A degree in your hand then…..???? For many students, getting a degree is a mission accomplished which guarantees relaxation. Today I however want to edit your mentality and plant in it an influenza that will always remind you that getting a qualification is just the starting point. Once you hold a degree it means that you can now start from there to look for a job. I am one of the receptionists welcoming delegates coming to join the job hunting community. Today I want to challenge most of us: No one will recognise your degree until you get it to do its job! If you “hang” your degree at home you risk reducing it to one of your cosmetic gadgets that you have at home. If you go for a long time without a job after graduating it does not mean that luck is not with you, no! What it simply means is that you are not trying hard enough! Let me tell you a story first before I take you forward: A long, long time ago, there was a baboon who thought he could fly. Thinking that flying was equal to high speed first (like what aeroplanes do today), he made a resolution to look for the highest mountain in the region from which he would descend at a terrific speed and eventually fly. Having been satisfied with the height of the mountain that he found after lengthy searching, he went home to sleep. The next day he rose early in the morning, went up the mountain, said a short prayer to his ancestors and got ready for the ordeal. With the assurance that his ancestors were watching he then jettisoned himself like a rocket and reached speeds he had never reached before as he descended down the mountain. “You are running too slowly,” said a passing crow that seemed to have read his mind. Upon hearing this, the baboon fell down dead! His attempt to fly died with him. Here is what is immediately available from this story: first, the baboon allowed to be distracted, and in any case, he heard the crow because he was not concentrating on what he wanted to do! Secondly, he never consulted fully from those who fly to get the full details surrounding the nitty gritties of flying. Lastly, he had ignored his own capacity as a baboon. Baboons do not fly and that does not mean that those who do not fly are useless. They are uniquely useful in that state and therefore should invest in the capacities that they have. Stand up, Move it! Stop and delete the “Nothing will come out of me mentality!” Sitting at home and waiting for “usisi lowana” or “utshomi lowana” to connect you or get things sorted out for you is to be surely digging your own career grave where you will burry your most needed, highly priced and most precious piece of paper – your degree. By each day you sit at home and wait for that “tshomi”, “sisi”, “masalu” or whoever to get you connected you simply make the grave to be even deeper and sooner or later your two, three, four or six years at college become reduced to a waste of time! Like the baboon in the story, do not ignore your own capacity that you have and put “utshomi”, “usisi”, “umasalu”, “blaz” or “muface” at the fore front of your job hunting spree. Stand up and do it yourself. Who knows, maybe the skills that you have in getting yourself connected are the best in the world and you are only making them subtle by ignoring them and relying on somebody else or something along those lines. The shoe pinches no one but he who wears it! True as it may be, people usually console themselves by saying that there is nothing in this country or it’s dry or whatever shield they may choose to use. Sadly, some never even try. If push comes to shove then re-visit your academic transcript and see if you can’t start something for yourself using one of the courses you did. That may be your starting point. Sniff every soil particle for opportunities. Bear in mind that not everyone will follow the same path to success. It depends. Colleagues, mates, fellows and brethren, my point today is to make you aware that getting a degree or certificate should not make you relax and think that since you are now marketable employers will compete for you. It should rather be the fuel that will keep you moving. Real life starts at graduation and it is you who should hunt for the job, set targets and motivate yourself. It’s tough yes but give it a try. Log onto mabakistobk.blogspot to see the second version of this article. Till we meet, it’s a bye for now.
Posted on: Fri, 12 Dec 2014 06:58:59 +0000
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