“QUE sera, sera, whatever will be, will be,” sang Doris Day, unperturbed about the lack of careers advice in her youth. Well, you can afford to shrug off careful career planning if you’re a gay icon with a set perm, but it seems that a host of modern celebrities just keep on falling into stardust.
New Scientist (June 25) reveals that Brian May, the guitar rock-god from the band Queen, studied physics and maths; Harry Hill, the comedian, once pored over medical text books; and Jennifer Garner, the Hollywood actress, studied chemistry. All were destined for sensible, highly skilled jobs before chasing their dreams.
Red carpet or white overall was not a difficult decision for Kim Hyun Wook, of Seoul, South Korea, who tells Business Week (July 4) that he once thought he’d become a humble engineer. Today he’s a virtual car racer who logs on to Kart Rider for eight hours a day. “I feel like a star,” he gushes. Oh no, not you too.
Separating fantasy from fiction is all in a day’s work for Ayanna Howard, whose fascination for machines began at the age of 12, transfixed by The Bionic Woman on TV. Putting her PhD in electrical engineering to use, she’s now creating robots that think like humans for Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, reports Time (July 4).
“The Bionic Woman showed real, brilliant people giving life through bionics,” she says. “I figured I could do it too.”
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Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones, a new farmer, has a less high-tech ambition. He threw in the towel on his tough, grown-up career at the head of his own marketing agency to look after cows, sheep and pigs. Fellow dreamers take note: without the cash he harvested as an entrepreneur, Emmanuel-Jones would be stuck in the rat race, writes Newsweek (July 4).
“Que sera, sera” still rules on university campuses, according to research by the Association of Graduate Recruiters.
It found that only 19 per cent of students start thinking about their careers before graduation, reports recruiter magazine.co.uk.
The Student Industrial Society (SIS), a charitable organisation that helps graduates to find work, says that this is unrealistic. “Students need work experience and a CV demonstrating other experience and what they have learnt from it,” says Claire Reed, the network manager at SIS. So pull your finger out, stop day-dreaming and just grow up.