Your career path is not a straight line. The only preparation is adaptability.
When I was studying English in a specialized high school track, I complained to my father, questioning the professional value of such a niche focus. His reply was swift, citing a former Foreign Minister who had risen from a translator: “He achieved diplomacy from translation.” I devoted myself to my studies, dreaming of a prestigious career in foreign service.
That dream, however, was just the first in a long string of professional identities. At 17, I traded diplomacy for philosophy and literary criticism. By my first year of university, inspired by Sherlock Holmes, I shifted my sights to criminology and psychology. Then, driven by pragmatism and financial need, I switched to commerce. By the end of my third year, fascinated by a friend’s work in artificial intelligence, I committed seven years to economic research.
At 28, with my Ph.D. complete, I thought I finally knew my destination. I was wrong. After three years in academic research, I realized I neither wanted nor could thrive in the purely scientific world. I transitioned to financial M&A consulting—a world requiring a very different disposition from that of an academic. My business career was unthinkable to former classmates who had only ever known me as a bookworm.
My journey is not unique. I know a Hanoi Medical School graduate who now happily works as a professional photographer and part-time instructor in the U.S. Another friend, trained in diplomacy, now spends her time training to become a top female golfer in Vietnam.
The myth of early certainty
Before every university entrance exam, parents and educators emphasize the critical need for students to “find their passion” and “define their career path.” The failure to enter a chosen major is often viewed as a personal tragedy, a family disappointment, or even a systemic failure.
I believe this obsession with certainty is misplaced.
The reality is that most of us will change careers at least once. Your first job will rarely be your last, particularly in the 21st century. Twelve years of secondary school is simply too little time for young people to experience life and truly know what they like, what they are capable of, or what the world will demand. How can we expect young people to set a definitive course with so little information?
Career awareness comes only through real-world experience and interaction with a world far broader than the classroom. The road to discovering one’s life’s passion is rarely a straight line; it is full of twists, turns, and often guided by chance. A single nudge of fate can transform a quiet homemaker into a fierce entrepreneur, or vice versa.
The age of the undefined future
Compounding this personal uncertainty is a massive external factor: The future is undefined. Vietnam and the global economy will look radically different in the next 10 to 20 years than anything we can predict. Millions of factors influence the future—no one can control them.
Just over a decade ago, no one predicted that the “world’s largest newspaper” would be Facebook, displacing thousands of professional journalists. The collapse of financial and real estate markets has threatened to render degrees in those fields obsolete. Ten years ago, few would have predicted that agriculture, tourism, and hospitality would become some of Vietnam’s most fashionable and sought-after sectors today.
Given that the future is inherently uncertain in this rapidly changing world, the majority of career plans made by young people and their parents today will prove inaccurate.
The solution: Adaptability and comprehensive training
If the future is undefined, what must we do? Since we cannot control the future, the most critical thing is to prepare for maximum adaptability. We need comprehensive training that enables us to respond to any change, not just training for a single vocation.
To achieve this, certain competencies are paramount: openness, creativity, critical thinking, a receptive learning mindset, foreign language proficiency, and multidisciplinary exposure.
This is why the philosophy of liberal arts education remains one of the most progressive ideas in modern higher education. This philosophy argues that students must be trained broadly in fields like social sciences, humanities, physical sciences, and basic sciences before specializing later.
I urge universities in Vietnam and young students to embrace this comprehensive development pathway in their early years, rather than committing to a single vocation that most will eventually abandon. If the current educational system is not ready to provide this, young people must self-equip through early work experience, self-study, and accumulating as many different experiences as possible.
Knowledge of literature will aid a financier in writing and communication. A background in psychology will help a doctor empathize with patients. An engineer with an understanding of art can create more beautiful designs (Steve Jobs’s design ethos for Apple was heavily influenced by his calligraphy studies).
The more you experience across diverse fields, the better prepared you will be for the undefined future.
Don’t feel compelled to define your career immediately. At some point, you will discover what you truly like, what you want to do, and what you can achieve.
The future will always be undefined. Prepare well, and never limit your life to a single path.
