What do you want to be when you grow up?

For many of us who live in a country that upholds college degrees to earn respect, entering higher education is already set in stone. Every graduation, from elementary to high school to college, was a monumental stamp on a bigger brain and a closer step to whatever money-making venture seemed appealing. Throughout the process, the idea of a vocation, of a calling for a cause, was stretched beyond belief, making even just the tinges of your once childhood hobby of decorating dollhouses or playing computer games suddenly revered as a spiritual specialty in interior design or programming. Through time and growth, what careers to embark on has been instilled, either subtly or harshly, by the circumstances and talents we are observed to be inclined to.

This makes the final four years to spend in higher education daunting, because in the traditional, favored sense, you can’t go back. Once you’ve decided to pay the enrollment and list your name in the major you picked with the aid of your barely developed frontal lobe, everyone around you will expect you to function within the confines of the field you chose—no cold feet, no second-guessing, just bulldozing on determination, and perhaps, on guilt at the expenses already withdrawn from the bank.

However, knowing your purpose is not as linear and conventional as schools may want it to be. People may die never really knowing their purpose at all; the light bulb of contented bliss never lit up because of the limitations imposed upon them, the limitation of only knowing one field, the limitation to be dutiful to family, or just the sheer limitation of balancing survival and pleasure in itself. It’s not an uncommon sight to witness career swerves and other extracurricular activities done to fulfill every possible dream in a single lifetime. It is far more common and frankly preferred to tiptoe their way around and make it a mission to harness and commodify as many skill sets as possible just to be applicable and desired in a wide array of jobs in the real, tax-controlled world.

Recession indicator

(Screenshot from Grey’s Anatomy (2005))

While this may seem all good and dandy and just a regular, human experience, molding our college degrees as malleable is considered a significant failure for the education and employment sectors. Despite the influx of college graduates, a 2023 study by the Philippine Institute for Development Studies found that 40% of Filipinos who finished tertiary education fell under job mismatched or overqualification. This means they are employed in professions under their degree bracket, earning about 5% less.

In another study, the entry of fresh Filipino graduates proves less of a challenge since the gap between degree holders and non-graduates has gradually closed since the 2010s, making the former less privileged and meeting fewer perks. This contradicts the longtime stigma of graduates being automatically owed high positions and wages. At the same time, people with “incomplete” educational attainment naturally receive fewer benefits and a lower salary.

The hunger for a stable cash flow and dismissal to attain a glorious title is the primary perpetrator of this phenomenon. Business columnist Boo Chanco argued that when a fresh graduate enters a field outside of their low demand degree, they are usually expected to acquire extra-training and other certifications, which will eventually render them merely in entry-level quality compared to the education they received. Unless a medicolegal degree or a licensure exam is on its way, the criteria for a good employee are now weighed mainly through a person’s flexibility and tech-savviness, both of which do not necessarily require a graduation ceremony to master.

White-collared

(Screenshot from Gilmore Girls (2000) )

So what then? Is college worth it? Did my degree just cage my potential?

Borrowing the words in the essay, Stuck in fresh-grad limbo, “There are so many merits that the program has, yet despite its charm and importance, reality bends my idealism.” This rings especially true for courses of the liberal and high arts, which propels them to sell themselves as two-in-ones, proving greatness in the craft they graduated in but still showing untethered-ness with the talents they’ve sewn and dressed in for a while, so as not to be monosyllabic and look useless in the bigger picture. They can’t just be a good writer or painter and call it a day; they must be interesting enough to gain traction online and dispel competitors through the art of fame.

It may feel like, for many, that the world has widened after graduation, and every possible job suddenly appeared. In the past 18 or so years in school, it seemed only natural to expect some sort of big change, and our sense of purpose would unravel once we reached the end. Yet, once we did and we were thrown out into the world, it may feel as if we’re naked, with only our diploma and resume to decorate us. It’s fair to feel frustrated at the thought of being restricted by what we only know and have studied. Still, a part of growing up is to recognize that it’s not entirely one’s fault that dreams were either shunned to make way for better-paying jobs or downgraded to make way for the “calling” we were complimented for.

Indeed, this is not the case for everybody; some may have been blessed with a life of great linearity and structural ascend to a well-meaning, admirable life. But that doesn’t mean that this problem is not real.

May it be a systematic malfunction beyond the graspable or a lack of continual, careful thinking and deciding, the field we choose is still ours to make. A way to help extract our purpose is to figure out what values we feel strongly about, instead of what we are perceived to be good at.

Are you people-oriented? Do you feel satisfied through extrinsic reward systems? Do you truly feel called to express yourself?

Through time, the answers to these questions may move erratically from one swing to the other. Nonetheless, at its core, at least all parts of ourselves will be seen and cared for, outside the parameters of what makes us just another employee in another company.