ACCORDING to the Chinese, this year will be a very prosperous year because most of the numbers in 2008 i.e. 008 are written facing up. Also, 2008 is the Year of the Rat and the rat is the highest animal in Chinese mythology. But coupled with being prosperous are the usual challenges of course. Challenges are of course natural. Ever since January opened, there have been lots of challenges but they can be boiled to two things – first, an Australian futurist has predicted that in 40 years’ time, there will be another Ice Age and all population has to move to northern Europe. But the more alarming challenge is how to save the world economy from recession.
It all started in 2007 when the mortgage sector in the United States crashed. Now in January, ripples are already felt even as far as Asia. That’s why one of the most lucrative and challenging careers of a high school graduate in 2008 is to take up a career in economics. You don’t need to be in a very reputable school to do that because lots of online colleges offer economic programs. But to be in the crème de la crème and to be offered a job in a Fortune 500 company or in a government think tank in the future, one must go to highly reputable educational institutions such as Georgetown.
You don’t need to be rich to afford being in such institutions. All you need is your brain. You take the academic scholarship and if you are really that determined, you can surely whiz through. By the time you have graduated from Georgetown School of Economics, you will have joined the ranks of Philippine President Gloria Arroyo and former United States President Bill Clinton. Then you can be employed at the Federal Reserve. For the next 40 years, your career will surely shine and you may even be appointed as Federal Reserve Board chair.
This post is not about lucid dreaming. It’s all accepting about the realities now. Another challenge that is facing us for example is in the area of infectious diseases. In the 20th century, we have experienced a total of two flu pandemics that has killed millions worldwide – in 1918 and in 1958. With the establishment of the CDC in Atlanta thankfully, potential pandemic carriers such as SARS and bird flu have been contained by the start of the new millennium. But let must not rest our laurels there. We need to be continually vigilant. That’s why a career in infectious diseases can make one a hero.
But in the end, whatever you must do must have passion. Do not force yourself to become an aeronautics engineer or a defense attorney if you are just forced by your parents and if you are not inclined to be one. You will never learn and never concentrate in the end if you do not put your whole passion to it.+
WHETHER you’re a farmer or an English teacher, be good in your endeavor in 2008 so you will be financially rewarded. If you are a farmer at the agricultural regions in Garabandal or Texas, then you must be diligent to know all about the economics of farming so your business will even prosper. After all, being self employed can be a career in itself. If you are an agricultural economics graduate at the Harvard Business School and you want to apply what you have learned to your farm back home in Texas, then that’s really swell. One of the successful farming techniques in the United States nowadays is to buy land in nearby Mexico and install their farms there. That way, labor and logistics in maintaining the farm are both cheap. Once you have replicated this stunt and it will be successful, the agriculture sector in Texas will notice you and you may be awarded as farmer of the year. Later on the governor himself or herself may be the one to even notice you and you will be appointed as state secretary of agriculture. Now isn’t that lovely?
If you are an international relations graduate from Georgetown, chances are you will land a job at the State Department. Be diligent enough and learn more languages as well as take master’s and doctorate so that your rise at Foggy Bottom will be steady and you will soon land a post as an ambassador to a foreign country. If you are a broadcast journalist, then be diligent in your job so you will be pirated by other outfits. A lot of CNN employees have been pirated by Qatar-based Al Jazeera which pays its employees even more lucratively. Or if you are a graduate in food technology or nutrition, then you can be hired by such Fortune 500 companies as Nestle, Monsanto, Coca-cola and Pepsico. Nestle is of course based in Switzerland while Monsanto, Coca-cola and Pepsico are all based in the United States. If you are a geologist, you may be employed by such companies as Dutch-based Shell and United States-based Texaco. If you are a graduate of a New York film institute, then start making your own films and emulate such neo-realist directors as Steven Soderbergh, Quentin Tarantino, Paul Greengrass, Michael Mann and Joel Schumacher. A lot of these directors have been discovered not at formal film institutions though but during stints in short term courses at Sundance in Utah. Or if you want to be a model, you can start as young as 11 years old. A lot of models I know start young such as Dakota Fanning and Katherine Heigl.
If you want to be an epidemiologist, then you must constantly be updated with all the infectious diseases around the world such as the recent strain of tuberculosis discovered on an Indian woman on board a continental flight bound to the United States or the ongoing Ebola outbreak in Congo.
