Do you know what exactly you want your degree for?

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Title : Do you know what exactly you want your degree for?
link : Do you know what exactly you want your degree for?

news-today.world | Hello again everyone. Happy new year and allow me to start by telling you about a conversation I had with one of my readers, let's call her Adeline (not her real name) who reached out to me via Instagram - I don't normally enter into direct conversations like that with my readers but she seemed harmless enough and it was clear that she needed help. Basically, she had done poorly in her studies and was about to register to do a worthless degree, you know, the kind from a private university that would admit anyone who can pay the fees and has effectively no minimum entry standard (or entry standards so low that 95% of the general population can do it). So I asked her some very basic questions like, "what do you want to do for your career?" And her honest answer was, "I don't know, I never thought about it." So I told Adeline that she should save her time and money for the right kind of further education or training, the kind that will get her onto the right career path - simply taking a degree like that will achieve nothing, it will effectively postpone that decision to pick a career by three years whilst she is a student, but unless she was willing to take responsibility for this difficult decision that she has to make, that degree isn't going to solve anything. I got the feeling that she is somewhat immature in the sense that she is the kind of obedient daughter and student who will gladly do as she is told, but when it comes to taking initiative to pick a career path, she is completely fazed by such a challenge.

Is Adeline barking up the wrong tree?

Now am I being too harsh on Adeline? Perhaps I am - but here's the thing, no one is asking her to pick a career path that she absolutely must commit herself to for the rest of her life. No, instead she has the right to change careers at any point, retrain in a different field or even start her own business if she prefers to be her own boss. But just because you are allowed to change your plans doesn't mean that you shouldn't plan at all in the first place - there is quite a difference between allowing yourself to be flexible with your plans and simply going with the flow, not having a plan at all. Let me compare this to a driving test: there is every possibility that you may fail a driving test - maybe you are nervous, maybe you simply forget to check your mirrors before making a turn, maybe you accidentally exceed the speed limit or you could do what I did: I got a little bit too confident as the test was going so well, drove faster than I normally would and clipped the kerb when I was going around a corner - that's not the kind of mistake I make all the time, but it happened and that's why I failed my first driving test. So would you claim that just because you may fail your driving test that there's no point in preparing for it? Of course not - the more you practice, the less likely you are to make a silly mistake during your driving test that would result in a fail. Just because our career plans may change in the future doesn't mean we should make any plans at all. I was surprised that this young lady seemed to lack any initiative at all when it came to choosing a career path according to her own needs, interests and personality - it was like she was waiting for someone to pick it for her.

Allow me to share with you a story of someone I actually know rather well - let's call her Dawn (not her real name). When Dawn did her first degree, she wasn't quite sure what she wanted to do with her life - so she thought that going to study abroad would broaden her horizons and help give her perspective about what she wanted in her future career. So Dawn's parents paid for her to go study in Australia and whilst she had a brilliant time there, she was so focused on her studies that she didn't really think about life beyond university - so when she graduated, she was no closer to having a firm idea about what to do about her future career. Getting a degree may have put her in a better position to apply for some jobs, but she didn't even know what jobs she wanted to apply for in the first place. So she decided, I know, I'll get a Masters degree so I will be even more highly qualified and have more options - so she went back to university, got her Masters degree and then when it came time to find a job, once again, she was back to square one. At this point, she told her parents she wanted to do a PhD but her parents finally said no - you need to get a job, your endless degrees are costing us so much money and you're merely studying to put off finding a job, rather than studying to get that dream job of yours. Fortunately for her, her uncle managed to pull a few strings and got her a job in his company and she has been working there ever since. Is she entirely happy with her job? No, she confessed that she isn't but when faced with the prospect of looking for a new job, she decided to stick with the familiar and try to make the best of a bad situation. Dawn isn't stupid per se, she has simply been irrational when it comes it comes to her career.

Dawn preferred studying to working.

When I challenged Adeline why she wanted to do this degree (from a private university), she pointed out to me that in a recent post, I said that gatekeepers in banking are looking for people who have demonstrated that they are willing to follow the rules rather than rebels who may not fit into a culture which stresses conformity and playing by the rules. Please allow me to clarify that I made that statement specifically in the context of what you wear during the interview process: now it would be utterly foolish to get that far in the recruitment process only to narrowly lose to another equally credible because you wore the wrong kind of shoes for example or if you did bother checking just how formal the dress code is in that company. That would be the equivalent of me failing my first driving test over a stupid mistake which I could have easily avoided if I had just slowed down a bit more before approaching that corner. But let me try to explain it to Adeline like this: I am currently booking a number of different hotels for my big trip across Georgia and naturally, I am reading reviews before booking. I am always looking out for reviews that complain about noisy hotels as that's one thing I truly hate: being awoken in the middle of the night! Nonetheless, even if a hotel is rather quiet (or at least I don't read any complaints about the noise), would I blindly book the hotel on that basis? No, I would still be looking at so many other factors from the location to the price to the facilities offered (does it have a pool, a spa, a gym, a sauna, a garden etc).

So going back to the interview, do you think that you're going to get the job just because you dress the part and wear the right kind of shoes to the interview? No, of course not - dressing inappropriately could truly sabotage your chances of getting the job but dressing correctly doesn't really get you any closer, it just means that your attire is not a factor and we can then focus on how you answer those difficult questions. So when Adeline told me that getting a degree will prove at an interview that she is willing to follow the rules, I shook my head in disbelief - that's simply not the point of getting a degree. If I want to know whether or not you're someone who will conform and follow the rules, I will spend a few seconds observing the way you dress and come to a conclusion pretty quickly. The whole point about getting a degree is to prove that you are intelligent - so for example, if you have earned yourself a place in a university like Harvard, then I know you're intelligent as stupid people don't make it to Harvard. If we were to look at it in the wider context of the laws that govern us in the societies we live in, there are often harsh penalties for those who do not follow the rules: for example, drivers will know that you can get a speeding ticket if you exceed the speed limit or your car might even get towed away if you simply park on a double yellow line especially on a busy road. Yet what about the good drivers who obediently follow the rules and never ever make any mistakes: are they rewarded for being so compliant? No, they are simply left alone - the law goes after and punishes those who refuse to follow the rules. Likewise in a job interview, you don't get a bonus for following the rules but you will be heavily penalized for breaking any of the rules.

Are you happy to follow the rules or are you a rebel at heart?

There are some companies of course who will reward people who are very good at following the rules - let me give you an example: if you work for a fast food restaurant like McDonald's then the customer's all know exactly how their food should taste like when they order a Big Mac or a Filet-o-Fish: it doesn't matter whether you're in Tbilisi, Osaka or New York, the signature burgers in a McDonald's will taste the same. So if you're not a very good chef but you can take orders and remember instructions well, then you could become very efficient in the kitchen at a McDonald's fast food restaurant, preparing loads of these burgers very quickly. Now compare that to a chef at a very expensive Japanese restaurant - there's this fantastic concept called お任せ 'Omakase' which translates as 'I leave it up to you'. Thus when you go for an Omakase experience, you don't need to place an order - you simply trust the chef to serve you an interesting array of dishes. The chefs would go out of their way to surprise and impress you with not just the best ingredients, but using unique ways to prepare and present the dishes to give you an unforgettable experience - that's the complete opposite of ordering a meal in McDonald's when you know exactly what you're going to get. Needless to say, you need outstanding skills as a chef to do what an Omakase chef would do and if you're simply a chef who is good at following instructions or a recipe, then you're just not good enough. Needless to say, the Omakase Japanese chefs earn a lot more than your average chef in McDonald's.

As for Adeline, I couldn't help but feel that because she has lacked the necessary nurturing earlier on in her life to develop the right kind of skills to thrive in the working world, she will end up in a job where she will simply become very good at following orders. Is that necessarily a bad thing? No, I don't think so - the ability to follow instructions carefully forms the basis of a lot of jobs out there, even your expert Japanese chef dazzling his diners during their Omakase experiences would have had to learn many dishes from an experienced chef for many years before they can start creating their own unique dishes. In the sport of gymnastics, most gymnasts spend years learning the basic skills and do not get the opportunity to try to create something special or brand new until they reach a very high standard. But here's the thing: my prediction is that someone like Adeline would spend most of her working life simply taking orders and following instructions if she doesn't change her current mindset. It does seem that she really doesn't know how to take any initiative and make any major decisions on her own, whilst waiting for someone else to tell her what to do. Can this change? Perhaps, but once she is stuck in her ways as an adult, it becomes a lot harder for her to go against her nature. Evidently, the Omakase chefs are taking a lot more risk each time they present a brand new dish to the diners, whilst the McDonald's cooks only have to reproduce the same kind of burger every time, every day, for every customer. Some people have what it takes to rise to the occasion, others simply don't.

Now all this starts from a very young age: for example, were you encouraged to be creative during playtime or were you already at that age carefully following the rules? I remember a colouring book I was given when I was a very young child, probably around 4 or 5 years old. The format was simply - first you had to join the dots in a certain order to form a picture, then you were given instructions what colours to use to complete the picture. I preferred to draw my own pictures, using my imagination without being told what to do - thankfully, my older sisters saw the value in allowing me to express my personality through drawings like that, even if those pictures looked awful. Nonetheless at that age, you need to introduce the concept of following instructions to young children hence I can see why books like that were popular - at that age, they are incapable of drawing beautiful pictures without help like that and it is teaching them to pay attention to little things like colouring within the lines. Of course it is necessary to teach children basic discipline like that at that age, without strict guidance. However, this relationship changes as we get older and by the time you get to university, you are expected to come up with very original ideas not found in any textbook and conduct your own research to back those ideas up - many people like Adeline never quite got to that stage, they still want to be given a book where they join up the dots and colour within the lines. They have become very good at following instructions like that but are clueless when asked to perform a task a lot more independently without any clear instructions like, "figure out what you want to do with your adult life."

This is why many people like Adeline balk at that crucial moment and freeze, not knowing what to do, waiting for the next instruction to come from someone. And in the absence of someone like me shouting at them, "grow up, start acting like an adult!", what usually happens is that they end up in a job just like the cook at McDonald's who simply follows instructions all day and isn't challenged to try to take any initiative or do anything original. Perhaps working in McDonald's is a bit of an extreme example - there are other better paid jobs out there which do involve simply following orders and routines. Let's take the military for example: those who ask too many questions are often treated like trouble makers, in the military, you're merely supposed to take orders and follow instruction without questioning your superiors. Some guys found national service quite a shock to the system because they're not used to that kind of complete obedience, where simply asking a question like, "but why are we doing this?" could get you into a lot of trouble. By that token, people like me found that kind of environment during NS quite stifling and difficult to adapt to, because we were quite used to challenging everyone from our teachers to our parents before enlisting - but for someone like Adeline, being placed in such an environment might actually be really perfect. In the military, you're told what to wear, when you eat, when you sleep, your work schedule everyday is determined by your commanding officer and the fact is you don't even get to make the most basic decisions - all that is done for you by someone else and that might actually suit someone like Adeline really well. But should Adeline join the army? I don't know - it depends if that's the kind of career that would suit her and I can't even get her to answer that question.

So that's it from me on this topic - what do you think? Have you ever met someone like Adeline? Do you actually hold Adeline responsible for her attitude or do you blame her parents or even the wider culture that she grew up around? What do you recommend she should do to figure out what to do with her career path? Please do leave a comment below and many thanks for reading.

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