A Generation Epitomised by Super-Speed Results

 

Earlier this week on Tuesday afternoon, I received an email from my old school’s career department asking me if I would like to be a keynote speaker for the Year 10’s careers day they were holding. My teacher contacted me to ask if I would like to talk to the current pupils about the importance of resilience, adaptability and being open minded when thinking about careers. Given my long-winded and obstacle-filled journey from applying to study medicine to choosing modern languages, she thought I may have some advice to share. Boy, was she right! Not only am I now incredibly well-versed in advocating the importance of following your interests despite the hurdles (sometimes in the form of people) which may lay ahead, but I thought that at the very least it would keep me preoccupied for a few days as I prepared for it.

This morning, I spent around half an hour raving on to 120 pupils about my school career, internship and gap year. Thankfully, my many rants with friends about not falling victim to convention (aka there are more careers than just medicine) and having faith that everything will work out (this only came with hindsight) made the talk flow pretty smoothly, if I may say so myself. I threw in five key lessons I’ve learned along the way including taking advantage of every opportunity, realising that academia will only get you so far in life and believing in yourself. One of the points that I made (and said twice for emphasis) was that millennials will change their career 4 times in the first decade of graduating. Let me repeat that again, that’s 4 times within ten years. And that’s not even our generation- that’s the generation above us so imagine how many times we’re going to change our careers. Thirty minutes, several inspirational quotes and one PowerPoint later, I had completed my speech. I had to stop myself from concluding with “thank you for coming to my TED talk” (it certainly felt like one apart from being in my conservatory and taking place via a laptop screen) and instead said “you should all focus on creating your own individual meaning of success”. I felt pleased with myself that I managed to get all of my points across in the time constraint, seeing as I could ramble passionately about this for hours, and certainly have done in the past. 

The session was concluded with a short Q&A session from the pupils. One of the questions I was asked was about whether I’m worried about my career. I asked the pupil if they meant because I was about to study German, which doesn’t necessarily lead into a clear, stereotypical career. No, they answered, just in general.

For a moment, I was slightly taken aback by this question. I proceeded to say that I perhaps have been worried in the past, but momentarily I’m not. I’ve got plenty of careers I’m considering for the future and the anticipated prediction that I will change my career numerous times in the future after graduating just emphasises that I don’t need to have a single, fixed job in mind. Moreover, we live in a rapidly developing technological society and there are hundreds of careers which simply do not exist yet. This answer seemed to suffice. I answered a couple more questions about work experience and applying to university, and we rounded it off nicely so that I could get on with my digital marketing work that I had mentioned more than once in my talk.

As I went about my day, I started to reflect on what I had spoken about earlier in the morning. My naturally overthinking mind ensued to analyse whether I’d missed out a point, if I’d answered the questions correctly and how I came across after a long period of not doing any public speaking. Obviously, these were all just menial and pointless worries. However, one of the things that I did ponder on for a while was the question that I was asked about whether I’m worried about my future career.

Now let me tell you why I was taken aback. First of all, don’t get me wrong, it was a perfectly valid and understandable question. In fact, we’ve all been there and some of us are probably there right now. It lingers at the back of my mind and on occasion is brought to the forefront, particularly if I think about the future. The reason I was stunted for a second was because the pupils I was speaking to were in Year 10. Just to put that into perspective, that’s 14- and 15-year olds. Now, why in the world is a career a source of anxiety for young teenagers when they have years ahead of them before they enter the working world? I may of course be projecting my assumptions here, but I get the feeling that it wasn’t just this one pupil who felt this way. Judging by the other questions I was asked, it’s apparent that many students are worried about their future career for a plethora of reasons. Why are they though? You might be thinking, well obviously they’re worried given the current global pandemic, companies going into administration and people's jobs furloughed. There's no doubt that the current situation plays a factor in these anxieties but from my own past experiences, I don’t think that’s the real reason as to why. 

The world we inhabit has been epitomised by super-speed broadband technology, buying at a click, regular public transport, food service direct to your door, message responses within seconds. My generation has been founded on this concept of getting immediate results. We’ve grown up with air travel, smartphones and YouTube videos of how to get a six pack in a week. If we’ve grown up in this day and age, why wouldn’t we be anxious about a career, which takes time to progress and often comes with incredulous numbers of hurdles?

The one thing that my generation hasn’t been able to do is speed up the process of getting a career. Life in reality isn’t just results, these things are a process, they take time and there are guaranteed to be hurdles in the way which we cannot avoid. I think that the reason young people worry about their career is because of the uncertainty, the unpredictability and the challenges it will present. Unlike everything else up until that point, a career isn’t going to be an easy pathway which you can just ‘cheat’ your way into with a YouTube life hack video or by buying your way into it.

When I’ve spoken to people older than me who have successful stable careers about this topic, their response has been surprising. When they were my age (around 18 years old), most of them thought they would be doing something completely different to now. There was less pressure for people to go to university, there were less career options for the future (which presumably narrowed down their options and made it easier to focus on one thing) and there wasn’t as much need to know what you wanted to do at such a young age.

Sadly, or maybe not depending on how you see it, a lot of young people are being forced to grow up quickly. Whether that’s because kids have smartphones, wear make up or dress differently to how I did when I was their age, their career journeys are also beginning earlier. Kids are literally growing up faster and their childhood is being diminished. I remember that when I was 10 years old, I don’t even think I knew what university was or even what career I wanted to have when I was older (probably a doctor because it was the only one I seemed to know). Nowadays I know 10-year olds whose parents are signing them up for tuition and career planning to get into university. I remember being shocked when I heard of the first parent who had taken the liberty to get their child’s career started before they had even started senior school. Why is this the norm? Can’t kids just enjoy their childhood and leave their career goals for the future?

Funnily enough, I’m far more relaxed and laid-back about my career aspirations now as an 18 (almost 19) year old than I was when I was 14. Taking a gap year has certainly given me that perspective and made me re-evaluate my goals. Instead of having one career in mind, I’m focused on the skills and talents I naturally have and I’ve got a rough idea of several jobs I’d like to consider for the foreseeable future. The thing that makes me laugh when I hear about young teenagers who are arduously planning out their whole life is that they are going to change so much between now and their first job. Within 3 years, I have been through a broad scope of career plans- from engineering, to law, to medicine. If I can change that much in 3 years, who knows how much these kids will change? Maybe it’s just me, as I am aware that my career ideas are much more far stretching than the average person, but I wish that there was less pressure on young people to have their careers mapped out. The most important thing in my opinion is to focus on developing soft skills through volunteering, sports, arts and playing an active role in the community. There are plenty of adults who are still figuring out their careers, so why is there such a rush for our generation? Maybe the next time you find yourself in a career conundrum, remember that you don’t need to have everything figured out when you’re still so young. Especially if the world we live in usually seems dizzyingly fast-paced, we could all do with stepping back, trusting the process, taking a deep breath and truly learning to go with the flow.