Teach For America founder urges students think deeply about first jobs post-college

While Americans watched election outcomes on Tuesday, Teach For America (TFA) founder Wendy Kopp told a crowd in White Plaza that there is another way to predict the country’s future: look at where college graduates take their first job. “First jobs matter a whole lot more than people think,” Kopp said. “Those first jobs influence everything you do thereafter.” Kopp spoke alongside TFA CEO Aneesh Sohoni and Dan Edelstein, faculty director of Stanford’s COLLEGE program, at a Stanford Democracy Day panel hosted by the Haas Center for Public Service. Their message: graduates’ first job shapes what they care about for decades, so students should spend it close to a problem they want to solve. “We need many more of the most promising leaders, many of whom are here at Stanford, to take first jobs that face the reality of our country and our society,” Kopp said. TFA is a nonprofit that places recent graduates in teaching positions in urban and rural public schools for two years.

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