Creative Entrepreneurship

Is career day a waste of time?

Do young creatives really need to commit to a specific career?

Picture it.

It’s 1996, career day is a semi-fascinating display of reasonable occupations. Well-intentioned parents in their costumes (suits) arrive in the classroom.

They’re eager to invite imaginative, limitless children to work for them post graduation. There are a couple of exciting, attention-grabbing career opportunities in the room.

Gigi’s parents work for NASA. Todrick’s dad owns a Chick-fil-A.

Perks are enthusiastically scribbled across the whiteboard as parents mistake this presentation for a marketing pitch in their company conference rooms.

Mentions of impressive salaries and paid vacations mean nothing to tiny, wide-eyed geniuses with no bills and no appreciation for retirement-planning.

Parents recruit all day, like college coaches, hoping their kids will “catch the bug” and climb corporate ladders just like them-and their parents-and their parents parents.

But for the kids with wandering minds and vivid imaginations (kids who colored outside the lines on purpose), career day leaves a gaping hole where inspiration should live.