Don’t Follow the Market. Create it.

When an industry sets the tone for education, they create more of what they want: ready and able workers for their industry. The more jobs that industry has to offer, the more schools will push the skills necessary for this industry. It seems responsible and reasonable to prepare students for high-growth industries and to educate them to follow market demands.
But we forget that we are actually the creators of market demands.
To say that young professionals should follow the market is to say that there is some invisible figure that they are following. When, the truth is, they themselves are part of this mysterious thing called “the market”.
And then there’s the very obvious problem: jobs are only in demand until all necessary positions are filled. Then, there’s a surplus of skilled workers who now don’t have jobs in their line of work.
If we keep telling kids to get an education for the sole purpose of meeting market demands, pretty soon, we’ll have a surplus of followers and a shortage of innovators. We’ll wonder why the same industries have dominated for years and why nothing new has come along.
If we only educate students to follow market trends, we’ll lose the trend-setters.
So stop asking what the ROI on your education is. Instead, ask yourself, what can I return to the market, to the world, with the knowledge I’ve received? What can I offer? What can I create?
