A CEO. A prominent author. A politician. Parker alumni with these successful careers often grace the Morning Ex stage during presentation after presentation given to an auditorium of future employees.

These hand-selected alumni–“perfect” products of a Parker education–are presented as what each Parker student can hope to achieve as long as they wisely utilize their progressive education. But also as long as they follow a certain, relatively traditional route–attending a four-year college, finding an internship, going to graduate or professional school, etc.

The alumni that come back to speak at Parker often represent only certain types of career path–a more or less conventional path that always leads to success. And through this continued exposure, Parker is drilling into its students the belief that only that handful of traditional paths make sense to pursue.

What about the Parker graduates who took a gap year? Those who dropped out of college?  Those who struggle nobly but don’t succeed in the traditional ways? Those who think against the Parker grain?

People who have taken the unconventional path can have just as much to offer.

As the job market shifts rapidly in response to a rapidly shifting world, the last thing Parker should be emphasizing is that there is one way–or even a small bundle of ways–to achieve stability and success.We should see alumni who are working towards something, who are changing professions–not just businessmen/women who are conforming to pre-established careers.

What’s more is that many alumni that come to speak graduated in the ‘70s and ‘80s–which seems counterintuitive given that the iPhone was created before some of our current students even came to Parker. A younger, more recent graduate would be in some ways more relevant and perhaps more engaging to an audience of  high schoolers and middle schoolers.

Aside from MX’s, there’s little other interaction students tend to have with alumni. The newly introduced Alumni Lunch and Learn series, though, is a great first step to bringing together current and former Parker students.

And what else could be done? If a Visiting Scientist can come for multiple days in a year, every year, why can’t an alum? Every other week there’s an email from the Dean about a summer opportunity–but what’s stopping those opportunities from being internships or programs set up with alumni?

There’s so much potential for us to be exposed to different paths, and yet it doesn’t seem to be fully realized. We need to start showing our students that their future paths can be unique and still successful, and that in 40 years, they don’t have to have kids who attend Parker and give an MX about an office job they were told to pursue when they were in fourth grade.