Personal Brand Building Classes in School?
Imagine if Personal Branding 101 were a required course in college. You would be guided through the process of uncovering your unique attributes, taught the principles of personal marketing (so you can apply them to yourself as a job applicant), and work with web 2.0 tools and social media to find and more easily attain better job openings.
We at Brand-Yourself.com and Gen Y’s personal branding guru Dan Schawbel share this vision.
“Students have to understand,” Dan says, “that if they don’t uncover their unique attributes, they won’t stand out in a world of clutter.” We agree.
At Syracuse University, we plan to host a series of personal branding events. Our goal, besides educating students, is to show the school that it’s a subject worthy of its own elective course. The aim is to expand the idea to other universities, ideally proving the impact personal branding can have on a student’s hirability.
Dan sees his new book, Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success, serving as just such a course’s textbook. While I haven’t read his book yet, there’s no question (based on Dan’s constantly updated, content-rich blog and successful branding of himself) that this book could become the personal branding Bible for Generation Y.
What do you think? Should personal branding be taught in schools? Is it a waste of time, or would it provide enough value to have its own course? Do you think such a class would improve a school’s reputation by boosting the hirability of its students?
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This is absolutely critical. It would be even better if linked with a primer on financial basics. We send our kids out into a world we don’t even recognize without the living skills they need and then wonder why they can’t seem to leave home.
@Kamm I totally agree that a personal branding class with some sort of finance class would be very beneficial.
@Ramsay That sounds like an amazing program you have set up, I look forward to reading your blog and learning from it!
Thank you both for your comments and feedback.
virtual schools are convenient because of the fact that they can be accessed at any time and classes can be repeated if required.
Virtual schools are definitely becoming more prevalent now as they become more economical and assessable. My question though was about whether personal branding should be taught in a real classroom face to face as most college students don't know what they want. This would force them to sit down and map out what they want to do and how they will do it.
Judging from my personal experience with college students, I feel that it is a must if schools want to help their students get a job.
Virtual schools are definitely becoming more prevalent now as they become more economical and assessable. My question though was about whether personal branding should be taught in a real classroom face to face as most college students don't know what they want. This would force them to sit down and map out what they want to do and how they will do it.
Judging from my personal experience with college students, I feel that it is a must if schools want to help their students get a job.