A Navigation Problem
Every year, millions of students are asked to make decisions about majors, internships, careers, graduate school, and life direction that may shape decades of their future. Many are making those decisions before they fully understand themselves, before they understand how today's labor market actually works, and before they have enough real-world experience to recognize opportunity when it appears.
The result is what I have come to call the — the distance between the complexity of the decisions students are expected to make and the guidance they actually receive. Anxiety lives in that gap. So does confusion, drift, and the quiet but persistent feeling that everyone else has a plan except you.
For a long time, I assumed this was primarily a student problem. I no longer believe that.
Over the past year, what began as research for a book gradually became one of the richest learning experiences of my own career. I sat down with students, recent graduates, parents, educators, university leaders, career counselors, employers, entrepreneurs, investors, and workforce leaders. I expected to hear different stories. Instead, I kept hearing the same story from different perspectives.
