So in this age of possibilities, young people aren’t restricted by their degrees, they aren’t confined within their career paths.[break]
Young people these days have started drifting away from their degrees and have started indulging in different fields to gain interdisciplinary knowledge.
With limited employment opportunities, there is always a competition between people for a placement opportunity, and to be able to compete and have a stronger case against others, additional knowledge from different fields help.
In this global age of competition, there is always the need to be better and smarter than others for a favorable job placement, and interdisciplinary knowledge seems to be to provide that edge to a CV.
“You don’t get jobs and that is the main problem that pushes people to job-hop,” says 23-year-old Aju Nyachhyon who, after studying food technology, moved into sales and marketing. Aju is back to her original field of study now, working for the Environment Public Health Organization as research assistant.
“I think it is fine for people to experience different things, to work for a completely different field and gain a completely different set of skills but my dream had always been in food technology and that was where I knew that I would be the most satisfied. The sales and marketing job just served me as a bridge until I could find a job in my own field,” she adds.
Unemployment crunch also seems to be the main reason for people opting for jobs in other fields.
People need to earn to sustain themselves and working for a different field if it pays well can help them get by.
Professional fields hire workers with experience and to gain that experience, even professionally trained workers need to work as unpaid interns for a certain period of time.
“There are no options in Nepal and when you don’t get what you want you always have to hop into your second best option,” says 30-year-old Raj Ballav Koirala, who worked as an RJ after studying English and Population Science but moved on to a degree on Acting and Film Studies from the College of Film Studies, now known as Oscar International College of Film Studies, and has been working as an actor ever since.
“You were restricted by options and opportunities before but not anymore. These days you can study what you really want and be what you dream of. But all your knowledge does not come from what you study, a big part of it is what you experience and I think it is fine for young people to job hop to some extent. But to make a name for yourself or to contribute well to your field, I think dedication and patience is needed,” he says.
Education is changing as well to allow multidisciplinary courses of study. With liberal arts degrees, students can now gain knowledge of a wide variety of subjects.
Educational institutions seem to be working to provide an all-round set of knowledge to students so that they can tackle any type of jobs.
The focus on education has also shifted, now students choose to get smarter by exposing themselves to different fields so that they can opt for any kind of employment opportunities outside their course of study.
“Whatever you do or study, there is always a race of jobs that you have to win,” says 24-year-old Ashim Neupane, who moved on to the social field after studying for Bachelor’s in Business Administration (BBA).
“At a certain time, you will have to specialize and then you will need a wide range of relevant skills and relevant work experience to back you up. Job hopping is fine to some extent but if young people keep at it, they’ll turn into jacks of all trades, masters of none,” he adds.
“I don’t think job-hopping is a very bad idea,” says 26-year-old Trishna Bhattachan, Business Development Manager at Nepal International Educational Consultancy (NIEC), adding, “I am also a job hopper because I completed Bachelors in Computer Application and am now working in the managerial field here at NIEE and I don’t think it’s a bad idea at all, because you learn so many different skills. You can learn so much from on-job trainings that help you free yourself from career restrictions. You now have the freedom to follow what you really want to do.”
Job-hopping does seem to be gaining popularity but the question inevitably boils down to specialization.
Young people job-hopping might decorate their CVs with a wide variety of skills but they might find themselves in a fix when applying for higher-position jobs that require specialization.
Like saying too much of a good thing is bad, job-specialization does seem to be the option for young people searching for their field of specialization or young people bored from a monotonous work.
Whatever the case, people need to nest themselves to a professional job that they have a linking to and specialize in that field and with patience and determination, these young workers might end up making a name for themselves or contributing wonders to that field.
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