Advice for academically strong, but directionless daughter

juillet
Sat, 04 Jul 2020 19:03:07 +0000

@Emmycat - I have similar interests as your daughter’s, and I ended up in UX research. I got my bachelor’s degree in psychology and took a wide range of classes that matched up with my interests - across history, health, biology, philosophy and other areas - and then I get an MA and PhD in public health. I did a postdoctoral fellowship for a year and then took my skills into UX research at a large technology company, where I do (and now, manage) research on video games.

I never imagined doing what I do when I first majored in psychology; I didn’t even know the field existed. And, as I say often here, most of the big companies that hire UX researchers now, and pay them very well, didn’t exist (Twitter, Snapchat) or were in their infancy (Facebook, Amazon, Google) when I was in college.

A lot of other people have given great advice (I especially love blossom’s post, #33). I graduated into the Great Recession, so I totally know what it’s like to be in a period of increasing uncertainty about jobs and employment when one is only at the beginning of one’s career. But that’s the nature of the economy - it ALWAYS goes up and down; the difference is how much. Also, even when the rest of the economy is thriving, there are some fields that will not do well because of the speed of technological change or sociopolitical factors (for example, right now tech is hot and everyone’s encouraging their kids to major in computer science or engineering - but tech is in the middle of a gigantic reckoning right now coming from a variety of different angles).

In fact, it’s precisely because we can’t predict the future that I advocate for students studying what they want and following their interests. Intelligent, flexible college graduates can usually develop transferable skills that they can take into new careers and job roles. Planning everything out at the outset may actually be detrimental, as it can decrease a new graduate’s flexibility of mind to consider options they may have never thought of before.

I think your daughter knows what she wants to study but is afraid because it’s a major that’s often viewed as “worthless” and one that doesn’t invite success. My (somewhat snarky) take? That’s what all the big tech companies thought, too, until they realized they’d built social platforms without accounting for people’s social behavior.

I also generally agree with blossom’s take that generalists seem to fare better than specialists in the long run. I think it’s because generalists don’t have a specialized knowledge and are thus forced to think about how their skills and knowledge areas connect with their jobs - and others’ - in deep ways. I didn’t complete my minor in history (too busy taking a bunch of other classes I was interested in!) but I’m consistently surprised at how much my knowledge of and interest history plays a role in my job in tech. But that’s because history isn’t just about memorizing facts; it’s about analyzing how historical events and human behavior shape our world. Any leader can benefit for that.