Students at UNI graduate with their degrees, prepared to take on their career field. But how many students graduate with the knowledge of how to open a ROTH IRA? Or, how to find the best deal for their car insurance?
Professor Nichole Zumbach Harken’s Next Step program in the Department of Communication and Media aims to help students answer these questions and prepare students for adulthood. Harken presented the Next Step program and how it has prepared students to the Board of Regents this past week.
“We put so much time, effort and money into students coming into the university, then, at the end, what do we do? After they pay all their tuition?” Harken asked. “‘Good luck kids, peace out, here’s commencement,’ after they’ve given us so much.”
The Next Step program is offered to communications students to be taken in tandem with their internship credit. It involves 13 required seminars and four elective seminars, some taught by Harken, others taught by other UNI professors and alumni. These seminars cover an array of topics to prepare students for the transition from college to adulthood. “They’re [the students] also exiting an education system they’ve been in since they were five years old, and 17 years later we’re asking them to do something completely different,” said Harken.
The seminars teach students how to open a retirement savings account, how to acquire insurance, how to network and even how to interview. Harken aims to break down things that may seem complex to students in an effort to help them reach their goals and prepare for entering the working world. When Harken originally had the idea for the program, she reached out to recent alumni to ask them how their experience was transitioning into adulthood after graduation. Students told Harken, “I was prepared to do my job, edit videos, create content, I wasn’t prepared to understand what a deductible was, what’s a 401k? What’s a pension?”
From there, Harken began to formulate a program to help students with their post graduate transition. Harken invited professors from the Wilson College of Business to help teach students about tax basics and employee benefits, recent UNI graduates to discuss the first six months of their transition and navigating the job search, and Harken herself teaches a seminar on how students can divest from their parents and become fully independent adults.
Now, the program has helped transition over 500 students, many of whom reflect over their semester in the program fondly. In a video Harken presented to the Board of Regents, UNI student Julia Leach remarks, “When you’re in high school, they don’t teach you the things that you need to know to be an adult. In college, you think you’re going to learn those things, and you don’t, unless you’re taking this class.”
Some students have put plans into action before they graduated in an effort to set themselves up for success. UNI student Caleb Brothers echoed Leach’s statement, “I feel way more prepared now for retirement and investing, I’ve already started saving and opened up my ROTH IRA.”
In an exit survey presented by Harken at the Board of Regents meeting, almost 100% of students would be interested in exit programming if it were offered in some capacity. In that same survey, almost 90% of students said that exit programming would help reduce their stress and/or anxiety around graduation. “Not only is this programming beneficial for our students, but our students want it,” said Harken. “We should take steps to help students transition out of college and take those next steps.”
While the program is currently only offered in the Department of Communication and Media, Harken hopes that it eventually expands into other colleges at UNI to serve more students. “Every person I talk to about this program has said, ‘this is a great idea, why don’t we do this?’ That’s the normal reaction to this program. I think that every student could benefit from this type of programming,” said Harken.
The Board of Regents confirmed that the Next Step program is a positive step in the right direction. “This makes me proud to be a regent …this is what we need to see coming out of our public education systems … this is what we need to be teaching,” said Regent JC Risewick after Harken’s Next Step presentation on Nov. 6. Board of Regents President Sherry Bates agreed with Risewick, sharing a similar sentiment. “This is what students need, as parents we need someone like you [Harken] to teach about this,” Bates said.
Harken will continue to offer the program in congruence with the Communication and Media internship program in the spring, summer and fall semesters. For more information on how Communication and Media students can enroll in the program, visit https://chas.uni.edu/cm/current-students/internships.
