How do I advise my kid who "wants to help people?"

<p>Working in medical research, I have worked with folks in professions I had never even heard of before. For instance:</p>

<ul>
<li>orthoptist</li>
<li>perfusionist</li>
</ul>

<p>There are a lot of health care fields out there besides doctor/nurse.</p>

<p>
[quote]

  • orthoptist
  • perfusionist

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I had to look those up, too. Neat. I'll share them with Son. </p>

<p>If I were a bettor, I'd say he'd prefer perfusionist (person who operates the heart/lung machine in cardiac surgery) over the orthoptist (eye exercise therapist). </p>

<p>(And it doesn't hurt that perfusionists' median wage in our area is ~$110,000, according to salary.com. Drat. No data on orthoptist.)</p>

<p>What about a year or two off before college and do something like the peace corps or americorps. Not just for the experience of "helping" people, but perhaps he'd notice areas/careers that would jump out at him as possible avenues he might explore. For instance, wow ... it would be great to be a civil engineer in order to help build wells, piping, infrascture in a small community. Or, there's a real need for psychological counselors to deal with young children who've been through trauma, etc. Or perhaps he might just interview people who've participated in these types of programs and ask, "where do you see the greatest need?"</p>

<p>zebes</p>

<p>P.S. In many ways this describes what we've been through with my d, who's a senior this year. She went around and around with various career options, and we began noticing a theme: she wanted to combine her love for science/math with service. Eventually, after she thought about she hated hospitals and wasn't overly fond of sick people <g>, she began to explore engineering. She realized because of the interdisciplinary nature of the field, in so many respects, today that in many ways there are definitely service opportunites, i.e. biomedical engineering in developing better prosthetics or chemical engineering in research dealing Parkinson's and Alzheimer's (two diseases that have intimately touched our family). That's all it took. And with her short term mission experiences since about 5th grade, she's also realized that being an engineer would dovetail nicely with that ... in finding trips she might go on where she can utilize what she'll learn.</g></p>

<p>When one of ours was in the 'I don't know what I want to be' dilemma, we reminded her that when we were in college her Dad's job did not exist. We advised: study anything which fosters critical thinking and you can adapt to this rapidly changing world.</p>