Career Exploration

Parents Forum
1

Hi!,

Thanks for reading this post.

Once our kids are in high school age, there comes a big decision on which career path to take and to pick a college and major accordingly.

I am wondering what resources kids and parents are using to make a more informed decision on which career path is right for the kid. Do you use any software and/or counseling to understand kids strengths and interests, to help shortlist a few career paths? Also, how about job shadowing to know more about a job? Do you feel our kids are well supported?

Let me know your thoughts and how can be kids helped better in this space?

2

That is a great question. Some teens know what they want to do, others are less clear. I am not an expert, but rather than seeking a resource, look at your child’s interests. What do they like to read? What TV do they watch? Are they extroverted or introverted? The list goes on, but what they do today will help give them a sense of what they might want to do in the future.

They key, in my view, is to encourage your child to do what they like. College is about exploring and challenging themselves. Unless they are STEM, what they study in college may have very little to do with what they actually do in their early career. Most young people will have many different careers over their lifetime. Help them enjoy learning. Those who can learn and adapt to our rapidly evolving economy will do best.

3

My D’s interested in STEM and she’s attended a bunch of seminars put on by our local science museum involving a whole range of topics and she volunteered in a lab this past summer at our local university - the intro was made through her science teacher. I think getting out there and trying to gain as much information as possible is what’s most helpful at this stage. She was also involved in Girl Scouts and attended numerous Career Day events over the years. Starting Sophmore year in HS my D started to receive a bunch of flyers for different summer programs and some of them were career focused. Back when I was in HS our local Rotary Club had a career series for HS Juniors where people would come in on a Monday night and talk about their profession.

4

In my own view, there is no need to start worrying about career path in high school. Students can enter many colleges as undecided, and many of those who do enter with a major, end up changing it. Unless your kid is applying to a school that requires a major in the application (like some UC’s), college can be a time to explore interests. Major and career don’t even have to match.

When your child is in college, he or she can do volunteering, internships or part-time work that can enhance job skills and decisions. There is always grad school and professional schools like medicine, law, business, and physician’s assistants or nursing, after graduating.

Tuitions are high and loans are burdensome, but it is still true that most students can major in what they are actually interested in and good at, without regard to a prematurely defined career path, and do fine on the job market.

Look at craigslist or a site like hireculture.org for the incredible diversity of jobs for those with a bachelor’s in most any major.

5

My DD’19 has taken a few online tests re: career and it usually says English teacher or history teacher. She doesn’t want to be a teacher. She knows she can enter undecided, but one major on her list is Recreation & Parks Management, which isn’t offered everywhere, so my thought is to pick one that does. But she is very interested in just getting it figured out now. Almost every place has History, Theater, English- her other interests, so I hope she likes one that has every major that she’s considering. Just a few minutes ago I suggested she find a Parks & Rec department to shadow. This semester she is taking TAG Seminar and will have some time to research different jobs and majors. She’s also interested in Flight Attendant.

When I was in high school, I followed two veterinarians for a day each and was able to eliminate that from my list afterward. I also shadowed an optometrist and that might have been okay but the optometry schools were farther away than I wanted to go. I went to college undecided and at my first Christmas break, my mom said, “How about Accounting” and I said ok.

6

Can a student with any major work in a national park or park?

I strongly believe that for many, premature narrowing of options can prevent, not enhance, opportunity, but it depends on the situation and the student.

But in general, keeping the focus as broad as possible while still practical seems good.

7

I remember my daughter took those career tests through Naviance or something similar. Came back saying she should be a funeral director - we both got a good laugh at that. No need to hurry and decide. Many kids enter college undeclared and a majority change majors at least one during college.

8

In general yes, but it’s good to review specific requirements and recommendations in whatever states(s) you are interested in, as they can vary significantly and in some cases recommend particular majors. For example, my state says,

"It is preferred that candidates have a bachelor’s degree from an accredited college or university in one of the following areas:

Park Administration
Natural Sciences
Social Sciences
Law Enforcement
Business Administration"
9

My kids used to take those career tests periodically at school. They were so useless. My older son was told he should be a meterorologist - which wasn’t totally unreasonable - except he’d been set being a computer programmer since 5th grade. He’s at Google now. My other son was all over the map. He liked Science Olympiad, and won quite a few awards, but his strongest grades were always in history. I think the test told him to be a garbage man. He swore he answered all the questions truthfully. He majored in International Relations, worked for NGOs for a while and is now a naval officer. I didn’t figure out I wanted to be an architect until after a year of college. My husband knew he wanted to science. He majored in both biology and physics ended up with a biophysics Phd. Does medical research now.

My high school had a program where everyone spent once a week doing internships. I worked in a childcare center, a school, on Capitol Hill for a Senator, and a political magazine. The headmistress joked that a lot of girls discovered they didn’t really want to be vets. I enjoyed different aspects of all those jobs, but I knew they weren’t really right. I don’t think high school students need to figure out what they want to do when they grow up, but experience with summer jobs, job shadowing, internships can all be useful for gaining skills, finding out about different types of jobs etc.

10

My daughter took similar tests and they all told her to be an accountant. She didn’t want to be an accountant.

I think these tests are programmed by people with limited imaginations.

11

Tests and college counselors have tried to persuade D18 that she is suited for a career in engineering (presumably due to her excellent math skills). She actually wants to major in ballet!

12

Copy of a comment on “career paths” that I posted here some time ago. The basic point is that kids don’t have to choose a lifetime career right out of high school, or even right out of college.

Sometimes when I think of life choices that young people must make, it brings to mind the line from Robert Burns’ “To A Mouse”:

“The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men
Gang aft agley,
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
For promis’d joy!”

I’m not trying to be pessimistic but rather realistic. We can plan and scheme, and hope and dream, but stuff happens over which we have little control. Opportunities arise, inspiration comes, but so do roadblocks and dead-ends.

As I have watched my kids’ careers evolve, I couldn’t have predicted either one of them, no matter that the kids were thoughtful and resourceful. But being thoughtful (planful) and resourceful is critical. Very few career lines these days are strictly linear, starting with a college degree and moving into a specific occupation and life career.

Instead careers tend to be broken into segments. I’ve given this metaphor before on this discussion board, but it bears repeating, I think. It comes from a commencement address that I witnessed a few years ago, in which the speaker came to his summation and said. “It is customary in ceremonies like this for the commencement speaker to offer advice on how to proceed up the career ladder after graduation. But I’m not sure the idea of a “ladder” really fits any more – if it ever really did. Instead, in today’s economy careers are more like “climbing walls.” You have goals, objectives you’re trying to attain. But you don’t move straight up. Instead sometimes you go upward, sometimes sideways, sometimes even downward for a while, and sometimes you may need to get off the wall. The important thing is to have an objective and to be flexible and resourceful in finding your way toward it.”

For the OP’s daughter, it’s important to define goals but also to do a constant “resource assessment.” What are her skills and talents, what experiences can she draw on, what interests would she like to follow? She may start out on one path but learn along the way that it’s not what really interests her or it’s a dead-end. What then? Assess where she is then, decide on another move, which could even be getting off the wall to obtain another degree. But she should always be enterprising, use contacts and experiences, and keep open to new paths that fit her evolving interests and talents.

I think my kids’ career lines are very unusual, but they followed this kind of path. Careers develop in segments, and the economy is moving in often unpredictable ways to offer new opportunities. The really important thing for young kids in college and recently out of college is to be able to assess where they are – even if they don’t like their current job, what skill or experience can they draw from it that’s useful for the next move? One skill and resource is networking. There’s no college course in networking. But remaining flexible and taking new opportunities is important.

13

Also real jobs don’t fall into the neat categories that young people are exposed to.

By the way, my daughter took the test and was told she would be a clown!

14

My daughter took the test once and was told she should be a taxidermist. WTH?

She’s now a CPA.

15

One of my kids works at a company which did not exist when the kid was in college in a job function which did not exist when the kid was in HS.

Kind of hard for a test to predict what is unknown!

16

How old is your daughter? I have a daughter and son and both dance. D couldn’t make it in ballet, so she ended up going to UCB and just graduated with a math degree. S17 a senior is pursuing dance. Applied for both dance and health sciences majors. Boys have better chances in dance. He has 4.6+ GPA and is very good in science/bio/physics. We are in the similar situation, but we let him decide. Only thing we did was to asking him to leave options open and apply for both dance and science.

17

Colleges now want students to declare a major on their applications when in the past “undecided” was much more common. I believe that this is for students to be less directionless when starting, even though college majors can, and will be changed.

By the time your kids are applying to college there will be trends that will mean something. It is not that they do A work but that they show interest and choose classes in certain subjects while avoiding others. Some fortunate kids do well in everything and could potentially do anything they choose to. However, by senior year the pattern will emerge. One kid will choose every math/science option that fits a schedule while another will load up on as much literature or social studies…

Free online career tests should be considered a joke. The last one I did (link from a CC poster, btw) was ludicrous and choices led to something way off the mark. Do not stress your kids with career testing at this age and while in HS. They can do comprehensive tests while in their college- done by professional at their college career center. Then the list may just give a list of occupations with people who have enough in common with their responses that match.

The HS freshman’s passions may change by senior year, and again in college. However, I suspect the STEM interested kid is unlikely to choose to be an English major (or another writing intensive instead of problem set major). This is where college choices should not only include the major of the day but other related prospective majors. It is not difficult to do because in general a school that is top tier in a field likely has strengths in similar fields.

The idea is not to go to the college that is best in the major put on the application but one that makes it easy to switch to others that are also good at the school. Many, many colleges will give a great education in various fields.

Now is the time to let them explore different subjects. Also for them to do activities that interest them and to drop them if they discover they no longer like them. DO NOT WORRY ABOUT THE RESUME for college applications.

There are plenty of kids who like dance, music and other fields where it is difficult to make a self supporting career, especially since only the top performers get the jobs (unlike most other fields where most who are average in the field can be successful). This is when kids need to have a plan B or let the arts passion be secondary to the major.

Be prepared to be surprised as well. Son was an honors math major who liked theory (versus applied) and ended up adding computer science and being a software engineer. Don’t try to connect the dots!

18

As the parent of kids in the arts, I disagree with one thing in the above post: it is absolutely fine to major in dance, music, art, theater, film or writing etc. Kids in the arts get a bachelor’s degree like anyone else and if they don’t work in that arts field for money, then they have many options, including grad and prof. schools. This is a big topic of discussion on some of the “college majors” forums and there is a thread on the top of the music forum about the myth that fine arts students land in the “poor house.” No need for Plan B in undergrad years.

19

I agree @compmom. Hard for our high stats daughter to hear her math teacher say “why on earth do you want to do dance in college” (though I’m sure it’s just his regret because she’s good at math).

Our view is do what you want to do as an undergrad and then see about grad school later. But the corollary to that is not to spend all your money/end up going into debt on the undergrad course. So $70K per year is not happening and the ideal would be a full merit scholarship that leaves her college fund intact for grad school. Hopefully that will work out.

20

Good point about debt!