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| Cap
& Compass offers post-graduate instruction in life's basics New Haven Register by Sandi Kahn Shelton, Register staff April 15, 2002 With graduation just weeks away, ask yourself, do you feel that college prepares students to live in the real world?
Nope. All those hours you crammed for exams don't help at all when you're filling out your first W-4 form, or being asked to choose the right HMO — or even when you're deciding what to wear to your first dinner with the boss. Enter Jesse Vickey of Branford who has gone into the Real World and now is willing to help new college grads figure out how to manage it. He and his wife, Nicole, who both graduated from Duke University, have formed a company called Cap & Compass, giving seminars to the hapless souls who are venturing out for the first time and haven't much of a clue of how to get by. "Right after I graduated, I noticed there were a million little things that seemed simple and that I kept thinking I ought to know how to do, but which nobody had ever explained," said Jesse Vickey. "I consider myself to be a fairly bright guy, and I had gone to a good university, but I had no idea how to get started on all these things." Colleges offer an orientation process, he reasoned — why not give a "dis-orientation" to students on their way to the Real World? HOW CASUAL IS 'BUSINESS CASUAL'? The result was a series of 45-minute seminars, which the Vickeys developed, explaining the difference between a PPO and an HMO, a 401(k) from a W-4 — and everything in between. They explain why a checking account may not be the best place to keep your money, and exactly what the words "business casual" refer to when you're getting dressed in the morning. They also tell you how to figure out whether you should buy or lease a car, how much money it's going to cost you to get an apartment and what to look for in an engagement ring. They advertised on monster.com for a "quirky entertainer" to deliver these seminars " — and found Andy Ferguson, a stand-up comic from Winston-Salem, N.C., who says he would have answered any ad with the word "quirky" in the job description. Ferguson now travels around the country presenting five useful and humorous seminars, including Avoid Looking Stupid at Dinner, Love Your Money, Getting Your Apartment, The Least You Need to Know About Taxes and W4401KHMO: Translating Day 1 at Work. Last year, the Vickeys and Ferguson sat down and wrote and self-published a book based on the seminars, called "Life After School. Explained." The books are written in a witty style with cartoons drawn by Matt Gidney, a friend from Duke. They include real-life stories based on their friends' lives, as well as lots of graphics and even a small "cheat sheet" that can fit into a pocket, giving diagrams about which silverware to use or which wine to order. They've been distributing these books to college students online and at the seminars. The books, they say, are appropriate for colleges to order in bulk — say, as a parting gift to their senior class, since there's room for each college to imprint its name and a message, such as "Support the Alumni Fund." Vickey consulted tax experts, human resources representatives, insurance companies and car dealers to make sure he had up-to-date information. And, he says, he had made enough mistakes on his own to give the material some real-life validity. DINING OUT WITH THE BOSS Take the business dinner, for example. What's the most common mistake new hires make when they get invited out to dinner with boss and some clients? Of course, there's all that confusion with salad and dessert forks and which entree to order — but Jesse says that human resources people say the very worst mistake is more a misunderstanding of the purpose of the dinner. "They try to be funny," he says. "They think of it as a dinner out with friends, where it's their job to tell hilarious stories and impress everyone. We tell them in the book, follow the lead of your host. Don't draw attention to yourself. And above all, you're not there to eat. Your goal is to blend in. Do what your boss does." But don't worry: The Cap & Compass staff isn't condescending or judgmental about what you may not know. "We don't want to be the voice of parents or authority figures," says Nicole, now a grad student in the forestry school at Yale. "We don't lecture. Our goal is to be like an older brother or sister, someone who's been there and wants to save you from making the same mistakes we did." Since starting the seminars in February, 2001, Cap & Compass has delivered more than 65 seminars from Maine to Florida. In Connecticut, they've appeared at Eastern Connecticut State University, the University of Hartford, St. Joseph's College, Teikyo Post University and Norwalk Community College. And although the book has only been out two months, they've sold about 2,500 copies. The Vickeys says they were surprised to find there wasn't already a Real World guide out there for new grads. "We did a lot of research when we were putting this together," says Nicole, "and all we found were books that dealt more with the psychological, touchy-feely aspect of graduating. But what people need is real information." Jesse agrees.
"In surveys we've taken, we've found that 73 percent of college seniors
said that college did nothing to prepare them for life." |
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