Why Teens Should Get College to Career Advice… Now

The Mental Health Crisis Facing Gen-Z is real and enormous.

The data coming in – see Jonathan Haidt’s new book The Anxious Generation – is disturbing (huge understatement).

There are a myriad of reasons.

But I know with certainty that “uncertainty about the future” is a big one. Given that our geographic region, -coastal Connecticut (Fairfield/New Haven/Middlesex/New London counties), – consists of among the most well-educated and affluent areas in the nation (really!), researchers would think that uncertainty about the future would affect our bubble less than others.

This may be true.  But in working with students from Guilfod, Madison, Old Saybrook, Essex, Old Lyme, East Lyme, Fairfield etc., I see the same set of concerns:

As juniors approach college, they are asked by their parents/relatives/friends of their parents/guidance counselors/peers and pretty much everyone… “what do you want to study?” And, since that question naturally leads to “what do you want to do when you grow up?” and since most juniors have no real idea, they feel stressed. Really stressed.  But they do not voice their concern.  They rarely tell their parents: “I’m feeling stressed about what I want to do for my career”.

They do tell me.

They love – seriously – “love” when we have a college to career conversation.

If you want your children to have a happy life, then helping them craft their career aspirations will help even more than helping them get into college.

Why?

Knowledge workers plus 24/7 technology connection makes work linked to non-work life more than ever

Do you know any knowledge workers who do not check their e-mails (or work texts) all weekend?  I don’t.

For anyone under 40, this will sound really strange.  But knowledge workers were not much differently situated than physical workers pre-Internet regarding their free time.  When office workers left the office on Friday or at the end of any day,  that was it… work was done until they came back to the office

Indeed, you could watch The Office. Comic styling aside, you can presume that no one did Dundler Mifflin work during their free time. And, I don’t just mean Kevin!

Now… many people will check their work during their free hours.  If the person hates their work, then their happiness in their free time is profoundly affected.

Again, this is a relatively new phenomenon.

You need happy work to have a happy life.

Your children will as well.