Duh. Of course you don’t, because you have never done it. Students don’t know what they want to do because they don’t have experience doing things. This sounds obvious, but we continue to miss this point. The reason that this is so difficult to understand is that the first job is one of the largest commitments we make in life without knowing what we are getting into. Think about it. At no other time to we make such an important decision without knowing the consequences of the decision.
Imagine getting married and not knowing what your husband will be like day to day. You know he is a nice guy after meeting with him for a day, you have done online research about him, and your friends say that he is a great person to hangout with. How stupid does this sound? You want to know what you are getting into before you do it. Let me go further. Imagine getting married like this and not even understanding what “marriage” entails.
At no other point in life do you make such an impactful decision based on so little data. Finding a good first job is almost entirely based on luck.
So what do you do if you don’t know what you want to do? The simple answer: do things. Think you want to be a financial advisor? Go to your local UBS and ask a broker if you can follow him around for a week and learn what he does. If you hate it, at least you can cross it off the list. I worked as an accounting intern at a small company after my sophomore year. I worked with an auditing team. I typed accounts receivables into an excel spreadsheet and totaled the number. It stunk. I went back to school and dropped my accounting major like a bad habit. Again, do things. There is no other way around it.
So why don’t more students do things? Is it because they are lazy and stupid? No, it is because the system is not setup to handle them doing things. Think about the UBS example I just gave, how creepy would it be if you actually did that? Doing things is tough. Faculty doesn’t push it. Companies don’t pay for it. No organization organizes it. Nobody really cares except the super smart students, super smart companies, and super smart schools. Princeton has great programs like this and Google has dozens of engaging contest, internships, and work programs.
Do things.
You’re absolutely right on this. We pretty much go into the job-hunting process ready to say “yes” to anything, because our whole lives we’ve been told “go to college, get a job.” The truth is, we should be more selective about starting our careers, so we don’t get a start just to get started. I think you’re really on to something here.