Yes, same drill as before; not all of my ideas are winners. These mini-articles are ideas that I’ve had floating around for a while now I yet haven’t acted on until now. This is partly due to the fact that some of these ideas are immediately followed by ideas that I just cannot help but to write about. In a way, these topics are kind of like a musicians B-roll and other unreleased tracks. So keep those pitchforks sharpened, as we’ll go over ideas that this hack of a writer just couldn’t quite stretch into full-length pieces.
My American Privilege: Not Getting Drafted
One day at my last job, I was asked about what my hypothetical career choice would have been had it not been my current one. I quickly rattled off the most readily available-to-me career options I had when I was 18. This list included the original major that I selected for college, the trade I studied in high school, and joining the Navy. That last one is rather important as I graduated high school in 2009, when the United States was in the middle of wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
While registering for the Selective Service was mandatory (and still is), this never became a serious issue. The United States was such a militaristic juggernaut (again, and still is) that it could afford to fund, staff, and maintain not one but two simultaneous wars. Furthermore, the defense of the nation against an invasion was never seriously compromised in any discernible way. During this time. Myself, and millions of other able-bodied (unless obesity is a disqualifier?) fresh high school graduates had zero obligation to fight in these wars.
This may not seem like a big deal to most people reading this, but most people reading this are American, and that’s kind of my whole point. Name another modern country on Earth that can fight multiple wars at once and not even sweat about defending their borders, let alone mandating a draft. The Russians can’t make that claim, neither can Israel, neither can South Korea or Turkey for that matter either. “Dan, you’re just cherry picking!” a triggered anti-American reader will protest. Fine, then explain the Spartans. Or the Romans, or many other historical armies across the globe. Virtually no other military, past or present, has been in the advantageous position that the United States currently enjoys. Running it back to 2009, I had the option to simply not enlist. I also didn’t have to worry about coming up with a clever excuse as to why I wasn’t reporting for duty; there was no border runs to be made, federal letters to be ignored or draft cards to be burned. That is the privilege. Instead, I had the opportunity to get fat (and then get annoyingly skinny), go to college, play video games, work a really shitty job, and write books about internet memes, all without having to dodge a single enemy round. The fact that this was the default setting in itself is a massive privilege, and more Americans need to acknowledge that.
The Unstated Reason to Take Care of Your Mental Health
Mental health, and those who struggle with it, is becoming less and less of a taboo topic in our modern society. This is an incredibly positive thing, as more and more people who want to seek counseling are able to access it. Much of this is marketed (yes, marketed: these are for-profit companies) as self-care. Self-care as a term isn’t a bad one per se, however it is incomplete for there is another benefit to improving your mental health; those around you will be better off as well.
Yes, you read that right and yes, I’m serious. Taking care of your mental health not only benefits you, but also those around you. With all due respect, few people will want to be near someone who is perpetually anxious, or irritable, or depressed, or codependent or whatever. People only have so much mental strength, and tolerating a hot mess long enough will erode at their own mental health. Don’t believe me? Therapist burnout is a pretty common phenomenon, and that’s among people who’s job it is to deal with those struggling with mental health issues. Now imagine how those who have neither the temperament nor the training to deal with mental health patients must feel. Nobody enjoys chronically walking on eggshells to avoid upsetting someone else, or having to constantly monitor their word choice in order to avoid saying a potentially triggering phrase, or tiptoeing around mundane-to-them subjects that are known sensitive topics. Therefore, getting your internal house in order not only benefits your own life, but those around you will live better lives as well.
Mental health is a selfless gift.
In Partial Critique of Career Counselors
I touched on this topic briefly a few months ago but when I was in college, I frequented the career services department quite a bit. By all means, this wasn’t a bad move per se; after all, they do offer practical advice. The difference between the students who went to their seminars (aka “the try-hards”) and those who didn’t was readily apparent. The former attended career fairs with a plan of who they were going to pitch, what they were going to say as they rocked a tie and had a spell-checked resume in hand. The latter, on the other hand, were jean-sporting clueless dolts that only served to make me (uhh, I mean us, oops, I meant the former) stand out even more. The difference on graduation day was even more apparent as the latter were scared of the future while I hopped in the DeLorean.
However, I’d be lying if I said that their advice was ground-breaking. Most of the advice revolved around courtesies such as be punctual, proofread your resume, and other similar tidbits. A lot of their advice I truthfully found to be a little remedial. It made me question who the target audience truly was. “But Dan, this is a college campus that you’re referring to. People have different upbringings and cultural norms that they are subconsciously bringing to the table”- a slightly angered career counselor will say. Be that as it may, I feel the etiquette training should have taken place long before one achieves a Bachelor’s degree.
In fairness, many counselors offer mock interviews in order to prepare students for the real deal. This is well-meaning, however a bit limited. Career counselors often become career counselors by completing a graduate certificate and then immediately becoming counselors. Thus, many of these counselors have rarely, if ever, worked outside of academia since their part-time undergraduate jobs. This means the one offering the advice have likely never managed direct reports, interviewed actual candidates or have had to give difficult feedback to a low-performing team member. Thus, the feedback that the counselors give to students can be a bit limited due to their lack of real-world experience.
“Well Dan, you ungrateful prick, it seems like you have quite a bit of negative things to say about these good-natured people who helped you and their profession. Do you have anything to suggest instead?” a fully-irate counselor will ask. First, let me start by saying that career services departments at universities absolutely need to continue existing, and the profession is valuable (which is not a common stance of mine). With that out of the way, there is some room for improvement.
First, we need to get rid of the graduate certificate being the lone qualifier for the job. People with the necessary experience but who lack the incredibly niche piece-of-paper will miss out, to the detriment of all involved. Thus, despite My Love/Hate Relationship with Recruiters, I’d be a fool to say that their skillset wouldn’t be helpful here. For that matter, many HR professionals could transition into being kick-ass career counselors, ditto for anyone who climbed the corporate ladder. If the certificate is an absolute must, then it can be on a time-delayed system, where in one can be hired without the certificate, though they must attain it within a set number of years. SHRM-CP works on a similar system in most industries, so I’m not accepting that’s impossible as an answer.
Next, career counselors can be specialized (to an extent) towards the majors they are advising. The types of interview questions that a computer science major would be asked versus what a sociology major would be asked are likely not congruent. Thus, it would be a disservice to these two students to receive the same type of preparation outside of the generic things like show up 15 minutes early to the interview. To this end, hiring former managers from the private sector would be a great move.
Let’s steer the future in a better direction…
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