University, Playground For Young Adults
Why our perception of university life needs to change fundamentally if we want to prepare young adults for their future career.
I’m in the last semester of my master degree.
I’ve done a lot of different kinds of work during my time as a student, including as a journalist, sales & marketing manager, language teacher and freelance copywriter.
But during all these years, I was never capable of funding myself completely on my own.
Mostly, that was because I didn’t have to.
Our societal norm teaches us that our time at university is our “holy years”. It is the time during which we “find ourselves”, experiment with different things, and figure out what we want from our lives.
This is not to say that most students are just playing around all the time.
A lot of students are very serious, investing a large part of their time into side projects like building start-ups, building their social media following, or playing around with investing in things like cryptocurrencies.
In short, the tend to get involved in some of the hip trends of today.
Our university years have become accepted as the “experiential time” for our young adults, where they can get involved in whatever stuff they are interested in.
And mostly that turns out to be one of the trendy things of today.
What’s the problem with this?
The problem is that this lifestyle doesn’t teach us how to be responsible for ourselves. It places us in a safe environment, in which we are responsible for nothing except for “finding ourselves” whatever that means.
Fifty years ago, people in that age already had the job they were probably going to do for the rest of their lives, and they probably already had children.
Now, I am not saying that we should strive to move backwards and attempt to create the same conditions of the past.
I am saying that this condition of delayed maturity which we are experiencing today, can be incredibly risky.
I’ve experienced this myself.
A few months ago, my father passed away unexpectedly. And with him, my whole support network has just fallen apart from one day to the other.
Whereas previously, I could always rely on my parents for support in case I wasn’t able to make enough money to sustain myself, suddenly I simply didn’t have this option anymore.
This is a disaster for somebody who hasn’t learned to be responsible for themselves.
In this situation, if you are unable to make the shift quickly, your whole life can fall apart in no time.
From one moment to another…
… you can go into debt.
… you can get kicked out of your apartment for being unable to pay rent.
… you can be forced into a spiral of dependency on shitty, odd jobs.
Our societal model of university is outdated
University as it exists today is tailored to the societal realities of thirty years ago. It exists to prepare students for a smooth shift into a “job” which they can then hold for the rest of their lives.
We are allowing students this period of experimentation during their college years, because we expect that once they graduate, they are going to make a smooth transition into a single career track.
But that is just not realistic anymore.
In today’s economy, only few people are capable of finding a proper ‘job’ anytime soon after graduation, let alone during their study period.
By 2027, the majority of the U.S. workforce will be forced to work freelance. We are entering a time, where employers are no longer willing to grant long term contracts, employee benefits, or pay for vacation time.
Employers are recognizing that it is much more beneficial for them to hire freelancers only, who they can fire at any point in time, who they don’t have to pay for taking breaks, and who they can replace whenever they want.
As a result, nobody can expect the young adults of today to be able to make a smooth- and easy transition into the labor force anymore.
If they are forced to be responsible for themselves from one moment to another, they will probably end up broke and miserable.
Modern feudalism
We are entering an age which is defined by a modern kind of feudalism, with freelance work at its core. In this age, people in any line of work are replaceable as they are competing with other freelancers from all over the world.
As early as 2027, there is going to be primarily two classes of people.
The first of them are the business-owners. The second class of people are going to be the masses, who are competing for either short-term work contracts, or freelance gigs.
A very large percentage of today’s university graduates can already feel the effects of that economic transition.
They can’t find a proper job, so they are forced into freelance work. But the problem is that they are utterly unprepared for the life of a freelancer.
University only ever helped them to build a nice-looking CV.
But this CV is worthless in the world of freelancers, where you are competing for gigs based on the skills you have and your ability to attract clients.
Universities only have the support structures for helping students apply for ‘jobs’, which are increasingly non-existent.
Universities are lacking training programs which are helping students in areas like client-acquisition, cash flow management, or marketing and sales.
In other words, universities are lacking the structure to help students prepare themselves for their lives in an economy which is increasingly defined by freelance work.
What consequences does this have for the individual?
We are going to have to fundamentally rethink our current model of education and parenting.
Individuals can no longer be allowed that phase of pure experimentation in their early- to mid twenties, in which their only responsibility is learning and self-discovery.
They need to be exposed to the real world from the time that they are going to university onward.
Only in this way will they learn to take responsibility for themselves, so that they can survive the transition into their work lives.
In its current form, university is like a protective cocoon which puts students in a safe environment, where they can focus on nothing but their studies, and whatever external interests they have.
That may be alright in an economy where all they have to do after graduation is to find one single job, and then stick with that career for the rest of their lives.
But that old reality simply doesn’t exist anymore.
Students finishing university today are graduating into a harsh world, where they are competing for low-paid freelance gigs with click-workers in the Philippines, India and anywhere else throughout the whole world.
The forces of globalization, and the transition towards a freelance economy, are turning the world into a hyper-competitive environment with few winners and many losers.
In other words, individuals need to be prepared for such an environment from the very beginning of their university time.
Our universities, our parenting models, and our expectations from students will have to change accordingly.
In conclusion:
Universities in their current form are creating imaginary safe environments, which are teaching students completely wrong and inaccurate expectations about life.
Students need to learn to be responsible for themselves from an early age on, or they will eventually end up in financial disaster.
And the university environment needs to develop the capabilities to assist them in that transition.
Universities need to recognize that most students who are graduating in the near future will have to learn how to compete for freelance gigs with people from all over the world, not for long-term jobs on a local level.
As an individual, you’ll have to start learning skills which will help you survive in such an economy.
Some of these skills include:
- client acquisition and sales
- digital marketing
- cash-flow management
- legal management
- personal branding
If you like, you can subscribe to my free newsletter now, and I’ll help you to navigate through that journey.
If you found this article useful please do 👏 and to share it with your friends. Remember, you can clap up to 50 times — it really makes a big difference for me.
