My Career My Choice
I felt lucky growing up. From a young age my love for almost anything creative, particularly music, was evident and eventually my family were supportive of my decision to pursue it. However, for other people I knew, the notion of pursuing any career within the creative industry seemed like a far away dream for them, and a nightmare for their parents. Many of my friends, who were also from ethnic minority backgrounds, would joke about having three main job options growing up. Teacher, doctor or lawyer, and any other job had to be within the professional realm of work, for example accounting or dentistry. There was, however, one thing we could all agree on. For our parents, going to university was not a discussion, it was a compulsory stage in life.
After having conversations with my friends and other young people on why there was such a divide between our personal views and our parents’ views on all things university and professional careers, we agreed that they tended to have the same reasoning.
The first being that a majority of us are first or second generation immigrants, and our parents moved to the UK with the intention of providing a ‘better life’ for themselves and their families. A big part of this better life is ensuring that we are educated and financially stable, and going to university is the easiest, if not only, way of achieving these two things. For our parents, university is viewed as a ‘golden ticket’ and the goal is a professional career. Anything outside of that was seen as a fast track to living an unstable, and therefore unhappy life.
The second reason as to why there is a divide between the younger and older generation is the motive for going into an industry or job role. Although the younger generation hold similar priorities to their parents when looking at career choices, many young people are also considering what they enjoy, which in turn affects their decision on what industry they get into. Many of us have seen our parents having to work long hours in jobs that they no longer enjoy for the sake of earning a living.
To be clear, a majority of young people from ethnic minority backgrounds are still going to university and entering professional jobs roles, but for those of us who would like to get into the creative industry (i.e media and entertainment), university is not our only option. When our parents were our age in their home country, the number of job opportunities within the creative industry were not as extensive, and many of the people who achieved a space in this sector with an impressive salary were seen as ‘success stories’. Amongst the older generation it is still yet to be normalised as an attainable goal whilst someone is working towards it, not only when they have achieved it. For numerous roles in the creative industry today, experience is increasingly holding more weight in job applications, with some young people finding that they are learning and gaining more through this than university.
For those of us growing up in a household where traditions and values are different, particularly for older members of our family, at times it can feel as though our disagreement on a topic is perceived as disrespect. Although having the conversation about my career goals was difficult, especially as I was not 100% sure on what job I specifically wanted to do, it was necessary. I would advise any young person in a similar situation to have the conversation as early as possible. Understand that your parents still want the best for you they just have a different view of what that may be, or the process to getting there. Being on the same or close pages may not happen overnight, but gradually pushing the conversation and being open could get you to a place of mutual understanding.
Article by Ira Alecia Gardner