How did your experiences with education set you up for a career? What choices did you make? What advice can you give to people starting out at the beginning of their working life?
Posted by: RW | 29.11.2009 10:32pm
I think holding to a 'career' notion is a real difficulty. Life and work just isn't that way - most of us don't 'decide' or 'choose' - we are mostly 'selected' (or, particularly during schooling years, de-selected) or just stumble into. Most of us don't set out on a path and stay on it. There's plenty of research that shows that.
It worries me that young people are '(de)selected' at age 3, 5, 11, 14 or whatever for a particular pathway - it is naive to pretend that they 'choose'. There's plenty of research about that, too.
Having said that - I trained in clothing design back in the 1960s. I sort of 'selected myself'into that - I loved clothes and I was fascinated by people but I also hated exams and tests (no good at recall - though good enough to get me through the necessary hoops). I only worked in the trade for a short time. However, the generic futures-soaking-up instincts and other skills I honed have always stood me in good stead. I later became a teacher; worked on an an advocacy project; and, amongst other things, have spent many years in education policy work. I still find my work exiting.
Looking back it is easier to see the connecting enthusiasms in the voyage - looking forward it must be very hard to know what gets you excited enough to really want to know more/do more about it. And then there are the hoops, the keys to doors that you must have. Whatever, I think that 'choosing' something broad that can lead to other things is a good idea. That may be vocational (as in clothing design) or it may be non-vocational (as in, say, philosophy) - but at rock-bottom, learning to learn and wanting to learn is the key thing - in whatever ways and in whatever places that suit you best.