SINGAPORE – Wasn’t it just yesterday that I was meticulously planning June school holiday outings and activities for my children?
I blinked and suddenly I’m in the stage of parenthood where they are asking for advice on higher education and even careers.
Mum, which is better, a business course or a non-business course?
Does this outfit look more smart casual than business casual? Is a degree important? Did you get a master’s? Should I work before continuing my education?
These questions have new urgency because my middle daughter graduated from her polytechnic course in May. She is one of the about 25,000 students from the five polytechnics who are now out in the world, waving their diplomas and figuring what to do in the next stage of their lives.
Add to that the approximately 20,000 students who will be graduating from the local universities from May and in the next few months, and topics like the labour market, economic outlook and the most in-demand industries and jobs – once hypothetical to my family – have become relevant and slightly anxiety-inducing.
Now, I’m pretty sure I’m not the best person to go to for career advice. I’m not a job coach nor have I ever consulted one. I don’t strategically analyse market trends. My experience in starting a company, leading one or running one is nil. I’ve never worked overseas. I’ve done supervising, but never management. I’ve been in the same line – journalism/editing/writing – all my working life.
I am, in a nutshell, no high-flier.
On the other hand, I’ve worked for 31 years and I’ve more or less enjoyed all the jobs I’ve had. That surely counts for something.
Anyway, despite being no expert advice-giver, I’m their mum. So here’s what I say to them, and feel free to disagree.
A master’s degree? No, I don’t have a master’s and you don’t need one to work.
Is a degree important? Let me paraphrase something I heard quite often when I started working: A degree? But what about the university of LIFE?
As for deciding between a business course and a non-business course – or anything else for that matter – my answer will always be: Don’t settle for what seems the correct or “smart” choice. Do what interests you. Go for what you think you will enjoy.
I believe that if you have a love for something, you will always last longer in the field and do better in it in the long run. You will improve and acquire skills out of your own interest, rather than if you were in a course or job that felt like toilsome drudgery every long minute of the day.
Yes, today’s young job seekers are facing a different economic environment and some very big challenges.
I started working in 1995, which, looking back now, was fortunate timing for me and my cohort.
In 1994, the Singapore economy grew by 10.1 per cent and expanded by 8.9 per cent in 1995, according to Singapore National Employers Federation documents.
In contrast, for the whole of 2025, the economy expanded by 4.8 per cent, said a Ministry of Trade and Industry press release in January.
As at May, the Singapore Government’s GDP growth forecast for 2026 is 2 to 4 per cent .
It’s little surprise that recent buzzwords, in other parts of the world at any rate, are of quiet quitting (doing the bare minimum at work), quiet cracking (persistent workplace unhappiness, though does one really need a new name for that?) and tang ping , a Chinese term meaning lying flat, or the opposite of making an effort.
But the 1990s were not all smooth sailing. The Asian financial crisis started in July 1997 and Singapore’s growth fell to 1.5 per cent in 1998.
In the years that followed, there were the bursting of the dot.com bubble (2000), severe acute respiratory syndrome or Sars (2003) and the global financial crisis (2008), and all their knock-on effects.
So, pockets of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity have always existed, long before the acronym VUCA became a thing.
As a 20-something, I was sending faxes, doing research with books and by microfiche, and checking my pager for alerts from the office. Older colleagues I met in my first job reminisced about using typewriters.
Today, AI is probably viewed in the same way that the World Wide Web and computers were in the 1990s.
But I remind my kids that despite countless technological changes, certain soft skills will stand you in good stead forever.
A worker from the 1950s, while being baffled by the hardware, would surely recognise many aspects of work today, which include the need to adapt or learn, being able to work with others, the value and effectiveness of courtesy and tact, and the ability to read a room.
A World Economic Forum article in January 2025 reported that soft skills are increasingly important . “In roles that were once less likely to value human skills, the importance of these specific skills has grown by 20 per cent since 2018.
“As organisations come to grasp the full extent of what AI can do, they’re also coming to terms with all that it can’t do – those tasks that requ…
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