| The 17th National Congress of the Communist Party of China has pointed out that the first essential for the Scientific Development Outlook is development and its core is People-Oriented. Scientific Development stresses the sustainable, all-round and free development of human beings. Only when contemporary college students become fully developed can they take on the important mission of strengthening the Chinese nation and become the future of our country. In the 21st century, the competition between countries has become the competition between talents, more specifically, the competition between overall-developed talents. This kind of competition not only involves the thriving of a nation, but also directly affects the employment of college students with the increasingly severe employment status nowadays. In other words, only by developing students' core competitiveness can college students better compete with others and shoulder their burdens. Therefore, how to stimulate college students'initiative, how to cultivate their core competitiveness and how to increase their employment rate and work quality are not only what college students should deal with, but also an important project for higher education. Based on the previous research home and abroad, this paper draws on core competitiveness theory and applies the Marxist theory in the all-round development of human beings to illustrate the significance of cultivating college students'core competitiveness and interpret the concept, elements and features of core competitiveness. The paper also summarizes the methods and approaches for cultivating college students' core competitiveness from the angle of school education, college students'self-education and social enterprises by the research on the present state of cultivating college students'core competitiveness.First of all, the paper explains the significance of cultivating college students'core competitiveness from three perspectives by adopting literature research, survey research, case studies, etc. Cultivating students'core competitiveness is the need to achieve educational objectives of the university, the need to encourage university students'sustainable development and the need of national development. In the following part, the paper discusses the theoretical sources, elements and features of core competitiveness, as well as the various features such as advantageous vitality, long-term accumulation, comprehensive capacity, character strength, accumulation persistence, etc. In addition, according to the investigation on the current status of college students' core competitiveness, it can be found that some problems exist, for instance, students' poor social practice, their limitation in employability, unsatisfactory innovative ability, weak learning ability and unhealthy psychology, and so on. In allusion to these instances, the article also analyzes the causes from the angles of both the colleges and universities and college students. In the end, based on the present state of college students'competitiveness and the current problems, this paper emphasizes the approaches of cultivating college students'core competitiveness from various angles. From the perspective of school education, it proposes that colleges and universities should develop a scientific training program to train college students about career plan, to improve the structure of university courses with emphasis on theory combined with practice, to strengthen laboratory construction, creating more hands-on opportunities for students, to strengthen moral education, encouraging students to start their own business. From the perspective of students themselves, college students should be positive about their career orientation, cultivate multi-disciplinary capabilities, enhance personal charm, develop difference in personality and strengthen practical training exercise. From the perspective of enterprises, schools should bring business platforms into full play and takes advantages of standard educational inspiration and so on. |