Business Career Employment - Allow Me to Explain Why these Forbes Articles are in this Blog

Signs of the Future

One of the top axioms that should be paramount in the mind of the college-bound avoider of hassles is that you need to calculate the future odds that your college major will pay off with a worthwhile job or career.

This is the Price I Paid for Using Bad Judgement

I didn't do that between the ages of 18 and 22.  I refused to read the handwriting on the wall. My parents wanted me to go to college and study something. So I majored in what I  thought would be a career that would take care of me after graduating.

I majored in Graphic Design and graduated at the age of 22 in 1981.  I failed to break into the industry. I couldn't do paste-ups or mechanics. I was horribly inaccurate and sloppy and I hated it.

I couldn't do packaging either. In fact, I was even worse at packaging than I was in preparing the mechanics (camera-ready artwork).

Thankfully, my father then had a nice family business, a dry cleaning, linen service, and laundry plant. I went in there and spent the next twelve or so years doing the clerical bookkeeping work there.

Also, the student loans were wiped out in eight years.

Now, seeing that I was going to fail in business unless I found a new passion for devoting myself to, and I haven't, I chose to stay single and childless.

I tried taking a few other occupations. Failed at those too. However, there's something I'm pretty good at; that would be writing and work as a computer user and data entry.

So, it hasn't been a total loss. Praised Be the Lord!

Unfortunately, when I was a college student majoring in graphic design, articles such as this one weren't circulating on the internet.

Back in 1980 and 1982, the personal computers were being sold in Radio Shack and nobody back then spoke of an internet.

Moral of the Story

In the final analysis, if there is a message to be taken from all this, it's that you're only hurting yourself when you resist or flee from a reality that's staring you in the face.

If you know that you're not all that good and that the major you're in will not see you through your economic future, get out of there.

Caveat; there are some Grays between those Blacks and Whites

Is it a suggestion to throw in the towel and shrug your shoulders?  No. Not by any means.  That's not what I'm getting at here.

Rather, you need to look at the job market and the forecast reports from the U.S. Department of Labor.

Read magazines such as Forbes and newspaper business sections that discuss the labor market.

It's easy to fall into the temptation to rationalize that it isn't over till it's over and that all we have is right now. We're advised to not get ahead of ourselves, ahead of right now that today is all we have.

Unfortunately, this today which is all we have now - will have become yesterday only 24 hours later. I don't believe in that philosophy. It never worked for me.

Workable Approaches that I Wish I'd Known Then

I do fast forward research.  I think ahead. I'm a long term thinker. I cannot forecast with 100% accuracy by any means.  Instead of that, I induct. I add up facts and then arrive at a conclusion, at a decision.

Words of Wisdom from the Master

Even Jesus Christ advised people to count the money       and to make sure that there's enough of it to finish the construction of the house before laying down the foundation.

Call to Action

That's what I'm exhorting you to do here.