11.24.19

Ep. 47: Career Path Advice and How to Pay for School

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Julie F. Parks, executive director, Workforce Training and the Tassel M-TEC.

Julie Parks, Grand Rapids Community College’s executive director of Workforce Training, talks with Lynne about finding the right path for you in a world where careers are endless. For some it’s a skilled trade, and for others it’s college. The path you choose is important!  Learn more today on “Money, I’m Home!”

 

Transcript

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00:06 Lynne Jarman-Johnson: Money, I’m Home. From Finance to Fitness, I’m Lynne Jarman-Johnson with Consumers Credit Union. We have got a wonderful story about you know what, we like to talk about saving money and today we really are going to do that. Because we’re focusing on education. You hear the statistics about how education is skyrocketing for tuition dollars all over the country, including in Michigan. Well, Julie Parks is the Executive Director of Workforce Training and the Executive Director at Tassell M-TEC for Grand Rapids Community College. What a mouthful.

 

00:39 Julie Parks: I know, big titles, right? [chuckle]

 

00:41 LJJ: Big titles, doing big things.

 

00:44 JP: Doing all kinds of fun things, but really, Lynne, I love your little intro there because our students and people in our community need to know things, they need to learn ’cause they want to progress in their life and in their career. And I care so much about the people here that I really wanted to come and talk to you about why they should consider Grand Rapids Community College when they’re thinking about their future, whether they need to get their first degree or if they need to build some skills to do that. And it’s not from a perspective of advertising that this is something, it’s just… look at where your best value is for your money.

 

01:18 JP: We have students that come to the M-TEC and want to sign up for job training programs. We have great programs, okay, but it’s a $6000 commitment that they’re making, so do they really want to do that? Have they done a little bit of work? Do you really want to be a welder, or an electrician or a medical assistant? And to understand what that is and what kind of money will they make when they leave. So, they can apply for financial aid, for those programs, which is awesome. And if you get a Pell Grant and you qualify for that great, people like to say that’s free money. I say there’s no money that’s free money, [chuckle] but you can argue with me on that one.

 

01:52 JP: But then they get this option where they can also get a loan. Okay, so they get the Pell, which will pay the tuition, but they get this loan, and they say, “Hey you can take this loan for living expenses.” And for a student that looks kind of good, you know, I don’t have to worry. I can pay for gas, I can pay for rent, even though maybe I have a job that already pays for that,” they think of a loan as free money. And if there’s anything we can do today is to help people figure out, to understand financially what it means to take a loan, what they’re already setting themselves up for when they go out into the working world because you know when you get a job, you have to buy clothes, you have to buy equipment, you have to maybe get your hair done occasionally.

 

02:33 LJJ: The tools for success.

 

02:34 JP: Exactly and so those aren’t free either. And so, what can we do to help let people know?

 

02:41 LJJ: You know Julie that’s a really good point because when you look at… When anyone thinks about… It always was… “Oh, you have to go to college.” That was always instilled in I think my generation. My parents did not graduate from college, and we were the first ones and you must go to college, very awesome that I did. My family, I raised six kids and for some of them, college was just exactly the way to go, but CC College was what really brought eye-opening experiences to many of my children. Here’s the interesting thing, everyone now is talking about the trades, “Oh, if you go into the trades, you’re going to make X amount of money.” And we have so much openings for people who are electricians, and welders and that you just talked about. But what you’re saying is, “Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, back the bus up and let’s really talk about what do you want to do, what’s your passion and how much is that going to cost you.”

 

03:44 JP: And what do you love to do? So, I’m not saying that when you’re 18 or maybe even when you’re 30, you know what your passion is, but you have to try things and figure that out. So really think about what are the things that you like to do? Do you like to work with your hands? Do you want to be outside? Is sitting at a desk something that you think, “No way do I want to do that.” Do you want to be on a computer for a lot of hours? All those things to take that into consideration and then look in the community to see what you can experience.

 

04:13 JP: There’s a huge career quest that happens over at the DeVos Place every spring that West Michigan Works sponsors. You can see four different sectors, you can see what’s happening to healthcare, what’s happening in the IT, what’s happening in the construction and manufacturing, and you’ve got those employers there to show you what the jobs are like in that field. What is the pathway that you might take? And I also have this personal thing is I don’t like the pathway word because was your career straight, did you just follow here and go there? No, you went all over.

 

04:44 JP: Sometimes you have to take a step back, to take a step forward and so I just want whatever experiences people can get ahead of time to help them make that decision. That’s why the college has been so involved in with our K-12 school districts doing summer camps, having our counselors go out to the schools, our faculty go out to the schools. Do you know on Fridays at the M-TEC now students from Kentwood and Northview public schools are in the building, trying out welding, trying out construction, trying out healthcare programs, so they’re getting this advance look at what those careers are with our employers coming in to teach some of those classes. What an advantage for them because then when it comes time to figure out what’s the next step ’cause you said go to college, so I think it’s not either/or, it’s both ’cause you’re going to have to get more education, whether it’s traditional or different. If you want to advance you’re going to need to know more.

 

05:38 LJJ: You must have seen so much change in the education world, what’s your thoughts on how, you hear the words Millennial X, and an X Gen and… Is it true in your line of work, or is it really, “Look here we’re all the same, we’re trying to just get to be better people and learn more.” What have you seen in change?

 

06:03 JP: I think we have differences, but we all do want the same outcome, we want good lives where we can provide for ourselves, maybe our families we want to experience things that are important to us. Maybe that’s travel, maybe that’s books. Maybe that’s sports. And I think the whole generational thing seems to be a way to divide people, even at first, my Millennials who work for me were different, but you know what, they bring so much to the table. I would never want to get rid of them. And they care about things like houses, they just can’t afford to do all those things that were easier maybe for us in our generation. So, I think it’s just opening of a figure. I think they have more choices maybe than what we had and so that could be good and that could be bad right in this whole social media world out there to try.

 

06:48 JP: Now there’s even more choices than you had before. And how do you figure out what skills you have today can apply to something else? I remember back in 2010, all these engineers who lost their jobs, they had no clue what to do next, they didn’t see how those skills they had could apply to other areas. So that’s a personal passion of mine, to try to show you. Hey, you’re really good with people, you like to write, you like to talk. Let’s talk about how that fits into a skill, into an activity, people have… You wouldn’t believe the number of people who come and wanted to go in healthcare, in healthcare, so they’re here at Career Quest.

 

07:26 LJJ: Here it is.

 

07:26 JP: And they’re doing the fake blood draw and they pass out [chuckle] And I have to say in healthcare, that’s what you’re going to experience.

 

07:34 LJJ: You can’t get away from that.

 

07:36 JP: We joke that, well, we save a student $10,000 right there [chuckle] because they know that’s not the career for them. So, you have to look beyond the stereotypes of careers when you’re doing that. So, I just think it’s such a time that you can be so empowered to figure out what you want to do with your life. And if you go down a wrong road, there’s no reason you can’t change the road now. And I’m not so sure that that was always that way, at least from what I can see, it’s a great opportunity because there’s so many job openings right now for people, it’s just very different than when we had parents calling us saying, “What should my kid go into? So, they’ll get a job,” it’s not that way right now. So now we have those employers saying, “I want your A students,” and then we have conversations with the employers like… “Well, what are you paying? Well, you’re probably not going to get our A student at that rate.” This is what people are paying now.

 

08:27 LJJ: It’s a real sharing of information and transparency.

 

08:31 JP: Well, and then we find so often job description, say, “You need a Bachelor’s degree for this job” when in fact they’re asking for a Bachelor’s degree because of the soft skills that people have usually. If you’ve had the grit to make it through and get your Bachelor’s degree, then there’s something in you that I can train to do. And I don’t know, skill trade is just so interesting to me. Plumbers aren’t exciting, I guess, right?

 

08:57 LJJ: I don’t know, I just had a plumbing issue and…

 

08:58 JP: But if you need a plumber, they are darn exciting. [chuckle] If you’re in public works and you want the, when you flush the toilet, to everything to go smoothly you need these people in these kind of jobs and they find great gratification in those jobs, because they’re helping people, they’re doing something that helps society get better, they can have an influence on the environment through how they’re working and there’s just, the world, it’s huge what you can do from growing up at the Michigan.

 

09:26 LJJ: So, when you first started to now, how much change have you seen, M-TEC itself is just an amazing facility.

 

09:34 JP: I see there is not one program that I’ve seen in the college that’s remained stagnant. They all require such new skills along with the old skills in ways that we teach them new. So, you have to have math okay, I have so many students that come and say, “I want to go in skill trades. I was bad at math,” and I’m thinking to myself, “Okay, well, we have to figure this out.” So, let’s go into construction. Now if you can’t calculate the floor to the second floor, for that stairs, the basement and, you have a problem. And you know what, that’s math, but somehow that isn’t math. So, the more we can apply it to the workplace… If you’re an electrician you need to understand voltage, voltage is math people. If you’re a culinary cook and you have to do measurement and you have to convert and make a rest of your figure that’s math. It’s just taught in a different way where maybe not as intimidating as math class as it is. So, I just think, don’t set limits on yourself. Don’t say, “I was bad at math so I can’t do this.” There are different ways to learn. There are so many opportunities now.

 

10:40 LJJ: Well, and the interesting component for me is what you just said, about learning where your strengths are, and how the aha moment can come when you thought… “Oh, I’m not good at math,” but all of a sudden you’re learning differently, you just don’t even know that it’s math.

 

10:58 JP: Exactly.

 

11:00 LJJ: Isn’t that fun?

 

11:01 JP: So now we’re trying to figure out Lynne how does artificial intelligence, what is the effect of artificial intelligence on jobs? We have to train everyone in understanding data in data analytics. It doesn’t matter what job you’re in, we have to teach you that now. And how do we do that? It’s a constant learning process for us. I would say I feel like the rate of change is just increasing, increasing, increasing, and how do we stay ahead? And that is a continual challenge and really that’s my worry. What keeps Julie up at night is, what don’t I know that’s happening that I need to know to have our education programs to be the best that they can be for someone?

 

11:39 LJJ: Well, and people are worried about automation, machine learning, AI, and they worry that, there goes my job. But yet really what, a consumer is, a good example of that is we have wonderful interactive tellers now, which are individuals that are working out of our corporate office in Kalamazoo. But you could walk up to any interactive teller through all of our drive-throughs, touch a button and you’re talking to a local person. Many people think… Oh, that just took away a job. But actually, what it has done is it has advanced many people’s careers because they’re learning special skills in banking that they never would have learned before.

 

12:21 JP: And that’s so true about automation. Automation isn’t a replacement, it’s a partner and in most jobs, it just allows you to serve more people, it allows you to take on new tasks, that are maybe higher-level tasks. And so, if we start to think about it that way, there’s very few people that it’s a one-to-one replacement, okay, and so that’s why education is so important. So, you continue building your skills, let those routine things be done through automation, and let’s have you do other things that are more value-added.

 

12:51 LJJ: What are you excited for in the future?

 

12:54 JP: What am I excited for? I’m excited for how young people think, and the creative directions that goes in. I think they’re more open to starting their own businesses, they’re starting to understand that they can fail and it’s okay to fail. I think in my generation, it wasn’t okay to fail, I never felt that I could fail. My parents were great, but being the oldest daughter, I felt I had to be the success, I had to work the hardest and I just think they’re managing the life-work balance better than we ever did. I’m just excited about some of the ways that they approach problems, I think that’s really, really exciting to do that.

 

13:33 LJJ: Well Julie, you truly bring to the table in the community a light of thinking differently. How can people get in touch and learn about the programs that you have? And I love that concept where you’re saying, you focused on the Career Quest but the concept of saying, “Let’s ask those questions first.”

 

13:57 JP: And I think more and more high schools are doing that, are starting to give those opportunities through career. On Mondays, every Monday from 10:00 to 11:00, someone could come to the M-TEC and they have a tour, they preview the programs, you get to talk to students, you can talk to faculty in the programs. The college has a big open house twice a year, one happens to be coming up this week, so people can go to that, just whatever opportunities there are, come on in. We have all kinds of lecture series that go on at the college, you’ll meet and interact with faculty and staff at those and students. So, take advantage and they’re free, so why not.

 

14:35 LJJ: Ding, ding, ding.

 

14:36 JP: Why not come and do those? Exactly. [chuckle] All kinds of opportunities.

 

14:39 LJJ: Julie Parks Executive Director of Workforce Training and Tassell M-TEC at Grand Rapids Community College. Thank you so much for your great information today. I love your focus on not a replacement. It’s a partnership when we’re talking about all the change that’s happening in technology. Thank you so much.

 

14:57 JP: Thank you.

 

14:57 LJJ: I’m Lynne Jarman-Johnson and this is, Money I’m Home. From Finance to Fitness. You’re learning from the best in our community in town. Thank you so much, Jake Esselink for producing today and listen in next week because we’re going to have another great topic, great story, great person to talk to.

 

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