Steve Jobs, college and talking to your kids about work

Oct 7th, 2011 by OMGchronicles

We are looking at colleges. Well, more accurately, we are not looking at colleges, although we should be. My youngest is a senior in high school and the clock is ticking for things like recommendation letters, applications, testing. It’s overwhelming, yet I feel confident things will eventually fall in place because he knows what he wants to do – baseball and filmmaking, and he’s good in both.

Lucky for him!

My older son has missed the opportunity be a world-class soccer player, mostly because he wasn’t born in a country that goes ga-ga over football. But he’s determined to do something in football. After switching schools and careers, he’s dipping his toe into journalism (if you are the genetic product of an editor and a photojournalist, this is not abnormal) writing his own football blog, contributing the occasional podcast for World Football Daily, and learning the ropes at his university’s radio station.

Journalism? Now? Still, it’s a start. There will always be a need for creative people who can write, edit, investigate, analyze and talk intelligently.

But the world is a crazy place right now, and I don’t know what to tell my kids about work. Well, I do, kind of — go into health care or geriatrics, I say. That’s where the jobs will be. But that isn’t where their passion is, and I get it. Because I have also advised them to do something that they are not only good at, but that they also love (against the advice of my favorite career blogger, Penelope Trunk of Brazen Careerist). Bonus points if it also makes them a decent living.

Whatever career that is, it’s just probably not going to look like what I — a baby boomer — would expect it to look like. That work world is gone, and it’s not coming back.

As I wrote in a column for Mommy Tracked, “Key to Career Success: Divorce,” not too long ago:

The sure-bet careers are disappearing, and as Wall Street Journal “Work & Family” columnist Sue Shellenbarger writes in “Raising Kids Who Can Thrive Amid Chaos in Their Careers,” “The recession is driving home a bitter truth about the 21st-century job market: A tidy, linear path to a secure career is increasingly hard to find.”

It’s hard for middle-aged people like me to deal with that without reinventing ourselves, and many do. But, as Shellenbarger suggests, the skills needed to “ride the job-market surf” — not only the technical and professional skills, but the “squishy” ones — should be taught starting in childhood.

But as I read Shellenbarger’s “squishy” skills— adaptability, exploration, entrepreneurialism — I realized that, as children of divorce, my kids are already way ahead of the game.

Could it be that having to navigate the world of divorce has prepared my kids for the 21st-century job market? Perhaps.

My kids have “squishy” skills; I’m so proud!

I am intrigued by the edupunks who are taking learning into their own hands — we are a DIY world nowadays, after all. I’m also intrigued by the discussions about whether there are better uses for college tuition, like starting your own business, since a bachelor’s degree is the new high school diploma. And I’m inspired by those who have become wildly successful without a college degree, Lady Gaga and Mark Zuckerberg among them. But those tend to be people who are either entertainers or entrepreneurs — or lately, oddly enough, organic farmers. But, what is success nowadays?

I think it’s time that we embrace the idea that success isn’t just about wealth — it’s about building a happy, fulfilling life.

Family, friends, community, meaningful work — this is what comes to mind.

In his 2005 commencement speech to Stanford grads, the amazing Steve Jobs, a college dropout himself and who passed away this week at just 56, talked about how lucky he was that he got fired from Apple — crisis can lead to opportunity — and how lucky he was to do work that he loved:

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. … Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.”

So, what should we advise our kids?

Like my younger son, I, too, knew what I wanted to be “when I grow up” back in high school. Deeply affected by the fledgling environmental movement (yes, I had hippie leanings; please don’t ask to see the pictures), I was determined to save the world. At that time, environmental science was so new only a handful of colleges offered it as a major so I didn’t have to stress too much when I chose the University of Vermont.

Of course, I didn’t end up as an ecologist, and the road from those eco beginnings to journalism was convoluted and often comical. It was not, as Shellenbarger says, a tidy, linear path. I also dropped out, and finally graduated from the University of Miami — about as 180-degree switch from UV as you can get, especially since I graduated during the ’80s cocaine-fueled, disco-balled, “Miami Vice” pastel T-shirted Miami days.

Despite the recent death spiral of traditional media and newspapers, I have had a wonderful career for 20-plus years, doing work that I love (sorry, Penelope, but I’m following Jobs on this one).

Whatever it is that they end up doing, I can only wish the same for my kids.