Faulty Assumptions

One of the videos that we were asked to watch this week was a clip from a presentation given at Stanford by Stan Christensen. In his presentation, Christensen mentioned a couple faulty assumptions that people make with regards to their career. One of these assumptions is that the first job out of college is a huge deal. Christensen said that most individuals end up only spending 2-3 years at their first place of employment post-graduation so it really isn’t as big of a deal as individuals make it out to be. It is much more common in today’s day and age for individuals to switch from company to company throughout their career rather than just staying at the same company for 30+ years, so individuals shouldn’t stress as much about finding the “perfect” job right out of school. 

Another faulty assumption that Christensen said individuals make is that specialization is needed in order to be successful. Christensen said that while people tend to want you to specialize in something, it is important to try to be a generalist. The possibility exist that after dedicating your time and energy in specializing in something that it could eventually become irrelevant and that specialization would no longer be needed. Instead of specializing, Christensen said “what you want to do is put yourself in a position to take advantage of opportunities when they come up.” I think this statement is a phenomenal suggestion, and is something that I am going to keep in mind as I approach my time in the working world post-graduation.