The Journey To Career Selection

You cannot celebrate your career success without reflecting on the process. Here is my journey to one’s choice of employment.

We all have thousands of memories, but one thing most of us can agree on is that fundamental memories in our lives have mainly derived not only from our family lives, but from school or from our jobs. 

Do you ever sit down and reflect on your life’s journey? What was yours like so far? What dreams did you have when you were little? With the fact that many of us want to become doctors and pilots when we age, I am sure some less popular professions would run out of human resources such like cleaning. 

When we are young, choosing a dream career is the simplest thing to do, because all you have to engage in is picking a job that you have heard of before or perhaps something that your parents do or something you admire on TV. The unfortunate part is that, as one goes further with school, this decision becomes even more complex. This article will serve as a reminder to what our school days were like and take you through my own academic journey and how I ended up selecting my current career.

The Secondary School Experience

In your academic journey, what do you miss the most? In my community “high school” was a name given to that fancy and expensive school, while the public ones were simply “secondary school”. I went to a secondary school in a remote area. I remember when I was in my last year at primary school: In Malawi, we prepare for secondary school and in my community there was only one secondary school. And only your passing grades in so called standard 8 determines whether you can get selected or not. 

My dream had been to become a famous student on campus just like I used to see in those high school movies which we watched on television. The fact that I so much wanted to take part in the Dzaleka community through secondary school highly motivated me to study hard and, what can I say, the end was magic. I finally secured my spot at the school as I became one of the most famous poets and performers on campus. 

Yet, those two months before the opening of another academic level felt like a year, I was so desperate to wear that uniform of white shirt and black trousers. One thing I have learned in life is, when you are too desperate everything feels like working so slowly and we cannot rush time. On my first day at the school I was approached by two young men, of course a bit older than me, who said they were the school prefect and asked me to tuck in my shirt and I did as they said. With time I learned school prefects are student representatives in different areas. My favorite was the entertainment prefect, he was responsible for organizing extra-curricular activities like talent shows and social days. Due to my success as a spoken word artist, three years later I myself became the entertainment prefect. I remember organizing my first talent show, the logistics and the performances were top-notch. I remember stepping my foot on that stage with my most famous poem entitled “Kiss me again”. This poem which is recited along with the audience made me even more famous.

Career Selection

I arrived in Malawi in 2011 while I was just 14 years old and resumed studies as an 8th grade learner. The education system here in Malawi is different from the system in DRC where I flew from. In DRC one chooses a profession the authorities eventually approve and a professional approach commences while in what they call “Troisième humanité”. In Malawi’s context it is not the same, you are only given a choice to choose six subjects you wish to sit for during the national examination and none of these subjects prepares anyone for any specific profession. 

While in secondary school I planned to study law, but this did not happen. In Malawi, refugees are not admitted in public universities, as a result I ended up opting for social work as it was the only choice I had. Through the Jesuit Worldwide Learning online program, I was able to get an admission at Regis University in Denver based in the US-state of Colorado where I studied social work out of my own will. While online studies teach one an independent approach towards academic life, the lack of direct social interaction forces to individually figure out how to overcome and explain constraints over the course. Many of them were times when I missed deadlines due to lack of stable internet and access to online libraries. 

Choosing careers can be very unpredictable, the good thing is that, despite wanting to be a lawyer back in secondary school, I ended up falling in love with humanitarian work and I now no longer regret not having the chance to study law.

(The German translation of this article can be found here./ Die deutsche Versions des Artikels gibt es hier.)