In order to address and manage future income risk post graduation, most of my decisions regarding my education, extra-curriculars, and activities during the summer over the past 2 or 3 years have been geared towards mitigating income risk in the future. I had chosen economics as my major partly because I was not allowed to apply for the school of business after being enrolled in UIUC full time for two semesters as well as I felt that it would lead to opportunity for a wide range of entry level non-technical positions. In all honesty, I had little to no interest in economics but felt it was the strongest major I had the opportunity to join (not allowed to apply to business, credentials not strong enough for engineering as well as both schools having higher tuition) so the decision was wholly based on the idea that I believed that it would open up job opportunities and help mitigate income risk. I am going to be paying all of my student loans on my own, this idea helped push me to make sure the major I chose was directed towards lessening income risk.
Along with choosing my major, I have joined two organizations on campus, became an intern for a start-up on campus, and have interned at a corporation over the summer. Most or all of these decisions have been made for two distinct reasons. One of the reasons had been to explore my interests, as well as grow professionally in order reduce income risk for the future. In terms of decisions I have made related to summer activities, choice of major, and organizations, they have all been made at least partially with the intent of reducing income risk in the future. This has been extremely important to me because of how I have been able to witness the freedom that a high level of income is able to provide. I am not necessarily a materialistic person, however the idea of not having to be anxious about ability to pay bills or debts, supporting family members financially without stress, being able to retire comfortably (and hopefully early), not being limited by capital in order to partake in activities like travel, and much more are freedoms from high levels of capital that seem invaluable. Though long term income risk mitigation is extremely important to me and many of my decisions have been made for that reason, there are times I make decisions that are unwise in terms of these goals for short term satisfaction. Things such as going out with friends instead of doing homework or studying, practicing an instrument instead of doing work for an organization, watching too many shows or videos, etc. are all mistakes I make that get in the way of these goals. I am usually conscious about the fact that I am making an unwise decision, but prefer the short term satisfaction in the moment.
In terms of my older sibling that had entered the job market after her college graduation, I believe that she had handled the situation well as well as finding that there were some very big surprises. The big surprises my sister had seen when she entered the job market were how much of a learning curve there was, and the fact that none of her knowledge from her major had directly translated to her job. Everything she used from college in her job had been almost exclusively soft skills, nothing close to the nitty gritty details of certain things she had to use in a class. She had to start learning as if she had known nothing because of how much information was coming her way from day one. A takeaway for me from my sisters experience had been to keep that in mind, remembering that when I do get a full-time job I will have to most likely be very open to learning and be able to adapt.
Thank you for your honesty in the first paragraph. I'm quite sure many other students in Economics make the same sort of decision. However, on the technicalities of what you wrote, it would have helped me to understand better if you said what you were enrolled in those first two semesters and, given your preferences, how you applied to the U of I out of high school.
ReplyDeleteI do wish you went further in the second paragraph on exploring your interests. You merely mentioned it and then moved on. In particular, there is a question of whether those interests were found in any of the classes you took and if so, which ones. Then you could have drilled down and explained why those are interesting. Likewise you could have done something similar for your extracurricular activities. Here's the reason why this matters for the income risk mitigation. Your performance at work is likely to be higher if you enjoy some part of the work. (There's an 80-20 rule at play here. If 20% of the work you absolutely love, you can then put up with the other 80%. You may hope that the proportions are even higher regarding the part of the work you love, and if you are lucky maybe they will be, but in a job you end up resenting the proportions are much lower.) If you can learn about your preferences from your college experiences you can then batter match your inclinations to what the job market has to offer. A better fit would be a good risk mitigation.
You may not realize that, but in your throw away line - hopefully retire early - you are conveying that you doubt you can achieve some love for work. (Why retire if you enjoy doing what you're doing and you are still physically able to do it?) So I would say what underlies your first two paragraphs is that given your choices were driven primarily by extrinsic rewards in the future, might you nonetheless discover some intrinsic motivate for your studies, your extracurriculars, and your internships. Also, let me now take an opposite view. Suppose you never find anything that really engages you in school or work. Might you have some hobby or non-revenue generating activity (e.g. a type of volunteer work) that captivates you. If so, then you might view the paid work as a way to be able to afford your leisure pursuits. This might be a different approach to sustaining your interest in work.
Given that, what you wrote at the end of paragraph two, about mistakes you've made, perhaps should be reconsidered. (And I, for one, would distinguish practicing a musical instrument, from vegging out watching junk TV.) There are two thoughts here to consider. (1) You can't be always on. You need some downtime to recharge your batteries. The question is whether you have good balance with that or not. (2) If some of what you mention is procrastination, then have you learned anything about how to manage it. Managing it may not mean eliminating procrastination altogether. It may mean instead allowing a modest amount and then giving yourself a break, because you have kept the overall in check.
Regarding your sister's experience, while I have been suggestion to class that the two biggies from college are (a) learning to learn, so you can self-teach new skills to yourself in the future and (b) schmoozing - so you can interact comfortably with others and they enjoy interacting with you. But, how that plays out might depend on the field the person enters. So, without giving away any secrets, you might have said what type of work your sister does. I do want to note that learning to learn takes practice, lots of it. And, in my opinion, students err in many classes by focusing on getting a good grade in the class, yet not using the course as place to practice learning to learn. So the upshot is that if you took that seriously you might go about your studies differently.
I had been undecided in my major for the first year of college, at the end of high school I did not know what I had wanted to do as a career but not entering college was out of the question simply because where I am from college had basically been a requirement for life.
DeleteWhat you mention about enjoying the job is important to me as well, since my performance would probably be much better and that would help mitigate income risk in the long term. I have figured out that there are job opportunities out there where you are always learning, and the problems are always changing. I feel an entry level job where there can be exposure to a lot of different problems and industries will be interesting, as I will be able to learn where I may want to specialize in the future. I have been able to learn this through the organizations I have joined as well as discussing with peers and people who have already entered the work force. One thing I learned as well had been that I am not as picky as I thought I was, usually as long as I can enjoy the people I work with and it is not monotonous the job seems much more doable. Finding something genuinely motivating or interesting would definitely still be important to find.
I hope that I am able to find some type of intrinsic motivation with work I genuinely enjoy and want to keep doing in the future. This has always been the end goal, That seems like a better option than retiring early, but being allowed to retire early would mean that I would have more time for non-revenue generating activities which is usually the time I end up enjoying the most. The different perspectives you offer a very interesting ways to look at the situation.
I agree with the idea that you can't always be on, but I believe a lot of it comes from procrastination and it does hinder how well I want to perform in certain areas. I have slowly been able to become better in certain areas when it comes to procrastination, but I believe the solutions I need to find are to be more disciplined, find intrinsic motivation more often, or both. It would be ideal to always be intrinsically motivated, but that doesn't seem all too realistic.
Using courses as a practice area for learning how to learn and schmoozing is not something that I had really considered, as I have tried using organizations and professional opportunities to attempt to learn these skills. I find it's easier to be able to have more frequent and longer interactions with individuals and teams through these methods rather than classes. I will try to take this into consideration moving forward.