What I Wanted To Be When I Grew Up

By Pilar Oberwetter

Today’s job market is tough, especially for recent graduates. However, in the flurry of press that has accompanied the graduation season, I have observed a disquieting number of articles, opinions, and commentary that point to ‘creative’ options for recent graduates still seeking next steps-- which include the Peace Corps, Teach for America or AmeriCorps among others. Oftentimes these published pieces of advice explain that such service-oriented programs are very helpful if you ‘are still trying to figure out what you want to do’. However, as someone who, when I was 22, made a very conscious and deliberate decision to do Peace Corps precisely because it was what I wanted to do, I object to this portrayal of service.

Service programs, and in fact the nonprofit sector as a whole, have cultivated a misleadingly soft and somewhat amorphous image by allowing mainstream media to use them as examples of a default career or a benevolent path when for many in the sector, it is precisely the opposite.

Quite frankly, if nonprofit or service-oriented work is not your original passion, you will not last very long. Admittedly, the three programs mentioned above, as well as many like them, are designed to guide their participants into a career of service, but that should not be interpreted as helping their participants find their dream job. Instead, for many of us, the programs helped us pursue the dream or the vision that we already held.

The New Adventures of the Old Public Sector

The New York Times reports that young people are flocking to the public sector.

"What will the new map of talent look like? It's early, but based on graduate school applications this spring, enrollment in undergraduate courses, preliminary job-placement results at schools, and the anecdotal accounts of students and professors, a new pattern of occupational choice seems to be emerging. Public service, government, the sciences and even teaching look to be winners, while fewer shiny, young minds are embarking on careers and business consulting."

While I appreciate many of the insights in this article, particularly David Ellwood's (dean of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government) coining of the term "benevolent perfect storm," to most young people (high school to graduate level, I would say), this is not exactly new news.

The economic crisis may be exacerbating this trend, but it is only part of the equation. Young people began quietly shifting to careers in public service long before all the lawyers started getting laid off. Perhaps it's time we enhanced our 1960s definition of civic activism and took better note of the myriad of ways young people today are choosing to affect change.

Anyone else out there with me?