Uncertain future

This incident took place when I was in my third year of degree college. Our college management had arranged a workshop for all students in the 3rd and final year students. This workshop was about career guidance. Instead of guiding us to choose walhat to do next the speaker made everything look uncertain.

The speaker of the workshop was an ex student from the college, who had started working at a pharmaceutical company. He had completed the graduation just the couple of years ago so he was at a junior position. Yet he stood on the stage and gave the speech as if he had years of experience. The jist of his speech was:

• Life after college is difficult (which we already knew).
• Nobody is going to be supportive (nobody is supportive even in the college).
• Your education is not going to help you (then why are we studying?)
• Your degree is useless (but you got the job with that useless degree, isn't it?)

The workshop did more damage than good. After the workshop all the student felt completely demotivated. We felt as if we are wasting our time by studying and continuing with this stream. We all regretted choosing this education stream over other options at that time. The workshop watch so bad that our principal had to pitch in and ask the speaker to stop (I heard that the ex student was banned from speaking at college events - good riddance).

But that workshop left a deep impact on all the students who had attended it. We all felt as if there is no future for us. The workshop planted a seed of uncertainty in our young minds. We all started questioning if there is a future for us. We all started worrying what we are going to do once we complete our degree.

After that workshop there was a lot of clean up and damage control that our management required to do. They had called up several ex students who had been very successful in their careers. These students would turn up to the college and would it tell us that there is still a future for us. They would give us certain career options. They would use their own example to tell us that they were successfully and were able to bag the job offer purely based on the degree. They would also tell us that there will be more career options opening within next few years. Despite several good examples we still there in doubt because of the first speech we heard in the workshop.

As we were close to completing our education everything started becoming more uncertain. The reason was the 2007 recession. Unfortunately that time when we were about to join the industry the great recession had hit the market. This made everything look bleak. With each passing day, we were hearing the news of layoffs and companies shutting down making us for the believe that after we complete our education their may not be any job opportunities for us.

Fortunately none of that was true. I was worried about my uncertain future yet when I started searching for the job I became aware that there was nothing to worry. I had gotten my degree in July 2008 and I had a job offer by the end of that month. I started working from August itself. That made me realise how the world actually functions and how the future was. It was anything but uncertain.