Internships

I keep coming across these internship opportunities, but they all require someone to be in school at the time of application. That is disconcerting to someone like me who is already out of school, but needs field experience. While it's true that I should've taken up an internship while I was in college, at the time I had no idea what field I was interested in, and was still immature enough to think it could be done later. Now I realize that this could be a huge problem keeping young people from getting started, because I'm not the only person to ever change my major, and given the current state of the economy, competition could end up weeding people like me out just because we changed our minds.

My question is, why must the system be so heavily biased toward kids who know what they want to do the minute they graduate from high school? Those of us who change majors midway through college are at a disadvantage because all of our efforts are spent catching up to our classmates, and there is little hope for a job on the side in our new field.

While teaching interests me because of the chance to change other people's futures, the constant repetition of "I'm what not to do" gets tiring, although it seems to be a more widely distributable idea. Perhaps blogging isn't the best way to reach kids these days but high-schoolers seem to respond to the way I present them with the idea of their futures, and how they need to actively participate in shaping them. Maybe a book, or pamphlet knowing my attention span at 17, would help give kids an idea of how mired down you can get if you just do what your parents tell you to do and never develop a passion for anything.

Since I'm well past that stage, it almost seems like it's too late to get started. I don't want other people to get to that point. Parents put a lot of pressure on their kids to do well in school and go to college that often the reasons behind it are lost in the process. Kids need to want to do something with their lives to effectively plot a course to get there - simply saying to a kid "you're going to college" doesn't inspire them to think about for what and why. Granted there are kids who grow up wanting to be a doctor or a veterinarian, but a large number of students these days get to college without a sense of direction - the "everybody does it" rationale.

While getting a college education is the only path to economic viability these days, it needs to be a desire that is nurtured and not an eventuality that might prompt some resistance from a teenager. we weren't all perfect at that age, and teenage rebelliousness can really hurt your chances at discovering your life ambitions these days. It sucks that it starts so young, but it's a fact that kids are being forced to make serious decisions at earlier and earlier stages of their lives.

I saw a story in the New York Times a few weeks ago about parents fighting to get their children into the right preschools, and how that will determine whether their kids get into Ivy league schools. While that is ridiculous, it's important to consider the ramifications of the competitive nature of the education environment today. If teens aren't encouraged to think about their futures in a way that makes the process appealing, their resistance could cost them valuable time better spent working toward their goals.