Occupations Explorations
One of the things that I never got as part of my education was a grasp of all the various professions and industries that make up the economic engine of our civilization. It was really only after I graduated from college and started working that I got a taste of all the different kinds of jobs and industries out there. And honestly, I never got a chance to explore how I might fit into all the various professions and industries. I'd wager that most people don't get that chance in their entire lifetime.
That's why I'm doing what I'm doing this summer. This summer is about finding out everything I can about as many industries and professions as I can find. When I started thinking about this, I realized just how little I knew about the jobs out there, how people did them, and how they fit into a bigger picture. And I've had a lot of experience working in a lot of different industries, so I would say that I know far more about a lot of industries than the vast majority of people out there. This is from my previous jobs, as well as the experience I've gained from my education and in my informal contacts with people.
Why are we taught everything in school except for what's truly important in life? Looking back on my education, this is the one area that it failed me. But I got what most would consider a top-notch education throughout my life... does this mean that the system failed everyone? Unfortunately, from what I've been able to gather in this informal study, yes, it has.
The explorations of occupations need to go beyond "this is what a fireman does" and "I want to be an astronaut one day." Never once in my entire educational history did I get the chance to learn about, say, how each person that touches an advertisement in the newspaper gets involved in its production, from the idea to the copy writer, to the photographer, to the layout editor, to the graphic designer, to the ad agency executive, to the sales account manager at the paper, to the pressman.... etc.... WHY???
How am I supposed to find out how I can contribute to our society if all I'm taught is how to add, subtract, take integrals, the history of Valley Forge, the effect of antihistamines, LaPlace transforms, the Gauss-Green Theorem, the Hall Effect, GaAs doping, the half-life of Radium, ortho-para directors, truth tables, stochastic forecasting, how to read a balance sheet, GAAP, the biometric properties of Polymethylmethacrylate... but not a peep about the jobs that are available to me and how I can fit into them? (Yes, I learned all those things and more in my education.)
In short, I was given all the tools I needed to build a meaningful contribution to society, but I was left out in the woods without a clue where I could go to apply the wonderful tools I'd been given.
Maybe y'all made your explorations years ago, when you were still kids thinking about what you wanted to do when you grew up. But I personally feel like I got jipped out of that because I never got a real chance to see what all these things were about... so how could I know what I wanted to be when I grew up? Did everyone else get to explore all the jobs out there when they were in high school? Or did they, like me, choose a major half based on what their parents and friends thought, and half based on what they thought they were good at (and enjoyed) in school?
Well, I've decided to take this time to do this exploration now, when I still have time to take. There is a place I will be able to make a meaningful contribution to our society, in a place that I enjoy, and in an industry that I find exciting. I am going to take the time, money, and effort now to find it. I've been contacting certain target people I've personally identified as starting points, but now I want to broaden this effort by asking you to contribute to my explorations.
I want to know what you do for a living, what industry you work in, what role you play in making your contribution, how you view your work and your life, how you view your company, how you view the greater picture from where you stand in your job, and most of all, I'd like have a dialogue about your perceptions. If you'd like to respond with a comment, that's great, but really I'd like to speak with you or at least exchange some e-mails. If you wouldn't mind giving me some of your time, please e-mail me at 0307fet@jetlin.com.
Thanks, and I hope that my explorations end up benefitting far more than just myself.
Comments
This is one area where my high school completely failed. Heck, my guidance counselor didn't even help me prepare for college; it was my teachers, not my guidance counselor who suggested AP exams. So in high school, the only things I had to base my future on was what my parents suggested, what my grades suggested and watching what my friends were doing.
Elementary and middle school were different however. We had career shadowing day where we followed our parents; we had a project where we had to pick a job from the want ads in the paper and form a budget based on that income; we had aptitude tests. Before reading your post, I didn't realize just how much career prep I had prior to high school. Of course, I'm not in the line of work suggested to me by my junior high aptitude tests and I'm not 100% happy with my job so maybe there's a connection...
I hope you don't suffer from information overload this summer. Are you using the classified ads as part of your research? You would be amazed how many different jobs are listed in there. Also, every time you purchase something, think about the components that make up the cost and think about all of the people involved. It's quite amazing how many people deal with something as simple as a garbage bag between the raw materials and the final product you buy in the store; not to mention what happens to the bag after you fill it and throw it away!
Posted by: Brian | July 8, 2003 7:17 AM