Last month at UBC, the Careers Day Fair was open for 3 days (September 30 – October 2) at the Student Union Building to provide students with more information on graduate school opportunities with representatives from a university program at a booth. The Careers Day Fair was open to everybody and there was no sign-up necessary, so students were free to walk around and explore for themselves while in the Student Union Building. A question I’d like to bring up is why would people want to participate in these kinds career oriented events?

Personally, I participated because I wanted to learn more about the opportunities that are available to me after I graduate from UBC. I am currently a third year sociology student and I am interested in what graduate school has to offer. Because I’m very new to this, I don’t know much about what graduate school is about, what I must do to get accepted and what types of students they look for and I wanted more information on this. The ultimate reason as to why I attended was because I want to further my education and to give me an upper-hand when applying for jobs in the future.

As I mentioned, I want to get into graduate school because it will give me a higher advantage in finding a career. However, once one takes my perspective out of the picture and asks in society’s point of view, there’s a larger concept that influences why I want a career in the first place. Our society that we live in values capitalism and consumerism. In order for consumerism and capitalism to keep running, jobs must be taken by people to earn a living and survive. But it is not only about survival, it is also accumulating wealth and moving into different social classes.

My individual choice in wanting to apply for graduate school, is not a pure individual choice, it is also the dependent on many outside factors, such as the structure of institutions like family, school, government, and the pressures of societal norms that influence me to make this free will decision.  Ultimately, C. Wright Mills touches upon this subject in his book, “The Sociological Imagination.” He gauges the importance of understanding one’s own experience by locating oneself in the greater perspective of things. In other words, it is an understanding of oneself in relation to society.

So, how does little me affect our society? Each individual influences society, and society influences individuals. It’s kind of like an interdependent relationship. So, for me wanting to go to graduate school, I’m influenced by society to make this decision so that I have a better chance in finding a secure job after my schooling. In addition, I influence society as I am reinforcing this notion of earning money, and inevitably capitalism itself.

At the end of the day, yes, I still want to apply for graduate school and I wanted to explore my options in Careers Day. However, even though I do consider it as an individual choice, it is also important to remember the structures that influence us to “freely” choose to do something. My challenge for you readers is to think about why you’re doing something simple and natural to you. Why are you considering going into graduate school? Why do you want to go into the workforce right after graduation? Because at the end of the day, we are still part of a larger society and we cannot separate from ourselves from it, no matter how much we would like to think everything we do is out of our free will.

References:

Mills, C. W. (1959). The Sociological Imagination. New York: Oxford University Press, 1959.