Interesting Jobs, Uniqueness, & School: How We Are Both Limited And Liberated By The Education System & The Job Market
I was on the train the other day and overheard a man talking about his previous jobs. He mentioned many creative vocations including being a wedding planner and working in marketing. People seem to talk about work a lot on the train. Just yesterday a woman was telling a friend about working at a bank, and a few weeks ago I listened to a whole conversation about apprenticeships. I know teachers, restaurant employees, people who work in banks, or in industry, a councillor, a celebrity hairdresser, quite a few managers, and members of the armed forces. People seem to be doing such interesting and diverse things with their lives. It makes me wonder how they got to doing these things, and especially how one can possibly jump from career to career and excel, despite these careers being largely different.
When we talk to our family we (or they) are always asking after other family members; how they’re doing at school- how many As they have, and finding out about a family members new job. Perhaps your cousin has been head-hunted, or your uncle has changed career for the sixth time and is doing fabulously. My partner’s sister has just found another job that pays fantastically (and like me, she’s a student!) Everything you hear about other people sounds so fantastic. I’ve only had one job. I’m almost 21, and I’ve worked at two fast-food restaurants (same chain) over the course of three years. I wish that I could have the chance to experience different vocations. At my age, and with my limited opportunities though, the chances seem pretty slim. I’d like to try my hand at journalism, marketing, writing professionally, and fashion/games designing, as well as my chosen vocations of teaching and writing for children.
However, these days, we are brought up to study a wide range of subjects, while choosing specialisms per se, but as a young person I find myself limited by the choices that I made when I was too young to know what I wanted out of life, or what my strengths and weaknesses were. I am only just realising that to be good at anything, all you have to do is put in the effort every single day. I could have been a singer or an artist, or a business manager, if I had wanted to be, or been given the opportunity to develop the relevant skills. We have to choose our subjects at age thirteen/fourteen when we think we know what we would like to do with the rest of our lives, before changing our minds later on (in many cases). I chose Geography, ICT and French at GCSE, abandoning the latter when A Levels came along, and wishing I had taken History, but not being able to do anything about it. I have been constrained by an Education system that failed to offer more choice and quantity of subjects to choose. This affected my choice at A Level, My choice of University and course, and ultimately, the rest of my life.
I envy people whose schools offer Accelerated Learning Programmes, a wide breadth of subjects to choose from and more work placements and workshops. There are schools that do offer these fantastic things to the people who want them, but there is a lack of these in many parts of the country where people who would love these opportunities cannot have them. So I listen to the people talking about their multiple careers and business opportunities and wish that I could have had a better chance to put myself out there and be qualified for numerous vocations. For example, I have great love and knowledge of History, but I can never teach it, as I did not choose this subject at GCSE, when I was thirteen. There’s a big world of surprises and opportunity. Dazzling careers await. But how can we be qualified for more than a few of these, and utilize our talents effectively in order to make ourselves attractive to employers?
