Students Talk About Teaching
Steve Helfont, Class of 2007
I guess the best way to rate your ILR education is to think “I spent four years here. Would I do it again and would I do it over and over again?” And the answer to that is an overwhelming yes.
Without a doubt, I think ILR professors and the instruction here is top notch. I can’t imagine myself going anywhere else.
A lot of people wouldn’t agree with me—they’d say “go to Harvard, go to Yale, go to Stanford”—but those students haven’t been to ILR. They don’t know what it’s like to have the assortment of courses that we have. They don’t know what it’s like to be in an ILR classroom.
Katelyn McClellan, Class of 2008
They give you a lot of freedom as far as classes that you can take. You can explore all your interests and it fulfills ILR elective credits.
What I like about ILR academics is the fact that “advancing the world of work” is what you study so no matter what career field you take, you’ll be able to benefit from the classes here. You will be able to apply it to the real world.
Rayon Taylor, Class of 2007
You’re not only taking a class in one specific discipline but you are opened up to various different disciplines in terms of economics, organizational behavior, human resources and as many electives as you’d like to put on your plate.
The structure of the ILR school specifically dictates that you have to have a breadth of knowledge in terms of the way they prepare you for the world of work.
Alan Benson, Class of 2007
Since ILR is a very interdisciplinary program, you can go to the arts college and take courses in the more purebred economics and there are certain courses open in the law school or the business school—if that’s something that you’d be interested in.
I think what really appealed to me was the ability to study everything from economics to organizational behavior to history and law—all specifically within this one single context. For example, it allows a lot of opportunities for you to do research and engage in a variety of different perspectives.
Genevieve Quist, Class of 2005 and Rhodes Scholar, 2007
I was really able to make of my education what I wanted to make of it and I was able to translate what I learned in ILR into the classroom as a teacher in the Los Angeles public school system and as a Rhode’s Scholar at the University at Oxford. So, any future career that I’m pursuing in public policy will always be able to be traced back to what I first learned in the ILR school.
I feel like the ILR school prepared me well for the real world in that it held very high demands for me as a student. So, when I rose to meet those high demands that my professors set for me, it really instilled in me a work ethic that was very useful later on when I entered the professional world.
Gary Stolper, Class of 2007
I found that the instruction here has been absolutely great. Teachers are more than willing to go out of their way to help you.
Javeste Dulcio, Class of 2008
When you think about ILR, first and foremost is the fact that it only has one major and that major is kind of specific in what you learn and what it can be applied to. And I think because of this, you’re going to get students who have a vision. We have a kind of social consciousness where we think critically about how our actions affect other people.
I’ve never seen anyone who could write a good paper faster than an ILR student or read a very, very hard piece of work—literature—faster than an ILR student and still be able to tell you exactly what the author was trying to convey. I feel that way because the professors have such a high expectation of us.
