Should nature prevail in shaping our careers?

Back in early 90’s when I was a little boy in a village in south-western Uganda, all I valued as life was to wake up, take porridge, go to school, come evening, eat and sleep, nothing more. Our parents never paid monthly rent and rarely went shopping as nearly everything we consumed on daily basis came from our gardens. Life was very exciting and everybody of my generation wished it could remain constant. Ivan Ingabire. At the time, it was going to school was a must and something we all enjoyed by the way, since there was guaranteed break time for us to enjoy games. To most of us, promotion from one class to another was a must after all repeating meant that you could pay your fees. We were enjoying the Universal Primary Education, literally called ‘‘Bonna basome’’ in Luganda, the most widely spoken dialect in Uganda. Long after primary seven results were out, we were sent to different secondary schools. To our amazement, our results determined which school each one was admitted. Nobody had a say in the process and we did not care anyway, after all, we were not given career guidance besides the four subjects we always studied (mathematics, English, science and social studies). In secondary school, all I remember was competition among students to outperform one another. Well, subjects had increased to 20; however, we did not decide what we wanted to become in life till our scores decided on our behalf again after senior four results were out. Some became arts students and others went to sciences. I was part of the scientists group by default, just because I happened to score highly in physics, commerce and mathematics. While in S.6, I fell in love with computer games and my aspirations switched to nothing but develop into a computer wizard one day which I think God answered to some extent. If you ask me at the time if I really knew what I wanted to become in life, I could frankly say, NO, and I was not the only one in that boat by the way. Fortunately, my high school scores landed me at the National University of Rwanda, where I pursued my dream in computer science. I never decided this myself, though this brought a huge excitement as I was to work with computers on daily basis, something I had yearned for some time. My four years at university shaped and opened my eyes in regards to what my career choice means. I graduated a happy computer scientist with good results, something I regarded as a passport/visa to all big companies like MTN, TIGO or government institutions. Before long, I got employed at an international bank operating in Rwanda. Comfortably an IT employee, one day my Oga (boss) called on me and said I should get prepared for in a week’s time, I would travel to Nigeria for training. The training was not in IT, which is my field, but in banking and finance. Believe me, my heart trembled as the boss continued, “I believe and the bank trusts in you, go and come back to make the bank proud,” he said. What about my IT career? I thought for a minute, How about the time I’m going to lose studying what I considered irrelevant? At the training school, thinking I was the only lost sheep, surprises kicked in; I could not believe it when I realized I was in the same class with people who had studied varied disciplines like zoology, psychology, physics, biology, agricultural science to mention but a few. All these fellows were here for a banking and finance course. At this time the question that came to mind was who cares about your career anyway? Ironically, a lady with zoology background emerged the best student in my class! At the same time, I saw several students with banking experience failing the four months course. Finally, some of us made it, then graduated as Chartered Bankers. The qualification meant that I was able to serve in any banking field, and that is how my career started diverting from IT, which raises a question I need to share with you. Should we follow our career, what we believed we were groomed to be from grassroots? Or should we allow and follow what nature decides? After all it is what puts food on the table at the end of the day. Our education sector has suffered enough with this ignorance. Let career guidance be one of the primary school’s core training for children. Parents, play the role of orienting children to the right path. University Bachelors, MBAs/MSCs and PhDs are all just papers if the holder cannot use them to create a living. The writer is a banker based in Rwanda.

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Should nature prevail in shaping our careers?