Education

  Star Education Fair

Sunday August 17, 2008

Clueless in college

By SARAH CHEW

Some students “lose their way” as they try to navigate their path from passion to profession.

IN Bee Movie, swarms of worker bees attend college for a few days, and graduate to work in a monopolistic company, Honex Industries, to produce honey. But the main bee character, Barry B. Benson, horrified that he might end up working in the same position all his life, flies out of the hive and enters a whole new world.

He finally ends up as a lawyer advocating for animal rights but not before he sued the human race for “stealing” their honey and nearly killed all the flowers in the world.

You may say, “Ha, ha, how cute” ... but this scenario reflects a dilemma faced by many students today, as they find themselves in the valley of decision, with either too few or too many road signs.

Melbourne University graduate Felicia Cheong was asked this question: “If someone were to ask you ‘what do you intend to work as?’, what will you say?”

The 21-year-old lass replies; “I’d open my eyes wide and go: ‘I don’t know, we’ll see how things go.’”

“It’s depressing, trying to decide on a right choice,” says HELP University College (HELP) student Alicia Lim Hong Geok, 20.

“It’s hard to determine the course or career that is ‘the one’ for me.”

Graduates or students like Felicia and Alicia are just one of many in this predicament.

Your choice, their choice

Most students know what they like but not necessarily what they are good at.

Newcastle University student Lor Kin Ming, for instance, does not know what his strengths are but aims to get as much experience as he can so that he can discover, in time, where his forte lies.

DR WAN: A career choice guided by interest and passion is best.

Others may have an idea of what they would like to do, or where they would like to end up in life, but are clueless on how to get there.

“I think the problem is, many of us have dreams and desires but are held in check by ‘reality’,” says Felicia, who loves writing and music but doubts this passion can earn her a good living.

“Most of the time, we work in order to have the means to live out our dreams in our spare time. Since that’s the case, any job that’s bearable will do the trick.”

Alicia knows she wants to be the CEO or president of her own company one day.

“It’s all about making money but there are lots of ways to make money, and I don’t know which is best,” she says.

Some students readily admit that they get confused, and sidetracked, by the “parent factor”, especially parents who try to realise their vicarious ambitions through their children.

“Parents may project what they want to do unto their kids. For example, they may want to be lawyers but never had the chance to study law, so they urge their children into this field,” says Talent Plus Asia Pacific managing director Dr William Wan.

“The child may end up becoming a lawyer after sheer hard work but he will just be a mediocre lawyer.”

A firm believer in aptitude and passion as key factors for optimum job performance, Dr Wan points out that parents can actually hinder children from realising their full potential.

INTI College Subang Jaya student Ahmad Mustaqim Arifin, 22, wants to be either a musician or a personal trainer, but could further his studies in neither of these fields.

“My parents want me to have a degree in something else besides music, which sucks because it’s wasting four years of my life,” the marketing and management student says, adding that he was actually accepted into Berklee College of Music in the United States.

CAREERsense@HELP offers tests that students can take to enhance self-awareness.

“I’m just going to finish my course and then do whatever I want.”

He was one of those who switched courses from architecture when he realised he couldn’t do mathematics and didn’t want to be “stuck in there (the programme) for seven years.”

One Academy student, Preethi Nair, 20, has loved drawing since she was in secondary school.

The graphic design and illustration student declares: “I want to be a creative director sooner or later and open an animation studio with friends.”

But she did not come to this decision easily.

“When I was in Form Five, I was confused because my parents kept pressuring me to take up engineering, and I had a list of 24 careers I wanted to do!” she quips.

ROSHAN: There is no such thing as a ‘wrong job’ as every job is a learning experience.

Preethi’s father, Gobindanathan Nair, admits that he “psycho-ed” his first two daughters into taking up safe and “professional jobs” in accountancy and engineering. He says he was appalled when he first heard that Preethi wanted to do advertising design.

“I had never heard of such a course. I asked Preethi, ‘What the hell is that? Can you get a job?’” he recalls, adding that he wanted her to try out chemical engineering.

He worries about whether his children can earn a decent living and put food on the table, especially since, like many parents, he is spending a good part of his life savings on his children’s education.

“We’re investing a lot of money in you,” he says.

“You’d better make sure you know what you’re doing.”

Is it a problem?

Johnson & Johnson director of global talent management in Asia Pacific Roshan Thiran does not think students being clueless is a problem.

On the contrary, he views it as a natural by-product of a culture that is increasingly characterised by fluidity and change.

“Today’s youth are growing up in a markedly different world, a world where information is easily available,” he says. “At any point in time, they have 20 different role models who studied one thing but did another.”

He points out that companies should change to accommodate the new generation that desires flexibility and “wants to do different things.”

Roshan, who founded General Electric’s Financial Management Programme Malaysia and has been in the training business for years, explains that when an individual plateaus in performance, he gets bored and craves new experiences.

He believes that top talents are leaving the country for this reason and that is why multinationals are now offering flexibility to retain productive employees.

Gerard believes students should not leave career choice to chance

However, HELP’s career guidance and testing centre CAREERsense@HELP’s director D. Gerard Joseph Louis believes that students should have a sense of what they want to do by the time they enter college, instead of wasting time and resources to find out along the way.

He thinks career guidance should start in primary school but unfortunately, many students are just too preoccupied with exams, friends and having fun, to think about their future then.

“We ask typical Form Five students what they want to do and the standard reply is, ‘wait for exam results’. After the SPM results are out, we ask them again and they say ‘wait for A-Levels results’,” he explains.

“Then, at the 11th hour, 59th minute and 58th second, they come and ask us, ‘what should I do?’”

“Your career choice will affect you for the next 30 to 40 years, so you can’t leave it to chance or economic factors,” he advises, adding that he had seen students taking up information technology, thinking its job prospects were bright but then the IT bubble burst and many were left stranded without jobs.

Students are guided by different motivations. From left: Preethi is keen on a career that is in line with her passion for art, Steven wants status and flexibility of time, while Alicia says its all about money.

Gerard notes that in countries like the Philippines and the United States, information on careers is embedded in the school curriculum and students sit for psychometric tests at various stages of school.

“If I were a teacher there, I would have a whole file on you by the time you finish secondary school — your psychometric test results, what you did, how your personality has changed over the years ... and I would be able to advise your parents: ‘your child has an inclination towards this’,” he says.

Guiding goals

Dr Wan, however, feels that while worries about having a solid “rice bowl” are understandable, a career choice guided by interest and passion often results in a win-win situation.

“If my grandson is really talented in cooking and goes into this field, he will go far. He is likely to end up as an outstanding chef and make the kind of money that top people make.

“On the other hand, if he enters a field he does not like, he will probably end up as a mediocre performer struggling to make a living.”

Dr Wan agrees that Asian parents play a huge role in their children’s career choices.

“I would advise parents to observe their children and talk to them. Ask them to write down five things they enjoy doing. And then, since you know your kids best, pick out the three things you think they’re good at. From there, you can determine their aptitudes and possible careers.”

“For instance, if a child is good at chess and enjoys it, he is obviously intelligent and competitive, and has the ability to think ahead. This would make being a lawyer a good choice.”

Ahmad Mustaqim feels that students should be allowed to pursue their passion.

“You have to do what you really like and not waste time dabbling in things you don’t,” he says.

Roshan, however, has a different take on “wasting time” as he believes what’s important is the training one gets. He says the best finance staff he has ever hired were people from IT backgrounds as they are trained to think differently from others.

“The key thing is to be self-aware so that you can build on what you are good at,” says Roshan, adding that it took him eight to 10 years of working in finance and human resources before he found his real passion, which is building leaders.

“You never have a ‘wrong’ job, you always learn something new,” he adds. “I knew I wasn’t good at details but my boss told me to stay on in finance so that I learn to be more detail-oriented. That way, if I do what I am passionate about later, I can do it well.”

His advice to those who are still uncertain about their path in life is to continue actively searching.

“Go and experience different things, meet up with people in the industry, take up internships,” he says.

“And if you’re still confused, try out a job but don’t do this for just a few weeks – you have to keep at it for at least six months because when you start, you understand neither the boss nor the culture and may not perform well.”

Gerard feels that career guidance can help students make informed choices since they would be able to discover their personalities, mental capabilities and values, and match these with the field of work.

CAREERsense@HELP offers tests such as the General Interest Structure Test (AIST), Basic Intelligence Function (IBF) and Eysenck Personality Profiler V6 (EPP6).

But there are people who feel that all the talk about youth needing help to decide on careers is just hype and a phenomena among the middle and upper income groups, whose needs have changed from “survival” to “finding meaning in life”.

Monash University student Steven Low Yik Pui, 20, agrees. He is brimming with ideas on how to start a business but feels that many of his more priviledged peers are “lost” because they are over-pampered and think nothing of wasting their parents’ money.

The difference becomes apparent from student Shanthinigauthami Thangraju’s comments.

The Universiti Malaya student, whose father is a security guard and whose mother is retired, is very focused on what she wants to do.

“I want to become a teacher so that I can help rebuild society. I’d like to start with the young so that I can change their mentality,” she says. “I also want to be respected by others in society.”

Here is one youth who knows where she is heading in life.

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