What Are You Going To Do With That College Degree?

Director Peter Sellars is one of the great minds of our time. He was already famous as an undergrad at Harvard. His theatrical productions are simply stunning and always controversial. In this hour-plus talk he asks a simple question: Why are you going to college when there are no jobs for you?

Asking this question makes you think about why you go to school and what you want out of it. If there aren't any  (or very few) jobs available, then why train for something that you can't get (and perhaps don't even want to do)? Maybe you can train to be an artist instead of a software engineer. Maybe you should think about taking classes in theater rather than learning to be an attorney. He suggests that the very best thing to do is follow your heart when it comes your education. And do it not for the money, but because your heart is in it. He suggests there's a very good chance that economic and social systems are poised for change and people with this idea in mind might be better prepared to to deal with these changes as new systems of commerce and society develop.

His simple idea is that the world has forever changed and why make your decisions based on conditions that no longer exist?  One of the things I tell young people is that they are being educated to live in the past because their parents think that's the only safe place left. Local governments and educators are complicit in this because they all want to keep their jobs. And then we wonder why we are losing our competitve edge.

He says, "We're living in a period where you're mostly surrounded by lies and most everything you encounter is propaganda. We're here on Earth to move things, to change things, to transform things."

Peter's talk starts at 12:30.