Look & Plan Ahead

Recently, I had the privilege to help assemble an event with my fellow classmates and distinguished professors from Adelphi. At this event, Beyond the first job: Planning for a Career, Professor David Prottas encouraged students to look ahead and plan their own career paths.

“Where do you want to be in five years? How about in ten?” These are some of the questions that Professor Prottas asked the students. This exercise automatically made everyone in the room think about their future. Most people were able to identify what field of work they would like to be in. However, narrowing it down to a specific job, was complicated. A few students were unsure of what they wanted to do. Therefore, they were recommended to take a strong interest inventory test, in order to get an idea of what field of work they might enjoy.

“Lifetime employment is dead. You must treat your careers like your own private businesses,” Professor Prottas told everyone. Just because you are employed by a company, it certainly does not mean that you will be there forever. Switching jobs throughout the industry is common, whether it is for better working conditions, for a higher salary, or for growth opportunities. Therefore, you must take your career seriously, because you are the only one that is in charge of it.

Ok, so where do you begin? This exercise is designed to be fun! Imagine what you would like to be doing in five or ten years. Put salary worries aside, and just let your imagination run wild. Set a goal which must be high enough that it will be a fine challenge. Meanwhile, this same goal needs to be on a “realistic” side, in order for it to be attainable. After setting this goal, take a look at the common career paths that get people to attaining it. For example, if someone wanted to become a Certified Financial Planner in five years, where would one start? For one, a finance degree from Adelphi would be the right step. After completing Adelphi, securing a job with a reputable financial firm in order to gain experience, sounds like a good second step. And this process keeps going until you reach your final goal.

So why do we do this? The best way for me to answer this question, is through the following:

I read this out of Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi, where he quoted Alice Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll:

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”

“That depends a good deal on where you want to go to,” said the Cat.

“I don’t much care where –“ said Alice.

“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.

As you can see from this short conversation, it is vital for everyone to know where they are headed in their life. If one does not care where life takes them, they just might end up in a place that they do not like. However, if that person has an idea of where they want to go – they have a much better chance of getting there and achieving their goal.

I would like to leave you off with a final quote. This quote came from the same book as stated above, written by Mr. Ferrazzi, "As my dad used to say, no one becomes an astronaut by accident."