Published in the Independence Daily Reporter, July 5, 2017
We start it earlier and earlier, sometimes even as early as 6th or 7th grade. We constantly challenge our youth to decide what they want to be when they grow up. By the time the youth get to high school, we call this part of our “college and career ready” process. The pressure builds from the earlier times for the young students to decide what they want to be. Sometimes it’s what a well-meaning parent wants the student to be. Along with the pressure of what to be, comes the pressure to make the grades to insure getting into the “right” college. Many times we imply that it’s the right job, making the right amount of money that will make us successful. Not necessarily. We need to change the message and the challenge.
We live in a world in which the job market and business marketplace change on a month to month basis. Today’s hot new technologies and careers didn’t exist a few years ago. Tomorrow’s hot careers do not exist today and many of today’s careers will go away. We do a terrible job of predicting how new technologies will affect the marketplace. How can ask a college junior or senior to hit the moving target of career or business opportunities, let alone the 6th or 7th grader?
The answer is to quit asking kids what they want to be when they grow up but ask them to think about ways they might like to help others. Another way is to ask what problems they might like to solve, throwing in the possibility of changing the world while we’re at it. The mindset of our youth, as well as our own needs to change from fixed to growth. A fixed mindset is the idea that you can pick a career; then study hard through high school and college to get a nice job with a nice salary to go with it. A growth mindset is about always learning new things in school and striving to be a lifelong learner, always alert and open to the changes in technology and the marketplace while looking for the most fulfilling way to solve the problems that are sure to remain in world.
There are a few college graduates that will find rewarding careers in the traditional way, but many of the students that are deemed at or below average by our educational institutions will not fare so well, racking up tons of student debt to graduate from college only to become mal-employed at a lower paying job, unrelated to the career path they chose years earlier.
Students should be going to school to learn as much and about as many topics as they can, not because they can pick some career today that will still be relevant by the time they graduate. Every student needs to remain flexible in thinking about how they might solve the problems of others in a way that is both fulfilling and lucrative for them.
Jim Correll is the director at Fab Lab ICC at Independence Community College. He can be reached at (620) 252-5349 or by email at jcorrell@indycc.edu.
Jim Correll 