Helping young Thais choose the right path
Four former school friends have set up a business to help students find their true calling
Being swayed by parents and social attitudes to pursue a career not of their choice has dogged Thai students for decades. The situation has gone from bad to worse due to lack of stimulating activities during high school, which should in normal circumstances help teenagers to decipher which subjects to major in at university.
The outcome of this predicament has resulted in young adults majoring in subjects they are least passionate about, thus the beginning of an unhappy career path marked by job-hopping and uncertainty.
In an attempt to address this pressing issue, four school friends, now in their midto-late twenties, founded the “Know-Are Social Enterprise” aiming to answer the million dollar question: “What if we knew ourselves and lived with purpose since we were young?.”
Niruch Vanichwatanarumluk, together with childhood school friends Sukrit Suthvanich, Warapol Kasemsan and Funknathee Prapasawat, know from pursuing their individual careers that to follow a career of ones liking there has to be structured programmes for students from grades 9-12 to get them started.
“We are like a number of young Thais today that went through the stress of being pressured by parents to pursue a university education that was never our first option. The travail of studying a major that you are least interested in can be such a downer. There is also a lot of time wasted in this process,” said 28-year-old Niruch, who is a freelance graphic designer.
“This was a hot topic of discussion whenever we got together. However, it was only two years ago that we set up our own company, arranging camping trips for junior to senior high school students, where we could help them to be inspired to learn, set a clear goal and be able to overcome obstacles.”
Other objectives of the project, said Niruch, include helping students apply calculated experiences to make the right decisions, have a better understanding of the workplace they hope to enter and what their career interests are after listening and sharing new ideas with others.
“On a more advanced level, [this is to help them] pass on their experiences to others and eventually make a positive change in society. When their foundation is solid, they are then able to pose questions and offer a clear answer.
“Last but not least, we teach being able to understand the differences found among each other and respecting and valuing each other. I do believe that our ‘Dream Catcher’ programme will help them to manage their lives, have patience and concentrate on what they are doing without getting distracted,” he said.
As part of his Know-Art Social Enterprise, the “Dream Catcher” programme, for obvious reasons, said Niruch, is designed to not just help teens better understand what they hope to pursue in life but also get the chance to unload their burdens and concerns on student counsellors who are on standby to help.
Having been organised during two semester breaks during the past two years, the programme features an eight-day camp which starts with games to help break the ice among students followed by a workshop on listening to oneself and others.
Afterwards, they are broken into groups to conduct brainstorming activities to help distinguish the difference between competitive and collaborative team work.
The second day is largely dedicated to identity classification, so they can understand themselves and others and their strengths and weaknesses.
Afterwards, they attend creativity workshop classes to promote critical thinking. The day ends with a guest motivational speaker sharing with them their life journey.
Days three to six involve offering the teens eye-opening experiences of today’s diverse job market. The idea to drive home, he said, is whether this is the type of work life which is worth studying for and pursuing after graduation.
These personal experiences are meant to give students a clearer understanding of their life goals and the major they would like to study at university. By the end of this session, they can better determine whether their aspirations can become reality.
On the penultimate day, they get to discuss how to reach one’s personal goal, namely the type of education, preparation, information needed and more. On the final day, they analyse what it takes to prepare oneself to live a balanced work life and plan ahead for the future.
“Dream Catcher” has received mixed feedback because the concept is quite new to Thai society. Mostly students know the programme by word-of-mouth. Speaking of his personal experience of growing up in a family, who basically picked the subject he would major in, Niruch said: “I was so depressed during my university days that I dreaded waking up in the morning. I wanted to learn computer graphics but instead was made to study IT.
“This meant a very small portion of what I was to study was something I really liked. As I had already registered, I couldn’t get out of four years of utter misery.
“I went through my classes with my mind elsewhere. What helped me to unwind during that period was my passion for participating in activities on campus and co-curricular clubs.
“On various occasions I organised activities for various clubs that gave me a foretaste of what was needed to use well-thought-out activities to reach a desired goal. This experience turned out to be invaluable because today I can do just that for our camping events, with guaranteed results.”