I had a short discussion with one of my friends who is currently running a training program and he said that his course, which was engineering, didn’t have anything to do with his line of business. Another friend, who is currently a financial speaker, told me that his engineering degree didn’t have anything to do with what he is doing now. Surprisingly, a lot of my friends ended up in careers that are not related to their college degrees.

I went to a college that was near my house and I chose my course because early on, I knew I wanted to sell consumer products and handle brands (and be a brand manager). That part about choosing the school based on accessibility was probably a practical reason which most of us would consider, with the bad traffic and all. I was lucky that the same school offered a great marketing communications program. But what if I didn’t take marketing? Would I have been competently able to survive the corporate world as a brand manager?

During my time, we didn’t have the Internet to turn to for information. In order to learn more about colleges and universities, we only had the schools where our parents went to as reference and of course, feedback from other people.

There weren’t also a lot of jobs to choose from before. Unlike today, new jobs like digital marketing or digital engineers, virtual assistants, etc. (most of it are alien to us) have emerged and they require a different skillset, like fully understanding SEM, SEO or technical writing. I think that with all of these new jobs and skills requirements, teenagers should really use the Internet to their benefit. They need to be open to exploring and knowing more about different opportunities so they could very well land in a job that is a good match for them.

Making the huge decision on what career to pursue starts during middle school, and so, students need to be exposed to different options (career paths, industries and colleges to choose from) early on in order to help them make the informed career and education decisions.

Lucky for them, there’s a new online tool that would help them on their decision-making process. Futureyou.ph provides a platform that these kids could use to check on the most appropriate career for them. They are also presented with a list of schools they could go to get the required certificate or degree. Futureyou.ph is not a recruitment site. It is a project of the Philippine Business for Education in partnership with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)/Philippines. By telling middle and high school students about Futureyou.ph, we are helping them plan and find a career that matches their skills, goals and interests. It’s a pretty cool site and very user friendly.

I was invited to join one of their school hops two weeks ago at Maria Asuncion Rodriguez Tinga High School and it was a great experience. I had a lot of different events that I could have gone to that day, but I decided to go to this one because I knew that these 50 students needed help in making informed decisions about their future. They don’t have access to the same opportunities and information that our kids have or that we have.

I got to interact with the grade 9 students and impart to them the importance of making informed career and education decisions. They were telling me how appreciative they were of us visiting them and telling them about the site since it made them realize that they needed to start thinking about their future now and that there is such a platform that makes the process so much easier for them.

I really hope that when my baby daughter grows up, Futureyou.ph will still be there to lend her support in choosing which career to pursue and which school to go to.

Let’s help the younger generation think about their future! Let’s tell them about Futureyou.ph! 🙂