High school wasn’t all that bad.
Some of my favourite memories involved playing soccer at lunchtimes, learning about plays like Death of a Salesman in class and getting involved in extra stuff like debating and jazz band.
TFW you just really love jazz
But since graduating last year, I’ve thought more and more about how strange of a place school is, and how it doesn’t really reflect life after you leave.
At school, your days are planned out for you. You’re told what to do, when to do it, how to do it, then assessed. There’s even a bell telling you when to eat.
Uniforms.
Recess. Lunchtime. Assembly.
Lesson 1, 2, 3, 4. Grades. “Mr and Ms.”
After school sport. Homework. Stress. Deadlines. Sleep deprivation.
9-5, Monday-Friday. Over and over and over.
It’s a place where the only adults present are teachers, so there’s a lot of emphasis placed on academia. This can be really stressful, especially if your niche isn’t at a desk or if your version of “smart” doesn’t fit into school subjects.
You’re surrounded by other teenagers who are all going through puberty, which means looks are REALLY important. The “popular group” are the sexy ones, the party-goers and sometimes can be pretty mean if you’re not as cool as they are.
This is weird for two reasons:
1) life in the real world isn’t like that;
2) the future DEFINITELY isn’t like that!
When you leave school, the days aren’t planned out for you. Nobody tells you what to do. This new freedom is liberating, but can also be pretty scary.
No matter how you put it, this new, quirky world is vastly different from the schooling bubble, forever morphing and changing. The rules are gone.
There’s no strict timetable for different classes. You rarely call people “Mr” or “Ms.” You eat WHENEVER YOU LIKE, complete deadlines in your own time and get whatever work you can.
If you wag school, you have to face up to a teacher. But if you wag work in the real world, the only person who it’ll really affect is yourself.
School isn’t teaching us what we can expect in the future, where you spend 5-6 years with the same year level and teachers. Today’s youngest workers will hold 15 to 20 jobs in their lifetime! There’s no way around it: you’ll HAVE to be around different employees and employers, often.
What’s more, the people you meet in the workforce will be wonderfully diverse. Diverse in age, culture, background, religion, gender, sexuality, sporting ability, looks, talents.
There’s no pressure to be as stylish as Kim or Kanye when you rock up at work, like it was in school. People don’t care what type of a person you are, just what skills you have and the respect you show others.
This is particularly important in getting your first few jobs. 70% of young people will enter the labour market into jobs that will be lost or automated. So having unique, transferrable skills will be even more important than ever.
In other words, differentiate yourself! Get new skills and develop your identity! Don’t just rely on school to get you a job – try new things to build up your resume and talent-base. Don’t be afraid to go against the grain. Just DO it!
So go out, experiment, try something new! In this new and open world there are SO many options to explore. The world is what you make of it.
The future of work is all about being adaptable and learning skills which can throw you into new environments. Places with diverse people, where diverse skills are needed to thrive.
So if you’re at high school and contemplating the bizarre land where you go every day to perform rituals, conform and mingle with teens and teachers, you’re not alone!
In our minds, high schools have a big task ahead of them if they’re going to provide the skills that young people will need in the future.
So if we agree that school is a place where the structure doesn’t reflect the real world, where conformity is valued higher than diversity and where the all-important transferable skills of the 21st century aren’t being taught, then schools really need to change, fast.
The post Why Life After School Isn’t What You Expect appeared first on FYA.