Perhaps the most striking finding of a recent survey of Houston Foresight alums was that 95% reported that foresight “The foresight program has changed my thinking and positively influenced my life.” I suspect most of us who have been around the Foresight program are not surprised by that, as there are so many stories of students and alums about how foresight has changed their lives. Nonetheless, it is striking to see the numbers — 95% is impressive.
The survey was conducted by student (and now alum) Fatema Tuz Zohra as part of her Master’s Project for the Foresight program. She was able to reach 90 of the 305 alums and 46 of them responded to the survey.
Another interesting finding was that 32% of respondents said they “got employed because of their foresight degree.” Basically, one in three students. This fits with a previous segmentation analysis of students suggesting that roughly 3/4ths to 1/3rd of students come to us as established professionals, and 1/4th to 1/3rd are new professionals — looking to establish careers as futurists. The established pros are typically either looking to “futurize” their current position and organization, or to branch out into something new involving foresight. Since they are established, the Foresight degree doesn’t typically led to a new job for these “futurizers” but it sometimes does for those looking to branch out.
For the new professionals looking to become professional futurists, it seems a significant percentage of them are successful. We can assume that some of the 32% getting foresight jobs are from the “branching out” segment of the established, and that the rest are new professionals. Again this fits with the anecdotal evidence, but it’s nice to have the numbers to back it up. More to come from this most interesting and useful project! — Andy Hines
