A Word about Careers and College Education
As a kid, I heard the word career quite a bit. Find something to do for work that earns you money, and do that for the rest of your life. Finding a career path was important even as work changed in the 1980s. Will you be a doctor, a lawyer, a teacher, or a janitor?
I went to a college, the University of Pennsylvania, which was a factory for pre-professionals, particularly in medicine, law, and business. It was and still is a large university, so these weren’t the only vocations students pursued. But those who did follow those three paths were the most vocal, if not the most common.
Even English majors were likely to go to law school. And Wharton undergrads commonly went on to Wall Street or other endeavors focused on making money. I never once considered any of these avenues seriously. I now realize one of my significant problems was that I didn’t find the right mentor. I didn’t find someone, either a graduate student or a professor who I connected with strongly, who could provide professional advice.
Instead, I lost myself in a sea of other people, trying to make my way without anyone guiding me. I couldn’t see any way around these people; they were there, the masses, floating toward a future I really couldn’t see. There was something that others did notice, though, that didn’t have so much to do with practicality as it had to do with money.
I knew how to work. I knew how to learn. I had focus. And still. There was a whole other side of me that knew that there were things wrong with the world and that I had to try to do something to change them. But I also felt that there was something wrong with how my intellectual connections didn’t link with organizational practices.
It wasn’t until later I began to think about how the working world has consumed our foundational assumptions about education. Education is about deep thinking and considering what the future of society should be, and work is about keeping things moving.
However, work has come to dominate how we think about education, not in a good way. Rather than learning about who we are and where we come from and exploration of our surroundings, we focus on churning people out for a workforce run by organizations with questionable motives, or at least motives that are not transparent.
Education has turned towards market rules rather than supporting the individual, community, or citizenship. Education is a commodity now, with plenty of data points and opportunities to make money for specific organizations. As a result, operating within the education system requires self-assuredness. If you don’t know what you want out of it, the system will decide what it can get out of you.
If you know why you’re going to college and not simply going because it’s what’s expected of you, there’s no question that you will be more focused and successful. If you don’t know why you’re there or don’t see what you want to get out of it, you will either get pushed down a career path you don’t like, or you will float along for a time without having any focus.
I valued my education. In college, I got exposed to ideas that challenged my traditional notions of the US. I was also merely presented information as though it were dogma. I did not find those latter classes as enjoyable, nor did I do as well in them. The lessons I did best in were focused on my reading and analysis of text.
The difference between reading and action is great. There can be no question about that. The problem is that much of the working world is not concerned with understanding the basis of their work. Companies, non-profits, and governments always try to decontextualize themselves or work based on a context they have created and don’t want questioning.
At most workplaces, when you bring an idea for action outside of that organization’s philosophy, it’s almost like you didn’t go to college. College education becomes useless because organizations generally don’t value that kind of education. Organizations want people with skills and experience in their organization or similar organizations, like people who know how to set up successful Google Ads and work for a marketing agency. Or maybe someone skilled at using QuickBooks and worked for Accenture. Or perhaps someone who knows how to effectively hire and fire people, with experience at a consulting company.
Education has been pushed to be almost exclusively skills-based, which is undoubtedly good for industry. But it isn’t good for humans who want to live in a safe, tolerant world. This has happened because employers have the money, and as anyone who has been to college and graduated knows, colleges and universities need money.
Before, during, and after college, students and alums think about money. How will they pay for college, what will they major in to make money, and then when they leave, how can they have a career to make the most money possible?
Yes, okay, this is an extremist viewpoint, as our country and world are diverse, and people have varying motivations for undertaking an education. However, I will note that a college professor friend stated that the number of history majors across the country had dropped so dramatically that some colleges may consider shrinking their history departments as much as possible.
Why? Because students themselves are focused on their work and preparing for work culture.
Work culture is dominated by two things: money and technology. For most organizations, no matter what they do, these items take up excessive time. To do the work, money, and technology are essential. No one works for free, and everyone, no matter what they do, uses technology to get their job done.
Technicians are valued. They accomplish tasks. They take orders. Maybe they believe enough in an organization’s work to rise within that organization. Do you see what motivates students?
And technical skills do matter. I don’t mean to suggest that they don’t. But merely that everything about our education now is pushing us more towards the technical needs of organizations. But we must devote educational space to understanding ourselves and our world and using that as a basis to make good decisions about our collective future, whether acting within our communities or as parts of orga
