Education 2.0: Prepare for a Career That Works

By Penelope Trunk

All good things come to an end eventually -- even your college days of unlimited, high-bandwidth internet access, all-you-can-eat cafeteria food and cushy, part-time library jobs. But what to do about it? Considering that much of what you learn now will be obsolete by the time you graduate, it's tough to know what courses will best prepare you for the life of a working stiff.
But don't despair: Pick wisely and you'll be well-positioned for work life by the time you graduate. Here are some of the fastest-growing jobs and how you can prepare yourself for them by graduation day.

Ophthalmologist
Seemingly overnight, ophthalmology has become one of the most popular specialties for medical students. Why? Quality of life. It's a medical field where you can set up practice on your own and control your own hours. And let's be real, how many ophthalmological emergencies will there be in a given year?
Preparation: Work your tail off in college. Ace the most competitive pre-med courses and get yourself into a top medical school. When it comes to getting opthamology fellowships, you're competing against students from all medical schools, so yours had better be good.

Medical Assistant
In the list of top 10 fastest growing professions from the Bureau of Labor, five of them involve serving baby boomers as they grow old. (As if the world has not been serving baby boomers since the day they were born.) Here are some of the top 10: Home health aide, medical assistant, physician's assistant and dental assistant. These are the types of jobs that pay decently and but don't seep into the rest of your life.
Preparation: Meditation. Because what else will get you through the boredom, monotony and complaining that comes with this sort of job -- to say nothing of people dying on you? Seriously, meditation has been shown to decrease stress levels at work, and many colleges teach courses on it.
One warning: Job burnout does not come from long hours, it comes from not being able to have an impact at work, according to Ayala Pines, author of Career Burnout: Causes and Cures. The fastest job burnout is in burn units because nurses can't alleviate pain. Thus, it's not hard to imagine that providing medical assistance to the terminally ill might be a rapid ticket to disenchantment and burnout.

IT Project Manager
Companies pay a lower hourly rate when they farm IT projects out to India (or Ecuador or Uzbekistan), but they'll take a big financial hit if the project gets messed up. That's why project management is so critical. "I only send out to India the work that I'm sure I could do myself, just not as cheaply," says Cory Miller, who builds websites for businesses. Dozens of horror stories detail web development gone bad because of literal translation in India of unclear directions from the United States.
IT jobs where you don't have any contact with people will mostly be sent overseas, but the jobs that involve cross-department negotiation and project management will become even more important -- and will remain in the United States.
Preparation: A computer science degree is helpful. But the degree doesn't mean you can project manage across corporate (and national) borders. The business team and the technical team never got along when they were sitting next to each other in the United States so you will need the negotiating skills of a United Nations delegate to make these relationships work overseas. Take a negotiating course if you can, get good grades in computer science courses, and force yourself to go to parties often so you learn to interact with people.

Blogger
Journalists can no longer build a career by hiding behind a masthead. The internet has made hardcore news a commodity. The way to stand out -- and have a sustainable career as a journalist -- is to have a strong opinion and a strong voice. A blog showcases you as someone who can make sense of news in a unique way.
Preparation: Spend less time on coursework, because unless you're going to graduate school, your grades don't matter. And you don't need to go to grad school to be a journalist. This route will leave more time for you to start blogging in college and jump into the work world with a strong following already established (plus a public record that you can write and report the news).

Solo Practitioner Lawyer
The idea of working hard to pay your dues as a lawyer is outdated. The Wall Street Journal says the latest law firm trend is "de-equitization," which is a fancy word for kicking a partner in the pants and throwing him or her out the door. Since there is no longer a safe ladder to climb in big law firms, people will stop climbing and set up shop on their own.
Warning: Lawyers are the most unhappy of all professionals, according to the Colorado Law Journal. But people who work for themselves are among the most satisfied workers, according to Dartmouth economist Daniel Blanchflower (.pdf). Add the two together for a more balanced work life.
Preparation: Success as a lawyer is increasingly about client relations rather than providing Alan Dershowitz-style genius legal representation. Take some marketing courses in college since that's what you'll be spending time on once you hang out your shingle.

Entrepreneur
Corporate life is still set up for you to pay your dues, and then earn a huge salary for working long hours. But who wants that? In fact, the Harvard Business Review reports that baby boomers are the only ones who like working corporate jobs that require more than 60 hours a week. Why pay dues for a job you don't want anyway? Start your own business instead.
Preparation: Start doing it in college. The best way to learn how to be an entrepreneur is to be one. Even if you fail the first time (or two or three), you'll be learning.
And graduate early if you can. More than half the college students today take more than five years to graduate, according to Bill Copin, author of the book, 25 Ways to Make College Pay Off. But, he says, "There is almost never downside to graduating early," and each extra semester just adds to your debt -- which limits the type of work you can afford to take on when you graduate.

None of the Above
No idea what you want to do? Play on an athletic team. People who play sports do much better in their work life than people who don't, according to James Shulman, author of The Game of Life: College Sports and Educational Values. Playing sports promotes all sorts of factors that lead to success after college: Self-discipline, focus, competitive spirit and, of course, a good-looking body, which in itself could give you a 15 percent boost in salary, according to some research.
And if all this sounds like too much to think about: You're right. Psychologist Daniel Gilbert found that people are incredibly terrible at guessing what they'll like ahead of time. In fact, our poor predictive abilities have been key to our survival during evolution, and we will never overcome them now.
So instead, just try a lot of things, in college and after college. And cut yourself some slack. One of the most irrelevant decisions you'll make after college is what to do for your first job. People in college today will have more than eight jobs, on average, before they are 32. Surely one of those will be a winner.

Source: Wired