GenY careers

A couple of weeks ago, at our weekly dept meetings, I asked a (what i thot was a very silly) question to the presenter who gave a rather simple answer. The recently appointed Associate (Academic) Dean of the university (who had stepped down as Head of Dept) must’ve sensed my confusion in the answer given / read my mind, and stepped in (twice!) to give a very comprehensive, visionary, ‘believing in the future generation’ type answer to my very simple, silly question. Oh yeah, i was blown away! Sure didn’t expect that coming!

After the meeting, i introduced myself to her (didn’t want to be rude) as i was new to the dept. She very casually invited me to have morning tea with her the next day. She said ‘let’s have a chat and get to know each other during morning tea. Do you know where my office is?’. I took her up on the invitation (who wouldn’t?!!!) and spent the time talking about my life, her life, and career (journey, goals & dreams). What i thought might be 20 minutes stretched to an hour! Man, i left her office incredibly inspired to ‘climb’ and reach for the skies! She sure had a way of capturing & connecting with my soul!

What i found so interesting in our conversation was how she shared with me her observations on GenY (in which she reckons i am). Man, i totally agree with her (esp the bit on being intelligent! haha!) …

• apparently it takes 4-5 career changes before one would finally settle
• our minds are so intelligent, we get bored so easily and are always in need of a new challenge
• our careers need a combination of passion + purpose