The Young and the Wise

*Warning: Rant ahead!* I am writing this whilst procrastinating on writing my dissertation. Being a Southeast Asian student studying abroad in the UK, my friends and I tend to have interesting conversations regarding the state of our home country. It is quite obvious that we love out home, but many of us are scared of going back. Don't take it the wrong way, our country isn't war torn or anything (touch wood- really hope not), in fact, it is a pretty nice place. The reason for our concern is because we find that there seems to be a lack of opportunity and trust in our generation (fresh graduates). We do not mean to come across as whiny (we want to be anything but that). Anyways, as future fresh grads, we are all pretty concerned with whether we will be able to secure a job, and ones where we can actually contribute our passions and still grow. Aside from that, the ones who have secured a job are wondering if they did make the right choice. This may even apply for the ones still applying for jobs. Are we looking in the right places? On top of all of that, some of us are still wondering if we studied the right course! The simplest example I could give would be myself. I am currently studying Nutrition and Psychology. Though I am very sure I love this course, and that it definitely fits my passions and personality, are the jobs available to me the ones I would like to go for? Will I like my workplace, and the ethics and values held by my colleagues? Will corruption be a problem and will it affect me? If I choose to be involved in policy making to fix this problem (read: corruption), will I end up spending all my time and energy on that? Will I ever end up doing what i wanted to in the first place? So many questions..... so scared. On the other hand, there are those youngsters deemed to be "over-qualified". What does that even mean? Wouldn't you like to employ the best person you could find, for any particular job or profession? Or is that the problem. I have a friend, whose sister is currently a professor in one of the universities in the US, because if she were to go back home she would most likely get a job that would not let her work at her full potential, just because she is under 30 years old, even though she does have a PhD. Then came the topic of the person that replaced our beloved Central Bank Governor, who held that post for 16 years! (if I am not mistaken, she held that post the longest in our country so far, and she was the first and still the only female to have ever held the post). The new guy is 56 years old! That is pretty old, since our countries retirement age is 60 years old. My friends and I understand, it is a very important post, and the country would of course want someone with experience to take up the job, but does age = experience = wise? Is there no one that is at least a little younger that could take over? I am very sure there are solid reasons as to why the new person was appointed, but a little more transparency would be great. The citizens of our country are no longer illiterate, in fact many of us have and still are pursuing tertiary education, which is a great leap from where we used to be half a century ago. To give transparency to the citizens is a sign of respect to them. We are a democratic country after all, aren't we? (Again, I am very sure there are sources which we could find to see why so-and-so was appointed for so-and-so, it's just that I am very sure it involves a lot of digging around, a waste of time really, I just want to know, then get on with my life (i.e.: studying), for the betterment of the people) I could easily rant on about my hopes and dreams, and the work I would like to venture into, but that is a topic for a-whole-nother blog post (or several). *END of Rant* Sincerely, M