Giving Compass' Take:

• With increasing judgement being place on graduates’ success and accomplishments after school, The Hechinger Report explains that colleges are beginning to welcome their new students with advising for careers before classes even start.

• Is this an effective method to increase students' career-readiness? Do all first-year college students really know what they want to do with their future, or do we need more flexibility build into workforce training?

• Read more about colleges helping students prepare for careers with workforce training.

The bleary-eyed 18-year-olds shuffling into a nondescript classroom wearing flip-flops, shorts and T-shirts glanced enviously out the windows at their classmates tossing Frisbees on the grassy quad.

It was the final day of first-year orientation at Grinnell College, with classes scheduled to start the next morning, and these new students were still finding their way around the campus, meeting neighbors in the dorms and waiting to hear whether they got into the courses they wanted.

But first they had been beckoned to this room to start preparing for life after graduation.

Grinnell is among a small but growing number of colleges and universities that, increasingly judged on graduates’ placement rates and job satisfaction, are beginning to advise students about careers before their classes even start.

“The big problem most campuses have is that students wait until it’s too late,” said Mark Peltz, dean of careers, life, and service, who sat in the back of the classroom and looked on as a career advisor, Megan Crawford, welcomed this group with the enthusiasm of a motivational speaker. “So we just thought, ‘Let’s turn it around.’ ”

Read the full article about getting student thinking about jobs by Jon Marcus at The Hechinger Report.