<p>My Son is a high school freshman. He has no idea what he wants to do. I understand that it might be early but I don't think it's a good idea to seat back and do nothing about it. Any recommendations on things we can do to aid in finding his passion will be greatly appreciated. </p>
<p>Thanks,
Mohamed</p>
<p>The best thing that you can do, in my opinion, is to live an active and varied life, within the time and financial constraints for your family. What I mean is…</p>
<p>If you live in the city, visit the country. Take him fishing, hunting, bird watching. Go camping. Teach him how to build a fire and tie knots. Go kayaking.</p>
<p>If you live in the country go to the city. Certainly take in the normal tourist things but do some exploring off the beaten path.</p>
<p>During the summer, join a gym with your son and learn Olympic lifting together.</p>
<p>If you have a yard, have your son help with landscaping and routine yard maintenance. If you need to repair your sink, have your son help.</p>
<p>Volunteer together. Go to plays and concerts.</p>
<p>Watch TV together especially news shows.</p>
<p>Get out and do things together, those shared experiences will often open doors to unexpected and exciting career/education paths. Maybe after taking an Oly Lifting class, he might decide that exercise science might be a cool major.</p>
<p>High school students go through many changes during these years, and what they are passionately interested in one year, may change the next. It is okay to explore without deciding on one single “passion” and to apply to college as “undecided” on a major. That’s a bottom line.</p>
<p>If you were asking for advice on how to guide him in his exploration of interests during these years, that would be one thing. If that is the case, maybe give a little more information on what his interests and talents so far seem to be.</p>
<p>However, since you mention it being “early” and mention “what he wants do to,” I am sensing that you are asking about finding “passions” for the sake of college admissions or for career. Others will come on and express opinions here, but I personally feel, yes, it is too early and secondly, a kid should not think of high school-age pursuits entirely in terms of college or career. </p>
<p>This is a time when a student should follow natural interests, which you, as a parent, can then support with lessons or activities or whatever avenue best helps with development. Hopefully, his school environment offers opportunities to explore sports, drama, music, art, writing, math, chess, debate etc. which you can then offer to extend outside of school if you are able or can afford it. Many students are burned out by all these outside activities, so make sure it is something your son himself wants to do. In fact I think it is best if the kid asks about it first!</p>
<p>And remember that even on the college level, the major and extracurriculars are not necessarily relevant to future career. Life cannot be planned as much as we are taught to think!</p>
<p>I hope he enjoys high school. Good luck!</p>
<p>I agree with both of the above posters. Enjoy being with him. He might not even know what he wants to do when he enters college. That’s okay too.</p>
<p>It would be interesting to start a thread to ask the parents if they are now doing what they planned to do while in undergrad. I’m certainly not.</p>
<p>I recently studied various career assessments for a class that I’m taking. There are so many different kinds of assessments that ask dozens of questions to help you understand your strengths better. I believe that many high school counselors may have access to these assessments. Some will give you examples of majors or careers that would be suited to your specific strengths.</p>
<p>One that I recall is O*Netonline.</p>
<p>I do think that the pressure to “find your passion” has become a bit of a cliche and may make kids who don’t have one special talent or one thing that they love to do feel that they are somehow deficient. Is your son someone who is pretty good at a lot of things, but not a standout in any one thing? That’s just fine, and often people like this find that they rise to the top of whatever field they choose, just because they are so adaptable.
It does help to know what one’s strengths are, and by ninth grade I imagine he and you have a fairly good idea. Keep these strengths in mind as he chooses courses, activities, and joins clubs that interest him through his high school career, and encourage him to get involved. Sometimes a strong interest becomes evident when our kids have to choose among things that have conflicting schedules. Time is limited, so while they are moving through the grades they tend to sort out what is really most important to them and decide how they want to use their time. This, to me, is a good-enough substitute for “finding a passion.”</p>
<p>I wish my parents had steered me in high school to a career path. The danger of having no direction and “finding” yourself through high school and college is once out in the working world it is very hard to veer off the path you are on without financial sacrifice. In other words what % of adults are “trapped” in their careers due to financial considerations in order to take care of their family.</p>
<p>We have many friends working in different professions. I had my kids spend some time with some of our friends finding out what they do, what they like about it and they didn’t like about it, and what kind of schooling and training they needed to work in that profession. I had them contact our friends directly to set up appoints. One friend raised capital for renewable energy, he took D1 to DC to a business meeting to listen in on various proposals. Another friend in retail marketing talked about his global experience in sourcing. D1 definitely knew she didn’t want to be a doctor.</p>
<p>Useful book for kids to look through, even if they don’t do the personality test at the beginning, the descriptions of different careers are interesting…
[Amazon.com:</a> 10 Best College Majors for Your Personality (9781593575472): Laurence Shatkin: Books](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Best-College-Majors-Your-Personality/dp/1593575475]Amazon.com:”>http://www.amazon.com/Best-College-Majors-Your-Personality/dp/1593575475)
“By choosing a major that fits their personality, college students may improve their career certainty, graduation rates, and even school involvement and satisfaction, according to research. With this book, students discover their personality type and the 10 best majors that relate to it.”</p>
<p>I agree that the kid does not need to have a passion now, but I am glad my son began exploring options at the 9th grade level. </p>
<p>My son began looking into Engineering in 10th grade. He was fortunate to be on an accelerated Math track and lucky that his school offered an elective intro engineering course. Mechanical Engineering was much different than he had anticipated.</p>
<p>I suffer horrid allergies. We are not the outdoors family. My son was able to get involved with a group that taught him many camping skills and gave him experiences we could not.</p>
<p>My son was very passionate about art/drawing prior to 9th grade. He did summer sessions at a University for art. The summer session helped him see that he loved doodling and painting, but hated the technical side. He didn’t take an art course after 9th grade, but the summer drawing courses came in handy for his engineering projects.</p>
<p>The best thing to do is to encourage your child to try different extra curricular activities. Never acted before? So what, encourage him to try out for the school play if you are interested. Don’t pack elective classes with all academics or things that look good - use it to try out things that interest him.</p>
<p>Finally, my son got involved with 2 activities that were not a part of his school. These activities included college students and adults. He learned about different careers just by being in touch with these folks.</p>
<p>Think about what life skills you think your child will need, then look at ways to expose him to those. </p>
<ul>
<li><p>Public speaking (even if it’s to small groups) is necessary for almost everyone. Maybe a speech or debate class at school or a Toastmaster’s group would work.</p></li>
<li><p>Do you think CPR/AED/First Aid are good skills to have? Then send him to a training course. That’ll give him some interaction with health educators. If health/medicine seems like a path he might be interested in, then most hospitals have volunteer programs.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Volunteering in the community is a way to get a sense of different jobs/needs that are out there.</p>
<p>Expose your son to other adults. If my H was going to meet a friend for coffee on a Sunday morning, sometime he would take one of the boys with him. If he was volunteering at a Brotherhood event or a community event–he would take one of the boys with him. Or to a football games, etc. </p>
<p>The boys would overhear people talking about their lives, as people do, and learned a lot just be listening in and participating in the conversation. The adults would be more than happy to answer questions and talk about their careers,etc. When the boys became older, it was never a problem to ask if they could shadow/observe. They learned about all kinds of different careers–rabbi, doctor, teacher, lawyer, landscape architect, small business owner, web designer, architect, engineer…</p>
<p>We always told our sons it was as important to discover what they do not like as it is to find what they do.</p>
<p>For example, one of our neighbors was the news director of the local CBS affiliate station, and one of my sons thought he was interested in broadcast journalism. My son was a straight A student and very involved on the school paper (EIC) and on the school radio station. He very generously gave my son a summer internship before senior year of high school. My son worked very hard and more than exceeded expectations. But within a month he had learned that he really had no desire whatsoever to have a career in broadcast journalism–and the schools and programs in that area that he had considered applying to came off his college list.</p>
<p>What’s funny is that I long ago predicted career paths that my boys were likely to take…and although I never told them…no surprises. </p>
<p>S1 majored in middle eastern studies— and has worked for non-profits that are near and dear to his heart. One of them paid for his MBA. He loves his work. He is considering and ED.D or rabbinical school. Or both.</p>
<p>S2 had the nickname "philospher king’ when he was little. He double majored in philosophy and political science. He is a policy wonk, in a program to get his masters in public policy. He absolutely loves living and working in DC.</p>
<p>S3 was the kid who always ran everything, a leader on every team, very analytical, savvy, great number cruncher, loves to make presentations–my kid who is a business major with concentrations in international business, marketing, and finance.</p>
<p>H and I never told them where to go to school or what to study. We told them to cast a broad net and to expose themselves to anything that piqued their interest, because there are a whole lot of careers out there that don’t fit into any specific mold. We told them to talk to people who love their jobs, or hate their jobs, and to find out why.</p>
<p>And we told them that in their lives they will probably have 6 or 7 careers anyway, so they should stay flexible, and stay current, and always follow their evolving interests.</p>
<p>Call your boy scout council and ask about Explorer posts – They have programs for boys and girls in high school who want to learn more about field including aviation, medicine and so forth. It’s a good way to explore interests if you have no idea what you want to do.</p>
<p>I really appreciate all the honest and positive feedback. My initial thought was to provide opportunities to explore different things. Thank you all for your feedback.</p>