Thursday 8 November 2012

Its a poor idea to lie to youself

Working in publishing we often have students working as interns with our teams. I’ve seen many interns come and go and ones that even return to the company as staff due to them being so hard working. But then again I’ve also met the ones that found it difficult to fit in and often don’t know how to handle themselves in the working world. Not due to the lack of maturity but due to the lack of respect.
During lunch the intern currently with the magazine joined our group and what a pleasure to have her around. She was a fourth year student and telling us that she manages to secure another internship at a company abroad over our summer holidays. This youngster is extremely talented and hardworking as we learn that she’s also writing a book and was offered to have her thesis published.
But all of this was not easy, she told us of how even that she soared academically, that socially her existence was equally important if not more. She explained how she experienced student life, being part of Cape Town’s most prestigious universities. She said that as with high school, the students on varsity had such an obsession with what you are, who you linked to and your social status. Being rich was very important to them and being liked and accepted with the “ in “ crowd was much more important than getting that 80% that exam or assignment.
She explained that youngsters would go against who they really are, their beliefs, morals and values just to part of the it group. She said being young and seeing this happen to her own friends she soon had to differentiate between what important and what’s not. Do I want to be popular and lie about who I am merely just to be accepted by a group of people that’s mostly fake or do I want to work hard and make something of myself even if it means to be part of the minority.
This to me was amazing as this youngster had so much more going for her due to her strong foundation and confidence knowing exactly where she was heading. How many youngsters can say that today? I think back to myself and think how peer pressure not only exists in high school but beyond the workplace too. It is up to you to decide if you going to lie about who you are and what your plan is or just to go with the crowd and live up to others expectations.
Image by: Google Images

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