Today's answer will be a medium-sized quickie.
We're answering an email from a soon-to-graduate high school student, whom we will call Sitang (yes, folks, it's short for "balasitang", which is Ilocoslovakian for "hottie-to-be"), who wants advice on what course she should take in college.
Here's what she had to say (by the way, in case you folks want to know why I paraphrase emails, it's because we want to preserve the anonymity of our letter writers, and so that the text won't take up too much space):
I'm a student in an private non-coed school in chaos central (JEM: Ew.), who is graduating with honors this year. Do you have any advice as to how to choose my course in college?
p.s. I won't ask you for advice in choosing schools as it's obvious you're pro-UP (JEM: Huh? Where did THAT come from?), and my parents won't let me study there.
Hokay. Everyone, stop snickering now.
Most guidance counselors I know or have had usually said something along the lines of "play to your strengths". I think it's good advice, basically; however, I don't think the decision can be made with only that in mind.
Before we go into our answer, let's make two assumptions:
- Sitang is fairly mature for her age, and is capable of forward-thinking (for lack of a better term)
- Sitang is one of those kids who excel (or at least don't have too much trouble) with anything they do (but is not necessarily a Mikaela Fudolig-clone)
With that in mind, let's answer her question. I can think of a pair of mental exercises that may help if done together.
Reverse engineering
Remember, Sitang, that it is in your best interest to get into a college course that will be useful to you after graduation and longer than that; thus, you must look a wee bit farther into the future than the day you get the parchment.
Try this (although I admit it's not easy for anyone, really):1. Picture yourself when you are of retirement age (now, whether you want to retire at 30 or 60 or somewhere in between is something you must choose).
2. Picture from what sort of career you've retired from. For instance, picture yourself to be the next CEO of Google.
3. Figure out what you need to have on your future resume so that you'd become that position.
4. Picture yourself on the next rung below on your career ladder.
5. Repeat step 3, then step 4, then step 3, and so on, until you find your mental image where you are now. (It sometimes helps if you write it down.)
You'll notice that in this exercise you'll be able to get an idea of the college course you might consider taking.
Skills and weaknesses inventory
Unfortunately, even the preceding exercise could very well be misleading, if one does not take an honest inventory of one's strengths and weaknesses, so as to find out what courses one could excel in.
There are some courses that one should not consider taking, if such courses do not take advantage of one's strengths, and especially if such a course will lead to a career where one cannot perform too well due to one's weaknesses.
For instance, one probably should not consider taking medicine if one passes out at the sight of blood. One probably should also not consider engineering if one's mathematical ability is such that one answers "Three!" to the statement "If you can guess how many chocolates I have in my bag, I'll give you both of them."
(Wait a minute -- wasn't that an old joke involving two students from La Salle, where the other one says "Daya mo! You peeked"? Heh. Never mind.)
(Oh, and before I forget, Sitang -- if it's what you really want, don't let an absolute lack of talent stop you from trying to be an artista. After all, far too many successful local actresses have killer looks, but little else.)
Aaaanyway... One should definitely consider taking courses -- leading to one's long-term goals, of course, figured out from the previous exercise -- that maximize one's strengths. If one is a people person, perhaps a business course would be a good choice; if one is good with drawing, one should maybe consider fine arts or architecture.
(And, if one is pretty enough, one just might qualify to be an Uste Arki student -- thinking back to the last time I visited the place, I can't recall a female architecture student of the University of Santo Tomas who wasn't at least pretty; heck, a lot of them were drop-dead gorgeous. Of course, that last visit was nearly a decade ago; admission standards may have changed. Pity if they had, of course.)
Simply put: don't make the mistake of getting into anything you'll want to quit later, if your reason for quitting is because the course wasn't a good enough fit for the talents and limitations you have.
These two activities aren't too hard to do, are they?
There is, however, an easy way out of having to worry about one's course -- and I think the chances are that you won't regret it (too much).
'Nuff said.
I'm wondering which of the emails I have right now will be next on deck -- there's one that's fairly rated-R, there's another that should have been sent to the docs in white coats, there's this one that seems to be from Laarni Enriquez...
Wait, no, that one's just spam.
Later, all.
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