Synergy between University Education and Career Paths

Do you work on something that you learned during your undergrad studies? How many of us stay on the same path throughout our careers? Can you predict what you are going to like doing after 10–15 years down the road and make a decision on your study topics accordingly? If you ask me, my answers are, “No”, “Very few” and “No way”.

Universities Are for Learning How to Learn

I believe that undergrad studies, or any institutional studies for that matter, only teach you how to learn something. The actual learning part depends entirely on us. In this day and age, you can learn practically any new skill from the internet. There are more books, videos, and free tutorials available now than at any point in human history. All you need is the initiative to learn. Even employers nowadays are more open-minded and welcome graduates from different domains as long as they have proven skills for the position they are being considered for. So we come back to the question: what is the relationship between university education and career paths if everything is so uncertain and flexible?

Twenties are a waste of time

I was talking to a couple of interns the other day during lunch, and they were all worried about which post-grad courses are better or have better career prospects. They wanted advice on universities, companies, and so on. All I could think was, why are they so stressed out? I mean, I do get it. If you get a good degree from a reputable university, join the best intern programs in the best companies, and have lots of fancy words and titles on your resume, you will definitely get better jobs sooner than those who don’t. But, is it really worth it? Is it really worth going through so much stress and constantly fighting to get the best opportunities just to get ahead in your career?

It reminded me of a podcast I was listening to the other day where Rainn Wilson spoke my mind. I’ll just jot down what he said there because I couldn’t have expressed it any better.

I feel like, especially with young people, you have to live some life. You have to travel, you have to collect experiences, and you have to put yourself out there. I mean, there’s always the kid who at age six knows what he or she wants to do, but that’s really the outlier. This is what I always say to people, “Twenties are a waste of time.” Don’t even worry about it. Don’t try and get it figured out. The point of your twenties is to try 12 different things and fail at nine of them. But truthfully in society right now, you talk to so many college kids and they’re so depressed at 20–21 cause they haven’t gotten the perfect internship over the summer and they’re not pre-enrolled in the perfect grad program and they don’t have their job aligned. You’re asking young people to step off the hamster wheel and that’s pretty scary, especially for a kid who’s been on that track where it’s like, “Get into the right college, get the right job”, And then, “Oh, if I opt out of that then life’s gonna pass me by.” But obviously, it’s quite the contrary.

Twenties, the voyage across a merciless ocean

Once I tried to explain this to someone using an analogy. This new undergrad student, fresh outta high school, was very stressed about choosing a major and comparing everything to their friends and siblings. What I told them was to think of their twenties as a voyage, a journey across the ocean. All of you—your friends, classmates, siblings—think of everyone as new sailors. You all started this journey together from the same port, and all of you are heading toward the same destination: a safe and secure earning source, degrees, and skills that you can leverage for the rest of your life. But you need to cross the ocean on your own ship. Some will get lost, some will encounter many storms, some will stay on course and reach their destination with minimal damage to their ships, while others will barely be alive by the time they reach the shore. That’s how our twenties actually are. Every single one of us has our own journey, path, timeline, and stories to tell. You can never compare any two people’s journeys, even if they start at the same point, because the ocean is merciless, and so is life.

If you really want to compare, do it once all of you reach the shore before you start your next voyage. I have seen best friends fall apart, families and relationships torn apart, and many other storms while people make this journey. I have learned not to even hold grudges against those who fell apart because they were busy keeping their ships afloat in a fierce ocean. So just live your life, enjoy your twenties while you still can, and never, ever compare your journey to others.

Back to where I started: Do you need to study something that you are passionate about? Sure. Do you need to study something that you know you are going to work on for the rest of your life? Absolutely not. Do higher education courses or internships at big companies matter when finding jobs? Yes, they do. Are you going to stay unemployed or fail to get your dream job if you don’t graduate from the best universities or get internships at the best companies? Absolutely not.

Become generalists, not specialists, to not miss out

I think it all comes down to priorities. Nowadays, there are so many specialized programs and courses, and I think this increases competition or confusion amongst the younger generation even more. Somehow I feel that people were happier when there were fewer options. The types of jobs that are available today didn’t even exist 10–20 years ago. People who are generalists and not specialists easily adapted to these shifts in the industry. Technology is moving so fast that you don’t even know what you will have to work with 10 years from now. So why try to predict it so hard?

Amazingly, Gen-Z is so afraid of missing out on the “golden opportunities” that they even coined a term for it: FOMO. What everyone should realize is that life is not something you plan all the way, and if you try to do that, well, then you are missing out on the most important thing—life itself. If you miss out on that, then what are you actually fighting for?

“When you’re young, you have time. You have health, but you have no money. When you’re middle-aged, you have money and you have health, but you have no time. When you’re old, you have money and you have time, but you have no health. So the trifecta is trying to get all three at once. By the time people realize they have enough money, they’ve lost their time and their health.”

― Eric Jorgenson, The Almanack of Naval Ravikant

Rainn talks about having a mission in life, not just a passion. I think that’s a very important distinction everyone should understand. You might want to become a writer, an actor, a pro footballer, or an engineer at FAANG or whatever, but that’s your passion. That alone will not give you ultimate happiness, satisfaction, or fulfillment in life. Instead, try different things, gather experiences, and find your mission and motto to live by. That will stay with you until the day you die.