athlete shape you physically and mentally for the rest of your life. You made it to the collegiate athletics level, you are a natural bred competitor. Controversy and diversity is an environment that you have become accustomed to. You learned how to win and succeed or lose and recover with a team. Participating in college sports teaches and develops your natural business skills. Due to your sports involvement you are now used to an active lifestyle and this will culminate in a successful business career.

Sources:

Mieczkowski, Yanek. (08-02-04). The Secrets of Gerald Ford's Success...30 Years After he Became President It's time to Consider What Made Him Tick. History News Network, February 13, 2011, http://www.hnn.us/articles/6501.html

Source: http://ezinearticles.com/6168378

death race kristin chenoweth why admission hawaiian airlines