^Reminds me of my husband. He is a natural teacher, so he went into education. When he did his student teaching as a college senior, he found he hated all the politics involved. So he dropped out! I’m glad he did, because otherwise I wouldn’t have met him in grad school, but it’s too bad the teaching profession lost him.
There’s also the “Paradox of Choice” issue. Sometimes people are interested in so many different things, it can be overwhelming having to choose. And, how does a kid make that choice when they don’t even know what’s out there?
But no choice is forever. And it does a disservice to kids to act as though it is. Any career choice can be changed. Now, it’s harder to pivot to certain things than others, but there is no law locking you into ANY decision.
I think you mean “Tyranny of Choice”.
H and I both knew what we wanted to be when we grew up. And it turns out that H really does enjoy his chosen career. I was another story. While I loved my bio and chem classes in college and still find medicine interesting, the allied health career I chose turned out to be a bad fit. I returned to school after 5 years of working and being very unhappy.
In retrospect, I wish I had not been so sure of what I wanted. I might have had an open mind and found that I liked finance/accounting sooner.
I am 55 and hope to retire from my current position in about 4 to 5 years, then I am going to have to figure out, onceagain, what I want to do when I grow up. Careers aren’t finite, more an evolutionary process.
When I was about 17, my mother said the field I;d end up in would be something I’d likely never heard of- or maybe wasn’t even invented yet. She was right.
At 5, D1 knew exactly. She wanted to work at a donut shop.
“Aimless wandering” is pretty negative. We saw college as a time to explore. That’s glass half full. I know parents worry about costs, but framing it as aimless is a lot of pressure on a kid whose whole world is still high school. If you want a trade, go to trade school.
I do think that for SOME kids, the interests they have as kids are closely related to what they end up doing as adults at least for awhile. My son liked to dismantle and put things back together, to figure out how things worked. That exactly what he does for a living now-he gets to MacGyver stuff and play Mythbusters and get paid for it. He couldn’t have asked for a better fit, though of course it took him some time to get there. He ALWAYS has worked with his hands, though.
Two nieces, sisters, always liked to “play office” and both are in marketing, though in very different roles. Another niece always wanted to play school, and she is a teacher. H’s friend always liked to gather people around him and have a good time. Even as a little kid he was the kind of person who’d create the games and that people flocked to. He is in restaurant creation and management-no one at all is surprised.
BUT this doesn’t mean that any 17 yo who DOESN’T know what they want to do is doomed. I suspect more of them have idea than those who have a concrete plan.
WorryHurry411 said
“I’m not saying that it’s not normal or kids should make definitive choices in their teen years. Its just that some really bright kids seem so clueless while some very mediocre students seem so clear about what they want, even though you know that there is a very remote chance that they’ll make a rocket scientist or brain surgeon with their grades. Ones who have abilities and better odds, show no interest.”
I agree that one should be realistic regarding abilities, but I’d be hesitant to write someone’s chances of achieving a desired degree or profession based on their high school grades. There can be many different reasons for less than stellar grades in HS. People mature at different rates . Many blossom in college when they struggled in HS. I agree that exploring options is helpful in determining the best fit for careers , no matter when the exploration occurs.
If you have any experience with the business world, worryhurry, you know that plenty of people who rise to high ranks may have been poorer students than the people under them. It’s not all about academics.
Also, MANY students draduats from college and actually pursue careers that are not directly related to their college major.
The other day, we were at a large family event, and there was a magician to entertain the audience. My nine year old being one of the few kids there, he was selected to “assist” with a trick. The magician asked him how old he was and then asked “so what do you want to be?” The idea behind the gag being that the kid, beyond the age of answering “fireman” or “race car driver” is unsure and says nothing, the magician says “ten, right?” - cue laughter from the audience.
Only, my kid, not missing a beat, clearly and confidently said “astrophysicist”. The magician went “Ten…what?!!”. Kid, pleasantly and confidently, repeats “astrophysicist”. Magician, nonplussed, looks at the audience, which, mostly composed of the kid’s physician grandfather’s old friends, doesn’t bat an eyelid and pleasantly and confidently looks back at him, waiting for the show to go on. Magician goes “so, um, astrophysicist. Haven’t had that one before.” Another pleading look at the audience finally elicits a few laughs and he goes on with the show, and kid, who does have comedy bone in his body in addition to his interest in science, does great at assisting him.
Only mom, a few rows back, almost falls off her chair with suppressed laughter. Poor magician.
My nine year old wants to do physics at Oxford, UK, then go on to work at CERN in Switzerland. I can totally see him at both places. Hope we can afford the former!
My mom said the same thing, and she was right, too.
Of course, there nothing wrong with careers that did exist a generation ago, either. The world needed dentists and accountants and musicians then, and it still does.
I switched major idea at least six or seven times…just my freshman year! Then I transferred schools…and it took me two more terms to declare my major…because honestly, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do until I explored some really good college courses AND found a professor mentor who I adored.
I didn’t discover my real academic lust until junior year. Nothing wasted. I really get that kids can be confused through hs and into the first years of college. What do they know? The world runs on lots of different jobs and these kids only know what they’ve seen or heard about. And the course offerings in college are exponentially larger than in high school- a buffet, not a short menu.
So, we looked at what seemed to be our kids’ inherent strengths, not a career name. I did need to steer D2 a bit to try those first courses. And that was that.
D just finished her freshman year, a year in which she changed her double major three times. Next semester she has added economics as an elective, “just to see if she likes it”. Given she wants to double major, she’ll need to make a decision by the end of next semester in order to get all her classes/credits in within the four years.
I have the same job as both my Mom’s parents. 
OTOH if I’d taken a film class before my senior year, I might have done something different.
When my daughter was 12, she told us she wanted to be an epidemiologist. My husband’s response was “what is that, some kind of skin doctor?” She’s a sophomore in college now and is still on track for a degree in public health and grad school with a concentration in epidemiology.
My son’s standard answer to “what do you want to be?”, on the other hand, was “retired billionaire.”
Kids are different. Most will find their way eventually.