This question is for those growing up. If you are grown up, press next.

Flashback. It is Saturday, 27 February 2016. I am tuned to Hope FM. The program is Treasure Hunt, the lead presenter asks the guest presenters – aged between 7 and 12 – what they wanna be when they grow up. One says a pilot, another says a musician and the last one strikes me most. He wants to be an engineer and “salesman of cars”. And what type of engineer – one who repairs aero planes. Two things: either this boy has discovered way too early that you can’t survive on one job, except that you have a side hustle or that he has mixed passions.

Fast-forward: It is Saturday, 18 February 2017. The program is Treasure Hunt on Hope FM. Three children are asked what they would like to be when they grow up and their expected salaries. The first says a radio broadcaster earning Ksh 1,000,000; the second a doctor earning Ksh 30,000 and the third a pilot earning Ksh 40,000. How did they arrive at these figures?

According to a study done by fatherly in 2015, of 500 children between the ages of 1 and 10, more girls, 41%, want to go into science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) careers as do boys, at 32%.

This took me back to Musingu High in Form 2 when I was budding my career choices. I was then doing Electricity as a subject and that skewed me towards Electrical Engineering. God favored me with an admission to the University of Nairobi to do just that – Electrical & Electronic Engineering. Never mind I was still in denial that I had missed Medicine which was my first choice. As consolation, I attended 2 human anatomy classes before settling at the engineering school.

What was I going to do once I graduate as an Electrical Engineer? That question disturbed be until my 5th year of study. On the last day that I presented my final year project “ATM Switching and Data Communications”, I was sure that I was not made to be a hardcore and back-end engineer building systems. I wanted to be “selling engineering solutions “.

Back to the first treasure hunt story. When the little boy said he wants to sell cars, I felt that boy probably needs somebody to nurture that dream and re-purpose to anything this global economy needs.

Truth is, there are so many engineers, but few engineering solutions especially for the emerging economies. The universities need a rethink. Training facility engineers, solution engineers and sales engineers has a lot more value add to the engineering value chain.

I want to honor Peter Gacheru for believing in me. He saw the rookie in me with very little sales experience, but needed to sell engineering solutions. He gave me a job as a pre-sales engineer and saved me the harrowing experience of being locked in the server room.

For parents, don’t dismiss those crazy ideas your kids have as to what they want to be when they grow up. For in those ideas lies raw passion. Nurture them. Expose them. Grow them. When the ideas skew towards skills and arts, the better. This world has overrated the importance of cognitive acumen over hands on skills and competencies.