Every year, when classes ended for summer, my classmates and I would dash out of the school building chanting this limerick and glorying in the fact that, for three entire months, we didn’t have to learn a thing!
I remember feeling that exact same anticipation when I put on my cap and gown for my college graduation. No more writing about things I didn’t care about. No more books I didn’t want to read. No more learning. I was done with that. I had paid my dues! After 13 years of school and 4 years of college, I had finally learned enough to succeed in the real world!
I wish.
In the research I’ve done since then, I found that the business world of today is very different from how it was in the past. To compete in the fast-paced global marketplace, businesses now have to be able to adapt very quickly to anything that can affect them. Consequently, these corporations expect their employees to adapt very quickly as well. They want their employees to be educated about the changes occurring in the marketplace… and prepared with the relevant skills.
This means, that if we don’t take learning into our own hands, we “will quickly become unemployed, and unemployable.” Organizations are simply not going to waste time and money training out-of-date employees. If we don’t take initiative on our own to upgrade our skills, we’ll just be laid off.
So when you put on your cap and gown, and receive that very-expensive piece of paper from your college, don’t make my mistake of expecting to be all done with education. Unfortunately, it’s probably just beginning.
Workers just entering the job market will most likely change job titles/functions many times and will be affected by organizational relocations, downsizings and reengineering. Experts predict that young people who are just entering the workplace will have to retrain completely for a new career at least two or three times. That’s a new career! Not a new job in the same field!
So, if we want to be “employable” after college, we can’t put away those books. We’ll have to continue learning our entire working life.
And those “teachers’ dirty looks”? We’ll no longer be getting them from the person who gives us our report card. Now they’ll be from the person who signs our paycheck.
Read More:
Stoltz-Loike, Marian. Adult Career Transitions. Career Development Quarterly. Sept. 1995. Vol. 44. Issue 1. pg 89. 4p pg 89
Thornburg, David. The New Basics: Education and the Future of Work in the Telematic Age. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Alexandria, Virginia. 2002.
Ahlawat, Susan S. and Sucheta Ahlawat. “Competing in the Global Knowledge Economy: Implications for Business Education.” The Journal of American Academy of Business. Cambridge. Vol.8 Num 1. Mar. 2006. Pgs 101-105. pg 102
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