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Helsinki Edition
October 1998
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Economists have the best life
You`re young. You're curious. You like language and you like to travel. In the global world of today you have an ocean of possibilities. And you decide to become a journalist. Sorry, kid, wrong choice.
You have probably, just like me, heard people say to you "oh, so you are going to become a journalist, then you will be able to travel a lot". There are many reasons to become a journalist and the burning desire of discovering exotic corners of the world is just one of them. But please, do not choose this occupation just because of this reason. Most likely you will not get closer to these exotic places than sitting in a dusty editorial office editing dreary texts about some natural disaster in India.
And it just feels so unfair. I mean, there we are curious souls, filled with lust to get abroad to work, starting to understand that it will be difficult to reach that goal.
It´s not getting any easier either. Most newspapers, TV channels and radio stations are cutting the number of foreign correspondents and then what´s left of the global employment market? What use could German or Belgian newspapers possibly have for a curious, travel-minded guy who likes to write? In Swedish?
You know just what it´s like to chat casually in a foreign language, but be honest: how many foreign languages do you really master grammatically, in text and in speech? (And yes, this text was read and corrected by the English-speaking students).
Thus our very best tool, the one we use with so much love, becomes the very reason that stops us from doing one of the things it is supposed to make easier - to travel. Talk about Catch-22.
In the meantime there are others, economists and technicians for instance, who only use the language out of necessity, not love. And they don´t have to. It´s quite enough for them to get by on their plain, meagre economic and technical terms. They get to travel anyway. And how many people have you heard saying they want to be economists because they like to travel? No, thought not.
So, if you want to travel a lot and use foreign languages, change course now! And become an economist.
Jonas Elgh |
