YOU MAY HAVE THOUGHT of college primarily as a step on the way to a career, but in today’s unpredictable working world, learning the specific skills you need to get a particular job may be less useful than acquiring a wide range of abilities that will serve you well in any position you hold. The abilities a college education can help you develop—such as critical reading and writing and effective speaking—will help you succeed in college and beyond, no matter where your career path leads.

Making your expectations for your college education match up with what your instructors expect of you will be one of your most significant challenges in college. Your college instructors—as well as your future colleagues and supervisors—will expect you to demonstrate your ability to think critically, to consider ethical issues, to find as well as solve problems, to do effective research, to work productively with people of widely different backgrounds, and to present the knowledge you construct in a variety of ways and in a variety of genres and media. Your success will depend on communicating clearly and on making appropriate choices for the context.