Recently, I spoke with the children of a few friends from other countries who are trying to decide what to study at university. The world is changing so quickly. Will a field that looks promising today still be a good choice a few years from now? No one really knows. I understand their anxiety, but the more we talked, the more excited I became. I told them, “I truly believe you’re going to be the luckiest generation!”
My generation grew up hearing plenty of advice about which degrees would lead to a bright future and which careers held the most promise. Everyone around us seemed to have an answer. Most of that advice was well intentioned. But as we followed those paths, how many of our choices reflected what we actually wanted?
I recently watched a video about self-awareness. It made the point that some things come so naturally to us that we don’t even think of them as abilities. We may even assume everyone can do them. Only when different people keep telling us, “You’re really good at this!” do we begin to recognize our own strengths. I thought this was a valuable reminder, because we are often so focused on what we lack that we overlook what we already do well.
What excites me most is that advances in technology are giving people more opportunities to develop those strengths. In the past, an idea might never have gone beyond a passing thought because you couldn’t code or couldn’t find someone to work with. Today, with so many tools available, there is much more you can try on your own. You no longer have to wait until everything is in place to get started.
And creating even something small can help you figure out whether you actually enjoy doing it. Some abilities only reveal themselves once you try: “Oh, I can do this!” Often, that is how we gradually find our direction.
So I told these young people that the future would certainly bring plenty of change, along with things to worry about. But it would be a shame if all we talked about was which jobs would be replaced. We have so many tools at our disposal and more opportunities to turn ideas that once existed only in our heads into something real. I’m excited to see what new possibilities emerge when they discover what they truly want to do.
I can’t tell them which degree will guarantee a promising future. But to be able to start thinking about who they want to become at such a young age, and to have the tools to explore those possibilities for themselves, seems incredibly fortunate to me. That is why I feel even more confident about the future of the next generation.
