I’m really worried about my kid. He’s a high school student who has been in love with computer science since he could walk. At our neighborhood BBQ the other day, our neighbors were asking him what he wanted to do when he was older and I was very surprised when he said he didn’t know. I always assumed he wanted to be a software engineer or a computer programmer so I was very surprised with his answer. He then said he had almost no exposure to career counseling and how was he supposed to know if he didn’t even know what jobs existed. Is there anything that can help him? Maybe something that can let him job shadow or meet people in certain professions?
He’s a high school student. Give him time.
There are TONS of kids who go to college and have no idea what their intended major or career will be. There are kids who go with the idea of majoring in something and then switch. There are kids who have careers that are not particularly related to their undergrad majors.
Your son isn’t alone. I would venture that the very vast majority of high school kids have no real idea what they want to be when they grow up. They are 15-18 year olds…after all.
Many kids go to college as undeclared majors…and while there, they find something that interests them, either through a course, or maybe a particular instructor who piques their interest in a field.
Sure, you can have your son perhaps shadow a variety of professions…to just see what they do. That might give him a small idea of what’s what. But really…to know what’s REALLY part of a job, you have to shadow for more than a day or two.
Does anyone have an advice? I’m just worried because he was telling me how he was scared and didn’t have anything to help him
He was telling me about how his friends in college have wasted a lot of time and money on courses that they ended up not even needing
My son had (has) similar concerns although from a slightly different perspective. His group of friends (really most of his high school) all went into their college search “knowing exactly what they were going to be when they grew up”. His concern was (is) that he didn’t have a clear path laid out for the upcoming 6-10 years and beyond.
His friends would state with certainty they were going to be an investment banker, venture capitalist, software engineer, sports broadcaster, medical device designer, etc. What was lost on my son was that these were just ideas/goals and that no one had their career figured out and that all of them were a long way from landing any of these jobs.
I attributed this to his high school. The GC’s stressed from day 1 freshman year you had to figure out our career early so when you entered your senior year you could make sure you went to the right school because there are only specific schools and majors for any and all careers. The school pushed STEM (like every other school) and top B schools as the only options if you wanted to live a middle class or above lifestyle. Very poor advice to teens but that is what they got.
My son was devastated as his impression was he could never find a job, move out of our home, etc. if he didn’t decide by his 16th birthday and once that date passed “his life was over”. It took a lot of time for him to understand the skewed perspective he had been given and we still struggle with it as now that he is in college the conversations are the same amongst the people that think they “have life figured out”.
My advice is to have him do some research around what careers center around what his interests are. This will give him a starting point along with the advice from above that desires, interests, aspirations can and do change over time.
Get the College Board Book Of Majors. Have him go through and tag options with post it notes — maybe one color for “that sounds exciting!” and one for “I’d like to learn more about”. That can be a basis for more research.
Tell him that college CAN be, but is not exclusively a place for job training. College is a place (and a time in one’s life) to become a well-rounded thinker…to learn to think critically and rationally, and yet to be able to creatively make connections between different disciplines. That’s why LACs and universities require general education courses and maybe electives outside of the major. So it’s OK, or better than OK to study some things he may never need from a practical standpoint. It will make him be more than a cog in a wheel in life. There’s also a lot of job training that happens in internships and actual on-the-job training.
This is super normal and I think especially normal in this age of expecting young people to “specialize” as opposed to being “well-rounded.” They find something they like and then all their activities fall in line. They get closer to college and they start to wonder if there is anything else out there. He may still go with computers but it’s ok for him to question and explore.
Have your son (or you can) talk to his guidance counselor at school. They should have access to personality tests, etc. that they can give him that might help narrow things down some.
Unfortunately it isn’t free, but we are lucky that DD’s high school gave her access to this site:
https://public.careercruising.com/en/
What are his extracurriculars that he most enjoys? Where is the bulk of his time outside of school spent and what is he doing? What are the electives he has taken and what electives does he plan to take in his next year of high school? All those may offer clues.
You should check out the Bureau of Labor Statistics website. They have the Occupational Outlook Handbook which will let you research every kind of job. It also tells what kind of education is needed for each job and outlook for job growth in the future. Also, the ASVAB test might be available through your school. It assesses what vocations may be suited to you. We took it in high school, you don’t have to be military to take it.
I’m in my late 20s, in a phd program, and still am not sure what I want to do when I grow up.
Even if you expose him to new and exciting fields now, there is a good chance his path is going to change 20 times between now and when he graduates college.
What are his strengths? What does he generally like to do? Pick a college and courses based on those. The jobs will likely come into his view naturally.
If he really isn’t sure…pick a college with lots of choices. And/or pick a college with a good core course requirement. Some kids find their niche while taking these core courses.
A school with a good variety of majors will give him the chance to change if needed. Plus colleges do have career centers, and students can avail themselves of the services there. This includes teasing out majors from areas of interest.
Yes, the Book Of Majors is a starting place. If he has a few ideas, look at colleges that offer those majors. He can try out a couple classes in each area when he gets there and work with the career office on career info. He can try to get internships (probably after soph year) to really try something out, too.
We like looking at possible majors and then reading the course titles for that major. It helps DD to know if it sounds interesting or awful.
When I was in high school, I shadowed 2 veterinarians and an optometrist. Decided during a dog surgery that vet school was not for me. Optometrist might have been okay but the schools were further away than I wanted. Went in undecided and at Christmas of first year, my mom said what about accounting? And I said, sure! 
Part of what you are finding, is that even though you can see where your son’s interests might lead him, at his age and level of experience, he simply doesn’t know yet what is possible. That’s OK. Maybe no one has ever actually said to him, “Hey I see you like XXX. You might think about using those interests in a job doing ZZZ when you are grown up.”
I teach adult ed at our local community college and one thing we work on with all of our adult ESOL and pre-GED students is career exploration and goal setting. This sort of thing is sometimes referred to as “transitions preparation”. I don’t recall any formal help with it back in the last century, although I really could have used it! The good news is that there now are a lot of resources available. One we use with our students is MyNextMove.org. The guidance team at your son’s school and career advisors at your local community college should have more suggestions.
Wishing you all the best!
When D1 was a senior in high school, I had her talk to my friends in many different lines of work - head of marketing for a major fashion line, architect, investment banker…she shadowed some of them at work. They shared with her on how/why they got to where they were, pros and cons of their jobs. Once she had a better idea of what she wanted to do she asked what major(s) and courses she should take in college.
If he loves CS then he has some idea what he may want to pursue, which is a good start! Our (large public) HS wants kids to start a “path” in 9th grade, which was easy for my D who wanted to pursue medical, but my S had no clue, so he took a variety of classes.
My D changed her mind midway through freshman year of college and it has worked out fine, and she’ll still graduate on time. My S will be a college freshman next year and will “try out” business and psychology as possible majors but still not sure.
If your son pursues CS he’ll have the chance to figure it out the details as he goes along, I would imagine.
So your kid is in high school. And is into computers and technology. News flash! … His future career doesn’t currently exist.
More likely than not, it will be created in the next several years. By the time he graduates from college things will be a lot different than they are today. So as an undergrad, keep it broad based and interesting. In the mean time, let him be a kid. He should try fishing or something. Good luck.
You can explain to him that those courses weren’t a waste if his friends learned something in them. Even if all they learned was that they didn’t like philosophy, computer science or biology, they inched that much closer to finding out what they might like through the process of elimination.