As a college athlete, I've heard over and over again that companies are looking to hire people like me. They want people with my skills, my experience, my capabilities. And to be honest, I get that. And maybe I'm biased, but if I were looking to hire, I would be most comfortable and confident in hiring an athlete.

Now, far be it from my prerogative to make broad generalizations about groups of people as a whole, but I feel that in this case, because I have a lot of experience with it, I can safely say that this is true more often than not.

I know what's about to happen. A bunch of NARPs (I use this term lovingly) are about to get angry and say that I can't say that about all college athletes, and that there are plenty of great employees that weren't athletes as well as bad employees who were. And that's fine.

However, 2015 has been the year that everyone was offended by everything. So I'm not going to let the possibility deter me from my point.

Because I'm not saying that people who weren't college athletes are lesser people and lesser employees. I'm simply pointing out that, as college athletes, we've got a lot of skills. Useful skills. Invaluable skills that are virtually impossible to obtain anywhere else. And it makes us useful.

Before we ever step foot in the gyms that will become our arenas when it's game time, we're developing these skills. As time goes on, it is getting more and more difficult to become a college athlete. The games we play are changing. Players are getting better. Conferences are becoming more competitive and that means that recruiting is everything.

So in addition to going through high school, something that most people can agree seems pretty stressful and trying at the time, we practice. We compete. We put in extra hours to be better, and we record video after video of ourselves, watching it and rewatching it until we're satisfied. And then we start sending it out to hundreds of coaches at hundreds of programs. Because it's not usually like the movies. Even a coach that approaches you wants to see your film.

And in these films, we highlight our strengths. In order to highlight our strengths, we have to know and be confident in what we're good at. And at the same time, we know our weaknesses. We acknowledge them, and we turn them into strengths.

From a young age, we learn how to advertise ourselves, and how to make our own personal brand. We learn about social media presence and what is and is not acceptable for a coach to see.

We learn how to correspond professionally, and how to juggle everything that comes with being a recruit. That means no days off. No taking it easy. No "I'll start tomorrow." Because we realize that in the time we might've waited, someone else would have passed us up. And that competitiveness transfers over into everything we do, including what we do in the workplace. We're too competitive to let anyone beat us.

And then, we get to college. And suddenly, all of our classmates are excited about being away from home for the first time. They're showing up to class looking their best for the first day or two, and then looking inches from death and nursing hangovers for the following week.

All the while, we've probably been on campus a week or two longer, working through preseason soreness and pre-college jitters. And in that time, we've learned that our bodies are stronger than our minds think they are. We don't go out on Thursdays, we treasure the sleep we manage to get way too much for that. And we probably have a workout in the morning. And because of all this, because of the sheer necessity to be able to move when it's time to get out of bed in the morning, we learn to take care of ourselves. While classes allow a few "personal" days for when students aren't feeling well, that doesn't fly with athletes. Yo have two options: stay healthy or be sick while you do everything you normally do. AKA: practice, workout, compete, go to class, etc.

And on top of classes and homework and practice and competing, we deal with everything a normal college student does. Homesickness, feeling overwhelmed, getting out of our comfort zones, and trying to make friends. All of this teaches us to manage our time, and we learn how to work and get things done when we're under pressure, and even when our mind is off somewhere else.

We become resilient in our work, and we find a rhythm faster than most students. We adapt well, and after about a week, we've got our classes memorized, our homework mapped out for the entire semester, and even some time set aside for naps.

And when we graduate, none of that changes. We still know how to time manage and take care of ourselves and adapt. But maybe even more important than any of that, we know how to work in a team.

A lot of high school teams have heavy drama, but college athletes know there's no time for that. If you cause problems, you won't last as a college athlete. Because skill can easily be taught, but teamwork is about respecting others, knowing your strengths, and being willing to sacrifice for something bigger than your own reward. If you don't have that, you can't stay on a team.

In the workplace, we are capable of collaborating easily with others, and we know how to communicate when there's a problem or something that needs to be done. On the court or on the field, there's no time to argue. If something is wrong, you fix it fast. That's what we carry over into our jobs. We can carry our own weight and pick up the slack if necessary, and we know how to be positive and motivate others who need it.

Hiring a college athlete is more of an investment than anything. Because you're not just getting another great employee, you're getting someone who will enhance your workforce, and bring up the people around them. Of course there are exceptions to all of this, but those exceptions are far fewer than the college athletes I've described here.

Being a college athlete is a rewarding and life changing experience, and it's not something that everyone can do. We know how hard we work and we know why we do it every day, even if we're tired and stressed out. If you give us a chance, we'll immediately set ourselves apart with our skills and competence and leave you with no doubt as to whether or not we're as valuable as we seem.