Helping Students with Transitions - Endings

      As your students complete their Diversified Manufacturing Technology certification or otherwise decide to leave the world of education for the world of employment, they are undergoing a transition. Transitions, as we all know, are difficult, and for your students shifting from being a student to a full-time worker in manufacturing, or shifting from a temporary job to a full-time position, this change may be especially hard. It's scary; it's complicated; and it may overwhelm them if they don't know what's going on. They feel that everyone else is handling change so smoothly and they are encountering so much turbulence. These ill feelings may lead them to remain where they are, job-wise and career-wise, because it's "safe." It's easy to say: "life is either a daring adventure or it's nothing," but without knowing what lies ahead, "nothing" may be what happens. 
     William Bridges in this book Transitions (2004) explores the world of life changes. Knowing what to expect is the first step in successfully navigating the myriad of challenges and opportunities that lie before students. Bridges puts the change process into three seemingly simple steps: endings, a neutral zone and new beginning. It is deceptively simple.
   With endings, the student may have completed his/her coursework and feels a sense of accomplishment and at the same time a sense of trepidation. What happens next and why am I feeling all of these uncomfortable feelings? Bridges writes about five such natural ending processes: disengagement, dismantling, disidentification, disenchantment, and disorientation.

• Disengagement - he/she is no longer a student with the day-to-day tasks of studying, working in a lab setting, taking assessments and completing homework. That work is over and he/she is thrust out into the "real world."
• Dismantling - in a sense, the student is "unpacking" the identity of being a student and all the attributes associated with college work and life.
• Disidentification - the student is losing the old ways of defining him/herself. He/She is no longer in the world in which he/she can identify. There is a quote in a Western town that sums it up: "I ain't what I ought to be and I ain't what I'm going to be. But I ain't what I was!"
• Disenchantment: this may be the first feeling to emerge. "I thought employers would be beating down my door to hire me, but they're not!" However this feeling is a signal that the transition is moving ahead. 
• Disorientation - this feeling is really an opportunity to "re-orient" oneself into a new frame of mind. It's not enjoyable; the student must deal with a sense of emptiness and seek healthy, positive ways to fill the void created by the lack of classes, studying, and testing. 

     The role of the participant coach, site coordinator and instructor is to help students navigate students through these tough times by letting them know what emotions they might encounter and that it is normal and natural to feel this flow of uncomfortable feelings. They need to listen to their students and talk with them about what's going on, without jumping into "advice-giving" or into platitudes. Just Listen.