Educating Yourself for the Future§1 In the past, Americans have been led to believe that a college education assures them of a good job. (1) … rapidly changing occupational and social conditions, (2) …, there is no longer any guarantee of the future value of a college degree. Ten or twenty years ago, college graduates could pick and choose from a variety of careers, but today’s college graduates have much more competition for higher-status career openings. §2 The situation is not so bleak as it might seem, however. Unemployment among college graduates is significantly lower than among high school graduates. § 3 (3)… a college degree still has considerable value, one thing is clear – college graduates must take a more aggressive approach to educating themselves for the future. There are several ways to do this. (4)…, instead of viewing college as the end of your educational experience, you should view it as a basis for experimenting with future educational possibilities. § 4 “For education the lesson is clear: its prime objective must be to increase the individual’s ‘cope-ability’ - the speed and economy with which he can adapt to continual change… It is no longer sufficient to understand the past. It is not even enough to understand the present, (5)… the here-and-now environment will soon vanish. You must learn to anticipate the directions and rate of change. You must, (6) … technically, learn to make repeated, probabilistic, increasingly long-range assumptions about the future”. (Alvin Toffler, 1970: 403) §5 Educating yourself for the future also means being prepared to enter an occupation for which college has not specifically trained you. One study of college graduates found that most liberal arts majors – English, psychology, art, sociology, history – who are now employed as managers are generally quite satisfied with their jobs. You must also be willing to retrain and to enter an entirely new occupation, such as moving from a bank teller to a computer operator or computer programmer. § 6 (7)…, pre-career experimentation is advisable. Sometimes people find a job in their chosen work setting other than the one they are trained for to be more interesting. The best time to find out which position you’d actually prefer, however, is before you invest two or three years getting specialized skills. Volunteering your time in a work situation similar to the one you think you’d like would be helpful. (8)… perhaps you could obtain a summer or part-time job doing this type of work. § 7 (9)…, educating yourself for the future should also include the nonworking side of life. As formal schooling has increasingly become linked to employment, people have come to believe that educational activity not directly associated with their future careers is a waste of time. But current trends suggest that you should pursue hobbies and other interests that are not directly related to your career. (10)…, people in modern societies are spending fewer hours on the job. (11)…, many people retire at an earlier age than their grandparents or parents. Finally, careers have become so specialized that people may develop only a narrow part of their abilities and interests. (12)…, it would be wise for you to begin developing aspects of your personality that are not related to the type of work you expect to be doing while you are at school. Many high schools, colleges, and universities sponsor noncredit courses and seminars in personal development, photography, art, literature, alternative lifestyles, and the like for those no longer in school. Use these offerings as a means for pursuing longstanding interests or for developing new ones.
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