The current generation of college-and-recently-graduated people is two-thirds of the target market for my
new blog project. (The other third are Gen Xers looking for a career change.) I did an interview on Wednesday that made me think of Dan at one point. He said,
Don't go work at a grocer, don't work at the YMCA, find out what kind of work you're interested in and go get an internship. That's how you're gonna figure out if you're really gonna like it. Even if you're not getting paid, you're there to figure out, "Is this what I wanna do for the rest of my life." The kids at [college] who did the best were the ones who knew what they wanted to do and had done the research, and they hit the ground running.
I thought, that's good advice if you can get an internship, or if you've got it narrowed down to a handful of fields, but if you've got bills to pay, that's not going to work. But then, he was specifically addressing younger folks, high school age or just out of school. The interview subject is also named Dan(ny). He was talking about how when he was in high school and college, he lifeguarded for, like, five summers in a row because it was fun. So that's really not Inev's situation at all.
Still thought it was interesting to think about, though, coming from a 35 year old man, how it would sound to someone just out of college who is lucky to be working anywhere at all.