Nando’s University

I went out for dinner the other night to a Nando’s down at Docklands. After a long while looking over the menu I decided to order a classic chicken burger with egg and bacon. Now imagine I had been asked to make that decision 12 years earlier. That would be crazy, right? Back then I hardly knew what excuse to use for not having done my homework,  let alone decide what I wanted to eat in 12 years time.

Today I am 28 and I like to think that I have found a career I will follow for most of my life yet I didn’t know what an instructional designer was when I was 16, and right now you’re probably asking ‘what the hell is that?’ yourselves. Rather than bore you with the details of my job description I will offer you this answer instead. It is a great deal different from what I thought I wanted to do when I was 16 when I thought I wanted to be a lawyer or maybe a dentist, but certainly not an instructional designer.

And I refuse to believe I am the only one in this situation and would like to put forward a question. Why are we expected to choose our careers at age 16? We choose our subjects for our last years at school based on what we want to do at university. And lets face it, what we want to do at university is usually what our parents want us to do. What we do at university then dictates the type of career available to us. Talk about putting all your eggs in one basket. May as well throw all the chickens in as well. Fuck, why not throw the whole chicken industry in there while you’re at it. Yet our career is not a choice to be taken lightly; make a bad choice and suddenly you’ve wasted a whole lot of eggs pursuing your parents dream and you’re more likely to end up working behind the counter of a Nando’s than as the doctor that Daddy always wanted you to be.

So why all the pressure to chose subjects and do well in our final high school years? Well what else are you going to do? Get a job? Shit, there’s a crazy idea! Shouldn’t we leave our options as open as possible until we have a better of understanding of who we are, what we’re good at and most importantly, what we enjoy? Imagine that instead of leaving school and going to university you entered the workforce in an industry that at the time was of interest to you. You would then be free to pursue whatever career took your fancy. Suddenly you’re 20 years old, have experience in the workplace and perhaps a better idea of what you’d like to do. With that experience comes the freedom to choose a higher education tailored to the type of career you chose to follow, as opposed to the one forced down your throats when you were too young to drink legally.

And therein lies the real irony. We are expected to chose a career at a time in our lives when we are not legally allowed to consume alcohol. Thankfully, Nando’s doesn’t have a liquor license.