As a young professional and a person who has a degree in advertising, I have a lot of thoughts about promotion. In terms of my education, I have a lot of knowledge about promoting a certain product or person or event. This is a skill that has proved useful for my new position as an event coordinator. It is interesting to think of promotion through the lens of a young professional. The idea of promoting yourself or making yourself valuable enough and impressive enough that you are promoted in terms of position or title change is incredibly important.

Another way to think about promotion is in terms of moving up in the educational sphere- a graduation or promotion to the next grade. All of these ways of thinking about promotion have one thing in common and that is that it is incredibly important and vital to the subject being promoted (whether that be a product, event, concept or person).

So now that we know that promotions are important, how do we achieve them? This is the harder part. Going throughout school, promotions are a necessary part of continuing education. They signify a passage of time as well as a gaining of knowledge. As you grow up, promotions are increasingly harder to obtain. Elementary school promotions are more about teaching the child the concept of promotions and advancement more than anything. By the time you get to high school promotion, the stakes are higher and less people make it that far. This allows those of us who succeed in receiving the promotion to feel an attainable measure of success that, in turn, makes us continuously promotable to the next level in our education or career.

This practice establishes a pattern for success that is ingrained in us at an early age. We leave high school knowing the certain steps that we have to take to achieve success in our adult lives. The problem is, this concept is outdated. Things don’t necessarily work like that anymore. Yes, there are some jobs that still work on the traditional ladder of success with several promotions along the way. Other jobs will not include this traditional pattern to which we have become accustomed. Times are changing. Millennials are constantly challenging the traditional ways of doing anything, especially work. It is important to remember as you enter the workforce that things might not be how they are “supposed” to be. Jobs, titles, and needs are constantly evolving and that is causing a great push back to the way that things have always been. We have seen this start to trickle down into our educational system as well with the rise of open- concept schooling. Many schools have also started to adapt, rejecting a traditional model of education. My point here is that our society teaches us to strive for promotion, but the future is in adaptation. Being flexible, innovative and adaptive is much more important than moving up a ladder of success. If you can learn this before you begin working, you will be far better off and you will save yourself a lot of hardship.

-          Bria