Roy J. Blitzer (with Carol G. Blitzer) —
2022 was supposed to be the year of the book.
Thwarted by the pandemic interfering with retirement plans in early 2020, I finally decided to revitalize an idea I had while still teaching, just as we seemed to be emerging from Covid.
I would go back and interview about 20 students who had aced their assignment in my Introduction Business Class (titled “Discovering Business”) – worth 10% of the total grade at both San Jose State and Menlo College, 10 to 15 years ago. This would be a sort of a “where-are-they-now” book —a later look at people I have known and taught years before. I have always been fascinated to see what happens … after, and find myself especially attracted to entertainment celebrities who began their careers as children.
The assignment was to write a career paper, imagining where they’d be by age 65, what career path they’d chosen and how they had gotten there — (identifying courses taken in college, the likely job trajectory they’d followed ). Part of the assignment was to interview a person who held the job of their dreams, ask for advice and try to gain insight into how to achieve this. This Informational Interview could not be a relative and ideally would require an in-person meeting. I had tested the idea with the head of the Menlo College Career Center and even worked with some former students before retiring to track down students to participate.
By early 2022, I was ready to move forward more seriously, but had to find a critical mass of students. All I had was their papers and their names. Neither university was helpful in tracking down their alumni with personal e-mails and phone numbers. But a plea to my neighborhood association elicited a recent high school graduate who was social-media savvy. I hired her immediately.
After a week or so, she had contact info for 20 former students.
I then went about setting up interviews, in person and phone-recorded for the locals, by Zoom for those far away (or still Covid-cautious). Over the next few months, I managed to contact them, and all 20 agreed to be interviewed for a book that would concentrate on their career paths. This process could have been a book in itself – late to meetings, no shows, no responses, etc. My favorite was a young man who cancelled his afternoon appointment because he was getting a haircut in the morning to look sharp for an up-and-coming job interview. (Go figure: Two commitments in the same day wouldn’t work?)
With 20 interviews under my belt and all the interviews transcribed, I now faced the challenge: how to put together a book that someone would want to read.
I talked to friends, relatives, my NYC agent (who sold my previous five books to publishers) – all said it sounded like a good idea. A few questioned why anyone would care about these particular students. Some suggested it would only work if they were famous. My agent, now less enthusiastic, said it was too regional. Some thought organizing it by themes would be useful; others said, not really — each chapter should reflect that former student’s ideas but should be written in my own words by the questions asked.
I was beginning to think it would make a great long article for an alumni magazine.
The bottom line was that none of their stories was super exceptional, or even particularly fascinating. No one struggled and only one – who admitted he should have gone to trade school rather than college, finally made big bucks. Some strayed wildly from what they thought at age 18 that they’d be doing for their whole work life. All were determined and resilient and realized that flexibility was required to take advantage of opportunities. Networking and personal contacts were invaluable to get a job; and even as the first in their family to attend college, their parents were supportive and encouraged happiness above everything. They all weathered successfully through Covid and even benefited from working remotely.
The best anecdote was from the student I asked whether the interview he conducted helped him focus on his career path. “I made that up”, he admitted, “just to get the A grade.”
So, I’m back to square one, just two and a half years late. My interest about the topic is waning. I am still trying to figure out how to make this book work (if at all) and am getting ready to dump it and search for something else to keep me productive during retirement.
P.S. Since submitting this article, I’ve taken the data and created two articles that I will submit the first week in January – one to the San Jose State Alumni Magazine and the other to the Menlo College Alumni Newsletter.