EDUCATION | Driving tomorrow’s achievements
05 December 2008
About This Issue
“Go for your life,” some American kids are saying today. “Go your own way” and “Do your own thing” are the slogans some songwriters have left us. “Do what you want to do.”
Different cultures and different generations have chanted a lot of mottoes about that stage of life when a person is becoming an adult and making hard choices about the future.
Mottoes like these make it sound like becoming a stand-up adult is a totally excellent adventure. But – reality-check – most young people are also worried about finding some kind of interesting work that also brings them the income to make a comfortable life.
Whether you call it choosing a career, making a living, or just getting a job, everybody would like to find a way to be amped-up about their work and still pay the bills. What’s the secret? No magic words, no mysterious spells will do it for you, but we’ve managed to pin down some advice that might give you some direction.
On the pages that follow, we’ve asked a variety of Americans to tell how they found a path to a career that is right for them and what they learned along the way. They tell the good part, but they don’t leave out the bad moves and wrong turns. You’ll meet people who found their calling while doing very hard work for very little pay. Several will tell you how their families influenced their choices. Others describe years spent going in one direction, only to learn they really had to follow a different path.
This issue also contains some advice from experts who found their life’s work in helping other people find the right careers. They might help you figure out what skills, credentials, and passions you bring to the search for a career.
These stories are all different, but, really, they are all about the same thing: self-determination, empowerment, dreaming your own dream and finding a way to get there.
The Editors
