When applying for postgrad courses or MBAs, they often ask what your future career goals are, but am I incorrect in saying that this is a pointless exercise because nobody can accurately predict the future? Who can foresee 5 to 10 years ahead? It is one thing to have goals but given that the labour market is subject to the vagaries of supply/demand economics, what is the purpose of planning if things can change overnight? Perhaps the admissions committee wants to see what sort of candidate you are based on some essay.
I can't remember details, and I can't be bothered searching, but some American research showed that people with written goals substantially outperform those who don't have them in the workplace.
I suspect it is not so much having goals as having the discipline and commitment to work to a longterm plan which is the important thing.
No, they're asking why you want to do the course you're applying for. If you can't answer that, you won't have any motivation to complete it, or have any use for it when you've done it.
Yes, you are. You're confused about the meaning of goal.
A goal is something you strive towards. If you could accurately predict the future, then you would know whether you will in fact reach that goal. But reaching it and having it are not the same.
Having a goal merely determines the direction you move in now, and it affects your planning. Where you actually end up is still in many ways unpredictable. You might have a change of heart along the way, and change your goal.
I guess you either have goals or you haven't. If you haven't, you're essentially a drifter, a passive, or re-active, person, and the direction in which your career (or your whole life, for that matter) moves, depends mainly on external influences and on your reactions to them, whereas if you do have goals, you exert a greater internal influence on your future, you're an active, or pro-active, person.
The purpose of planning is to be prepared, rather than to rush at things half-cocked. This is just a case of "think before you act". If things change, you can always change your plans, but it's always good to have plans.
Not based on some essay, no. But it does seem that it may be of interest to them whether you're a re-active or a pro-active type of person.
Having some stated purpose and clearly defined goals in doing the courses significantly increases motivation, standard of performance on course and likelihood of completing the course. If things change then motivated people will shift their own goalposts to adapt to changing circumstances. If people don't clearly know why they are doing a course then perhaps they shouldn't be doing it. You can see the extremes of that at undergraduate level, where there is strong encouragement to move straight from school to university whether or not you have a clear and strong motivation and purpose to do so. This is even more exaggerated in Scottish undergraduates whether their minds aren't even concentrated by a personal financial commitment to pay fees. There is even the phenomenon of those who have done a first degree, find they've done a useless subject and think that the answer is then to do another, or postgraduate degree without too much further thought.
Interesting article on the 'advantages' of a Harvard MBA in
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