(To the 2nd Semester Sophomore who just figured out taking on College Debt for a Philosophy degree might not be in his/her best interest.)
I never get too personal on these BLOGs, but just to set the stage, I have had 3 kids complete their college degrees, and I have a couple more to go, so I do know a little about the cost of college and the return on investment!
With that said, I recently attended “World Trade Day” here in Denver which is our local World Trade Center‘s big yearly convention, and I would say it was a great success. The speakers were great the vendors were great and there was just a great buzz about trade and transportation. From my contacts from the Denver Transportation Club, I am known as a “Local Transportation Recruiter” and am often introduced as such. This often leads to transportation and Logistics career discussions and they almost always fall into a couple buckets.
The most obvious one is the one where the person pulls me aside and in a low voice says “hey Mark, are you seeing any good openings out there, I’m starting to think about looking…..etc..etc..” I of course love these conversations as this is exactly what I do every day, which is to make contacts with great transportation Pros and Match them with great opportunities with my Transportation clients.
The one that is even more fun and inspires me for the future is talking to bright young people who have targeted Logistics or Transportation for their studies and/or their career, and I was introduced to a couple “Kids” (cuz they are kids to me) at this recent conference who fit this description and it is just such a pleasure to have this conversation. In my transportation recruiting practice, I see a lot of experienced talent in operations but not a lot of college degreed talent coming in to the ranks. My suspicion is that the transportation and logistics degrees are becoming more popular and available and I hope they thrive, but just from reading thousands of resumes my gut tells me that most operations people work their way up the old fashioned way with On the Job Training whether they have a degree or not (and by the way I am all for that as well, nothing beats real world experience!!).
So, to make the point, if you are wondering what to study in college and you want to make sure your degree has ample opportunity for the future, I would strongly suggest you look at a degree in Transportation or Logistics. You can explore so much in this field including international aspects, Rail, Trucking, Airfreight, Ocean Freight, Warehousing and Distribution and the list goes on… with just a quick search I found this link for the Best Logistics and Supply Chain Management Degrees:
https://www.collegechoice.net/rankings/best-logistics-and-supply-chain-management-degrees/
As always, I love to connect with Transportation Pros, or in this case maybe future Transportation Pros, so please reach out to me on LinkedIn or shoot me an email at Mark@CrabtreeandEller.com
Prior to co-founding Crabtree & Eller in 2004, Mark’s entire career was spent in Sales and Sales Management for Fortune 50 companies as both a direct employee and an independent distributor. He sold and distributed everything from disposable hospital and operating room commodities to devices for the operating room such as joint replacement implants and fracture management implants for Trauma. Mark has consistently ranked at the top of his peers, and was the recipient of many national awards. Working for large companies like Johnson & Johnson and Cardinal Health as well as owning and managing a small independent distributorship has given Mark a broad perspective and insight into Sales, Sales Management, Marketing, Client Services and the Distribution of Products.
