We Now Need College Courses to Teach Young Adults How to Make Small Talk

Jana Mathews, a professor of Medieval literature at Rollins College, checks the bathrooms to coax out students hiding from the big event in her Job Market Boot Camp class, a mixer with alumni to practice professional networking.

For many of her students, the face-to-face conversations with strangers are more nerve-racking than decoding Chaucer. Sydney Parmet had trouble sleeping the night before and considered skipping it. “I kept overthinking what I was going to say and second-guessed whether I should say anything,” said Parmet, who graduated in May from the Winter Park, Fla., campus.

Mathews recommends students try swiping deodorant on palms to avoid clammy handshakes. Those who vomit from nerves should pop a breath mint. If the question, “Tell me about yourself,” triggers temporary amnesia, consult your prepared script, she says. Students practice moving from introductions to asking about the other person to giving their elevator pitch that covers their interests, work experience and skills.

Parmet said she was awkward when she entered the room until another student pulled her into a conversation, and she explained her dream of finding a job for a nonprofit. She now works for a group that aids homeless families and those at risk of becoming homeless.

Everybody seems to have a theory about why many young adults have trouble with so-called soft skills, which include the art of persuasion and civil conversation. Blame smartphone addiction, Covid cocooning or helicopter parenting. Regardless of cause, a growing number of college professors in various disciplines around the U.S. are trying to keep professional chitchat from becoming a lost language.

Claire Ralph, a Caltech computer-science lecturer, said when she started at the campus in 2016 she was surprised that a fifth of her students had spent five months looking for a job—not even getting interviews. She asked to see copies of their cover letters. One began, “Hey wazzup y’all.” The student explained that “someone said a cover letter should be friendly,” Ralph recalled.

She talked about students’ communication shortcomings with colleagues. Everyone came to the same conclusion: “It was a hole people knew existed,” she said, but “didn’t know how to plug.”

Employers see it, even if students don’t. When college seniors were asked to rate their communication, nearly 80% responded “very/extremely proficient.” Only 54% of employers agreed, according to 2022 surveys by the National Association of Colleges and Employers.

Mathews said she understood why many of her students weren’t getting hired for jobs, saying they offered “no evidence that they had the interpersonal or communication skills to succeed at them.” That prompted her to initiate the Job Market Boot Camp and similar exercises to help students unmute.

When teaching “The Canterbury Tales,” Mathews holds a mixer where students pose as characters from the book while delivering an elevator pitch. Students learn the book, she said, and ease into networking “in a way that’s not so personalized, so they don’t feel like they’re on display.”

At Caltech, Ralph created Tech Fest, a networking event with alumni, and Dining with Teach, which pairs students and professionals for a simulated business lunch at a campus restaurant. In one class, she invites people in computer science to talk about their work and chat with students. It seems to be working, she said. Seniors seeking jobs after graduation are now all getting offers.

Rachel Toor, a creative writing professor at Eastern Washington University in Cheney, Wash., asks students to write a cover letter explaining why she should accept them into her class. The assignment, she said, revealed another problem—a painfully self-absorbed point of view.

Among her examples:

I want to take this class because I am a poet and need to get a class out of my genre.

I am a good writer and have done well in my creative writing courses.

I am a great applicant and this will get me what I want.

She asked for a volunteer to share their letter with the class, which further stirred her despair. Since the students seemed to all write in similar fashion, most had no criticisms. A cover letter, she told the class, was supposed to “make people fall in love with you.” In the job market, that means explaining how the company will benefit, she said, not the applicant.

David S. Salisbury does much of his academic research in remote parts of the Amazon, where he lives among indigenous people and communicates with hand gestures and bits of Spanish and Portuguese that tribe members know. He faces similar hurdles on campus.

“Students’ interpersonal skills are not as sharp as they used to be,” said Salisbury, a professor of geography, environment and sustainability at the University of Richmond in Richmond, Va.

In class, Salisbury starts with the basics, stopping the class when a student refers to a peer by anything other than their name. “If a student says, ‘I really enjoyed Brian’s idea, but I think this might be something to add,’ I say, ‘I love how you mentioned Brian’s name.’ I give positive reinforcement to teach them these interpersonal skills,” he said.

Last year, he joined students and alumni at a cocktail party ahead of a conference aimed at helping students network with younger professionals. In addition to tips on what to say, he gave advice on what to wear, saying it was better to lean too formal rather than too casual. At the event, he helped introduce shy students to alumni connected with their professional interests.

“Some of us were freaking out because we didn’t know how to respond,” said Jeff Tsai, a sophomore biology major. “He supported me in striking up a conversation.”