Lets face it, most of these new undergrads are awful. I dont know what happened to the education system over the past 10 years but these new hires are not taking notes and do not retain much. The best new hires as of late have actually, suprisingly, been those with no higher education and relevant work experience.
There are, however, a few exceptions to this. Every now and then we'll get fresh undergrad who's got those above average qualities we saw around 15 years ago. He-l, that was the whole reason we sought them out was it not? So that we could get a fresh and dynamic perspective from talented and highly motived undergrads.
Thing is, those few, i'd ballpark about 1 in 10, dont stay very long. With baffling consistency they're out in the first 1-4 months. They'll come in and start ki-ling it, setting a higher standard of excellence, and then they're gone, usually without much notice.
I have a few theories for this. One is the culture we have fostered which is like a pseudo sorrority (with men in it too) wherin being too excellent is no good without giving most, if not all credit to someone else with tenure. There are managers who have thrived on this over the years and seem like all-star players to everyone by cleverly tapping into the uptake of the improvements brought about by others and presenting it as their own. Don't donate to these people as a newbie and you'll soon find out what it means to be thrown under the bus.
Another theory is technology. University students are coming out of an enviornment where a lot the latest technology is being leveraged, both hardware and software. They come to BOFA and see these dated workstation setups which run slower than anything they have ever used by a country mile. No ipads, no touchscreens, and the cheapest pariphreals money can buy - its like stepping into a retirement home and using grandmas computer.