Talk by Mr. Michael Doodson “Career choice in the MTV age.”

Reporting Officer: Phintsho Dorji, FAO Bhutan

The reporting officer after having attended the Youth Employment Summit (YES) Kenya September 2006 felt the need to organize something for the youth in Bhutan. Accordingly the RO organized the career talk.

The reporting officer in consultation with Mr. Doodson (a short time visitor to Bhutan) and with due permission from the Director of the School Education, Ministry of Education organized two career talks: on 30th October at Kelki Higher Secondary School, (KHSS) Thimphu and on 4th November at Jakar Higher Secondary School.(JHSS)

At KHSS, the principal gave the welcome speech. The RO introduced the speaker. Then Mr. Doodson gave the talk for about half an hour followed by question and answer session. The highlight of his talk was “he is not here to say what job to do but help to think. He has hired and employed people and comes with that perspective. He said it is an exciting time to be young in Bhutan today. Bhutan has been discovered. Many people love to come to Bhutan. If there were no limit, there would be more foreigners than Bhutanese. He asked the students to respect their culture, respect their tradition. Teach the rest of the world.” Mr. Doodson, in his talk also said that there would be 50% new jobs ten years hence. We don’t know but we should explore. He gave Mike’s seven (7) rules and explained them with examples:

1. Discover your passion
2. Be very good at doing it
3. Live your own life
4. Live in peace and harmony with others
5. Don’t plan too much
6. Don’t choose a career just for money and
7. Be responsible for yourself.

After the talk, enough time was given to the students to ask questions, make clarifications and to give comments. Twelve (12) questions were asked of which 5 were asked by girls. Questions were related to stock exchange, journalism, whether to follow success or to follow passion, chartered accountants, GNH, hotel management, whether a Bhutanese journalist can be part of BBC, failures in life, passion for basketball but no national basketball team in Bhutan, economic plans, Bhutan turning to democracy from monarchy and what do look for while recruiting people.
Questions were very well taken and answered. The question and answer session nearly lasted an hour. A Kelki boy gave the vote of thanks when the questions were exhausted. The turn out for the KHSS talk was good. There were around 480 students of Classes XI and XII from KHSS, Motithang HSS and Yangchenphug HSS with some teachers in attendance too.

At JHSS, the welcome speech was given by
Dechen (a Class X student). There were more
than 200 students (Classes X, XI and XII) and
15 teachers present in the talk. As usual the RO
gave the introduction of the speaker and then
Mr. Doodson spoke for about half an hour
followed by question and answer session.

Only six (6) questions were asked of which five
(5) came from boys. Questions were related to
how to promote writing, suggestion for earning a living (what to do if what the person likes does not earn a living, change in GNH after 2008, US is a dreamland of many nationalities, what makes people go there, how do you cope with stress and ambition to become scientist but Bhutan lacks equipment, what should the boy do? Very interesting questions were asked; relevant and interesting answers were given. The students here were little shy and reluctant to come forward and ask questions.

As soon as the sixth question was answered, Mr. Sangay Thinley, a Class XII student gave the vote of thanks. In his statement, he mentioned that the school has received many career councilors in the past but they were discriminating. They gave more opportunities to Science students whereas Mr. Doodson’s talk was very helpful and guidance to all the three streams. He called Michael’s 7 rules as Michael’s 7 noble rules.

Mrs. Ruth Doodson (who accompanied her husband) on the request of the Principal gave a talk on flying. How she started and how it is and how you should gather guts to do a dangerous job. Mrs. Doodson is a licenced pilot. Her talk gave lot of encouragement to the students to try out new things in life.

After the talk, we were joined by some
tourists and teachers of the JHSS. We had
a casual discussion. I gave my email
address to one of the teachers, in case the
students have questions to ask and if they
were shy to ask. Mr. Doodson said that he
would be happy to answer them by email
too.