By Charlene M. Brown
Hmmm, let’s see, college taught me poor posture, how to curse like a sailor, how to abbreviate everything, and how NOT to speak!
However, I also found college to be a place to empower you if you took advantage of it. But when I got out, into the “Real World”, I realized the truth of what people said about college being an unrealistic euphoria. College did not prepare me for any of this!
One of the best courses I had in college was called “Decision Making” (Shhhh, don’t tell my professor, I always gave him a hard time J). In this class, we examined the different factors that go into making decisions and how this played out in various people’s lives. What this class did, that so many others did not, was taught me how to think—to fully think—things through. Up until this class, this was almost a foreign concept to me.
I just finished reading John H. Johnson’s book, Succeeding Against The Odds, where he talks about living close to the edge and how that propelled him forward. One of the main points Johnson talks about repeatedly is maintaining focus; focusing so intently on one particular object or goal that you have no other choice but to succeed at it. In our technology-driven world, we have learned to operate by the megabyte per second. It’s no wonder, then, that so many of us are wandering around lost—we can’t concentrate on anything long enough to see it through!
Think about this: in our parents’, and most certainly in our grandparents’ ages, people got whatever education they were going to get and then went to work in their CAREER, generally with the same company (maybe two) for the next 30-40 years. Then they retired. And they knew that job like the back of their hand. Nowadays, we aren’t even sure what a “career” is. Most of us, and studies show this, will stay at a company for a few years, then move to another company that we perceive will better meet our needs. In fact, in a 2007 OECD Economic Survey of the European Union, statistics show that the average American stays at one job for only about 4 years.[i] College didn’t teach us that our needs, and getting them met, inevitably changes.
By virtue of the fact that we have to declare a single major, we start out unprepared for all the different “careers” we are going to have in our lifetimes. Not to mention that “retirement” is getting pushed further and further out of the picture based on an infrastructure not designed to support us when we get to that magic number (Imagine what that will be by the time we retire!). What are we supposed to do with that, work 4 years at different places forever?!
Of course some of us double- and triple-majored in college. Of course some of us took a minor (or two or three). And of course, some of us even have jobs in our “field”—the one we actually studied in college (I don’t!). Even if you’ve done any of these things, can you fathom being in the same job for the next 30 years!? I can’t!
I wish college would have taught me how to be prepared to move from one job to the next. I wish college would have taught me how to leverage skills learned from one job and transition them into usefulness for the next job. It seems like everything is always in transition and there is no stability anymore. I wish I would’ve been taught by more than 1-2 classes how to think. Maybe “higher education” could have prepared me, by design, to study different things that are more and more the reality nowadays, instead of theoretical concepts that won’t be relevant to me as new technology quickly makes them obsolete.
This is my suggestion: go back to older generations and ask them these questions; (update the wisdom to fit the times) and use this as the base of knowledge to learn; learn (or at least be taught) how to focus on things to completion. Make a plan of action that you can swallow, then work through it one digestible step at a time. Set goals, learn new things. Study indigenous cultures (from anywhere) and see how much sense their life makes to them and think about why that is. Spend an hour a day doing or learning about something you like. After five years of doing this, you become a world class expert (concept from Jeffery Gitomer’s Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude, 2007).
Take a break from your technology for an hour each day to be alone with yourself and see what’s really going on. Spend time (real, physical people time, not technology time, unless you are far, far away) with good friends at least once a week. Make a standing date with one of your girlfriends to do lunch or happy hour or a book club every week. Find out what’s important to you and go after it with gusto! You won’t find these things in any of the college textbooks you may have saved, but you will definitely find them in the so-called “Real World.”
Are You Learning to Love Your Life Now! I Am!!
[i] Information taken from the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development; “Economic Survey of the European Union 2007,” http://www.oecd.org/document/8/0,3343,en_2649_34111_38958856_1_1_1_1,00.html, Current as of April 16, 2009.
Related posts:
- My College Lied To Me: The Falsities of Getting A Job After College!
- Everything I Was Supposed To Learn In College I Already Learned In Kindergarten
- So Many Bumpy Roads, So Little Time!
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© 2009 You Can Love Your Life Now!