 |
| Author | Post |
|---|
pencilnpaper
Member
| Joined: | Wed Mar 8th, 2006 |
| Location: | |
| Posts: | 64 |
| Mana: |    |
|
Posted: Tue Feb 12th, 2008 03:10 pm |
|
No advice, but a long comment on why we need to encourage career exploration in high school:
In some ways, the idea of finding your career match is a new phenomenon. 100 years ago, most young adults simply followed in the family footsteps. Now, as with college choices, we are always looking for the best "fit" I think it is important for students to start their career search in high school. It seems illogical to focus on college planning when you don't know what you are planning for! Ideally, college may be a great time to explore, but unfortunately the price tags that accompany most college educations today can restrict exploration freedom, unless 5-6 year majors and / or graduate school are options. If you know what you want, or have a passion, you can usually find a way, but it is harder, longer, and as a result, more expensive for those students who are unsure. For many, it is cost prohibitive.
Some argue that LAC's are better choices for those students. They definitely have an advantage in promoting a well-rounded education. They also have limitations. For example, most LAC's have studio art, but few have graphic or industrial arts, fashion design, etc. You can major in economics, but often need to search elsewhere to experience business, marketing, PR, advertising, or related business specialties. When you finally find something you like (if you're lucky, something that you love), then you must consider graduate school. I think that is partially the reason so many LAC's can "brag" that they produce students who choose to pursue graduate degrees. For the students, necessity often dictates graduate education. (I know -- a total different discussion, that has been well-debated).
Because it is so intertwined with the college search, it troubles me that most high students (at least at our public school), are receiving little to no career guidance. In researching what other local high schools do to help their students, I found that few do much at all. Some simply require a shadow day. Several of the local private highshools are taking a more pro-active approach which I found refreshing. At one, the students meet with their counselors in small groups approximately bi-monthly. Every year has a different focus. Freshman Yr = adjusting to HS. Jr. yr = college searching & testing. Sr. yr.= more college preparation plus discussions on becoming responsible adults. The Sophomore year focuses on career planning, and includes discussions, career & aptitude testing, shadowing, interviews, a career fair with alumni, etc. I was jealous.
I struggled throughout my college years trying to find the "right" major. I had no guidance in high school, and very little room in the college curriculum to explore options in any logical manner. In addition to a very structured and time consuming curriculum for my major (architecture), the college required a broad range of core courses. Because I was unsure, counselors simply suggested that I take a variety. There were no discussions, no testing, and no further guidance. When able, I chose core courses based on interest, but more often, I chose them based on what would actually fit in my schedule. As a result, I had a potpourri of classes, but none that led in a particular direction. Few were wasted time, as education is always valuable, but I could easily have been one of those students who stayed in school forever. Instead, to keep moving forward, I stayed with my original major. In some ways that approach ultimately worked well because architecture encompasses many disciplines and offers many career paths. But in many ways, it was not a good match. While I did well in college, I never spoke the same language or had the same loves as other soon-to-be designers, which carried over into my professional career.
Then I needed a graduate degree. Then there were the licensing exams. Then.... There was always something I "should" do to keep moving forward. Years later, I finally stepped back, did some career searching and testing, and researched additional education. I discovered that the local colleges would not apply my degree toward their curriculum. More specifically, the courses that I took would not fit into their programs. Structural design, for instance would not count as a math course. Architectural history, did not count as their history course. In effect, I would be required to start over. In one university, that meant another 5 years! Ultimately, I could not justify the cost. I already had a good flexible job, that most would envy. The money would be better spent saving for our children's education. I satisfied my other career interests through volunteer opportunities.
My daughter is unfortunately traveling the same path. She also originally chose architecture (despite my warnings) because it sounded interesting, but had very little exposure to it, except by osmosis. Now she is questioning her choice of major, and again has found little guidance, combined with very limited time during college to explore alternatives. An architecture education is a tough road when you are not sure. She purposefully chose a 4+2 program, but the curriculum is still very structured. You sacrifice a lot to be able to meet the time demands of typical studio training. As in most design fields, it could provide an excellent problem-solving approach to education which will serve her well no matter what she ultimately decides, but it leaves little room for outside exploration, or even a traditional college "life". And it seems wasteful to continue down the architecture path when she thinks it is not the correct one for her. She will probably transfer to interior design. If that does not work, I am fearful she will also discover that beginning architecture or interior design classes do not easily transfer into other curriculums or graduate programs.
If forced to do so by the high school curriculum, she would have at least been required to take the time to consider her place in the world, and her future. But they provided no guidance. I begged her to explore options independently, but like most high school students she was so consumed with AP's, EC's and HS life, that there was not enough time left in the day. Exploring careers, and the future in general, was the last thing on her mind. In retrospect, I wish we had forced the discussions much earlier. Instead, wanting to be supportive of her choice, we focused on colleges with Architecture programs (which eliminated most LAC's). We did encourage her to choose a mid-size, respectable state school because it had numerous options (and financial leeway both in terms of time and money) should she change her mind.
I know it is "never too late", but I believe a guided search needs to start in high school. If it is not provided, parents need to pressure administrations to provide it. In the mean time, recognize and stress the importance of independent career search during the college hunt . Some suggest it is advantageous to simply have college resource books in sight (like Fiske), for those students who have not yet taken the college search upon themselves. Perhaps it is equally valuable to include career planning guides (examples: "What Color is Your Parachute" , career /aptitude testing questionnaires, on-line resources, etc.). Most colleges have some type of career guidance centers. If your student is ambivalent about a major, investigate the guidance options at their university and encourage the student to seek assistance early.
At the same time, I like the idea that it won't matter in 30 years ;-)
|
mackinaw
Member
| Joined: | Mon Mar 6th, 2006 |
| Location: | Michigan |
| Posts: | 777 |
| Mana: | |
|
Posted: Tue Feb 12th, 2008 04:34 pm |
|
Some suggest it is advantageous to simply have college resource books in sight (like Fiske), for those students who have not yet taken the college search upon themselves.
This brings to mind the time when my parents decided I should have sex education, and so they left an illustrated human sexual behavior book out for a few days. It just appeared there, without comment. I read it, and looked at the pictures.
Pencilnpaper, I am very sympathetic to your ideas. I would definitely like to see the secondary schools do more. Unfortunately, at a time when they can't seem to fit P.E. into their curricula any more, and are jamming it up with AP's and the like, I don't see how this is going to happen in the regular curriculum. Perhaps they ought to try something like my daughter's college (RISD) had: a "wintersession" -- a short term between fall and spring semesters. At the high school level, at least for sophomores and juniors, it could be 2 to 4 weeks between fall and spring semesters when the students are engaged in some sort of practicum, perhaps an internship, an art or music or computer programming short-course at the local college or community center, volunteer work, or a specially designed course out of their normal comfort zone but within their curiosity zone.
Architecture, like engineering, is one of those undergraduate majors (esp. if you're talking about a BArch) that basically provides very little flexibility for students to explore. True, as you note, these are interdisciplinary subjects, but there's scant oppportunity to try serious study of humanities and social sciences. The same was really true of my daughter's training in industrial design at RISD -- though she managed to use electives at RISD and Brown to take a few courses that ultimately helped to foster her growing interest in environmental design issues. But in high school or before that she never showed any interest at all in that kind of thing. Had she developed it, perhaps she wouldn't have committed herself to an art school. (In some ways she has the problem-solving mentality of her grandfather, who was an aeronautical engineer. ID was good from that perspective but now she wants more training, through her MBA.)
We often talk about the importance of "fit" rather than "prestige" as a reason for choosing colleges. But much of the time our students don't know what they are "fitting" a college to -- it's perhaps often the atmospherics (location, learning style, student culture, extracurriculars, etc.) rather than academic interests. In order for "fit" to include the latter, students need to have a better idea than they typically do about what they want to do after college. Not a final decision but some narrowing in on general areas of interest or taste.
Following the goal mentioned earlier of eliminating some alternatives rather than choosing a particular major, your suggestion of greater emphasis at the high school level is particularly apt. At least let more students learn what they are not interested in doing later and avoid making a premature commitment to a field about which they may know little.
Last edited on Thu Feb 14th, 2008 01:21 am by mackinaw
|
alanarch
Member
|
Posted: Wed Feb 13th, 2008 02:27 pm |
|
Pencil, I do understand where you are coming from. I am also an architect. I was lucky that it was always what I wanted to do from a young age and still do it, in a fashion. I work for the government. As you well know, it is a very difficult profession to succeed in.
To get to your original point, my wife was instrumental in setting up a career internship program at my son's high school. Granted, we are talking about a private high school in New York City but the same basic ideas can apply in other places. A committee was formed to survey all the parents whether they would be willing to sponsor some sort of internship or shadowing. My wife's originally idea was more in the shadowing area so the kids could get just some exposure. It turned into mostly internships and some of them are paid. Administratively, this takes a lot of volunteers to set up and usually a school staff member to be involved. Most of the internships take place during the summer months when school is out. School ends at the beginning of June so there is time to do this and something else during the summer. My son was involved in a few internships and found it worthwhile. He's now a freshman in college but is talking to his high school to see if there is a possible internship for this summer. He has looked at what his college can offer but because he still wants to go to camp this summer, the offerings are limited. (camp, as a camper and counselor has been a big part of his summer for over a decade. Yes, we have pushed a little for him to consider internships more seriously but that is another discussion) This has probably been a longwinded response but if you would like any additional info, you can PM me.
|
CarolynLawrence
Administrator
| Joined: | Sun Mar 5th, 2006 |
| Location: | USA |
| Posts: | 3216 |
| Mana: | |
|
Posted: Thu Feb 14th, 2008 07:26 pm |
|
I think career planning in high school can have its benefits, but it has it's limitations as well. The school where I work has a very active career program. We bring in speakers, we match our students up with mentors, we have career days from 6th grade on. We also actively help our students find summer interships and attend career-related summer programs.
75% or so of our senior and junior classes tell me they "want to be a doctor."
The problem is this: Many of those same kids are NOT particularly strong in math and science. In fact, many of the same kids that tell me their goal is to "be a doctor" are barely passing math and science, and think I'm nuts when I say that, yes, they'll need calculus and physics for medical school. If you point this out to them, most will say something along the lines of: "Well, then maybe I'll be a dentist or pharmacist."
These kids are getting good career counseling and they ARE choosing colleges based on "good for pre-med." (or "engineering" or "business" or "journalism"). But, the majority of college students change their major at least once. So, what happens when kids don't end up majoring in science, or business, or engineering, the main reason they've chosen a college?
If they're lucky, they'll be at a college where there are other good options besides the one they choose their college for. If they're really lucky, they'll end up at a college where there's good career counseling --- but, of course, if they're "sure" they're going to become doctors, they probably aren't going to give much consideration to the career counseling center's resources. If they're very unlucky or unresourceful, however, they'll be more likely to drop out when they discover that "pre-whatever" isn't right for them, or at least find themselves feeling pretty rudderless. That's where you start to waste money on college.
There's another important point: A 17 year old is very different from a 19 year old or a 21 year old or a 28 year old or a 45 year old. There career goals and needs are likely to be very different as well. Heck, when I was 17 and looking at colleges, my career goal was "to be a famous poet." I would never have dreamed, even 10 years ago, that I'd be working as a school counselor.
Additionally, in high school you take at most 10 or so subjects. There are literally hundreds of college majors. While some kids do know what they're interested in at the end of high school, the vast majority haven't yet been exposed to all the possibilities out there, nor do they yet know that they are going to fall in love with anthropology, entomology, or egyptology when they get a chance to study them.
So, the upshot is this: Career planning in high school certainly has it's place, but it also has limitations. It needs to be matched carefully with effective counseling to help students understand what their strengths AND weaknesses are, and students need to know that it is OK not to know what they want to do for the rest of their lives at 17 or 18. Heck, I think life would be pretty dull if everyone slotted themselves into a career path before they're even of legal drinking age.
Frankly, rather than more career planning in high school, I think more folks should pay more attention to differences between college career planning resources, and there are very real differences in what's available on different campuses. Unfortunately, a stop at the career services center isn't on most college tours, and most students won't seek the career services center out until they're seniors. 
|
Wstrdg
Member
| Joined: | Mon Mar 6th, 2006 |
| Location: | |
| Posts: | 398 |
| Mana: | |
|
Posted: Thu Feb 14th, 2008 08:29 pm |
|
Our high school incorporates "career research" into the 9th and 10th grade English class, requiring a personal essay, a presentation (PowerPoint or speech), and a short research paper. But I tend to agree with Carolyn that career research in high school isn't very productive. The teacher assigns the project on Monday and its due on Thursday or Friday. So what do you do? Just pick something -- most of these kids don't know anything exists out there other than "butcher, baker, candlestick maker" or "doctor, lawyer, indian chief." You end up with lots of veterinarians, doctors, lawyers, and a wedding planner. That's great, but again, as Carolyn said, those first three choices are going to take high grades, and wedding planner??
IMO, the career research thing should start in the family, with talk about jobs, technology, politics, business, reading the paper, watching the news, does this look interesting? does that look promising? how would you like to be in charge of that? what would you if you ran things?
|
jocelynDAD
Member
|
Posted: Thu Feb 14th, 2008 11:46 pm |
|
I wish I had written Carolyn's reply - it is so 'right on'.
S1 wanted to be a Psychologist - got to college and pursued economics, went to Law School - became a Lawyer, got his CPA and now is a Lawyer/CPA with emphasis on the CPA portion.
S2 wanted to be an Engineer until the first college semester - quickly went into business/economics got his MBA and found himself in Management/Labor Relations in a small regional company primarily dealing with production and people problems.
S3 another engineer changed to business got his CPA and now is in Banking/Finance
Our youngest (D3) is entering college this fall. Her major is "Decidedly undecided".
Learning from her siblings she wants to 'test the waters' at college to find areas that interest her. I think she is headed for Law School and a career in the legal field, but I would not place a bet unless I got 20+ to 1 odds. 
I am only certain that life choices are hard and very uncertain. Decisions at 17-18 years of age are generally created IMO from outside influences not the person themself. Not the best guide IMO>
Last edited on Thu Feb 14th, 2008 11:47 pm by jocelynDAD
|
Mezzomom
Member
|
Posted: Fri Feb 15th, 2008 12:00 am |
|
My daughter suffered through a middle school course on careers, and to this day, I think it warped my daughter a bit  . There was so much focus on careers with A Name (doctor, teacher, nurse, engineer) that kids like my daughter, who had/have diverse interests were left feeling there was something wrong with them.
Fortunately, my daughter, who has always been a "mold-buster", has realized there isn't likely to be A Job with A Name out there for her. What she is beginning to appreciate is that she will likely be employable, because of rather than in spite of the lack of Named Career. She's become very adept at emphasizing her skills and how her various activities polish or reinforce those skills, whether its on a resume or during interviews (although why she struggled with college essays so much remains a mystery!). Because she realizes she's not Pre-anything, she's very careful in choosing her words.
And I think Wstrdg's point about reading and talking is excellent; we've had many a conversation that began with me saying, "I can see you doing something like that someday. What do you think?"
|
pencilnpaper
Member
| Joined: | Wed Mar 8th, 2006 |
| Location: | |
| Posts: | 64 |
| Mana: | |
|
Posted: Fri Feb 15th, 2008 02:25 am |
|
Respectfully disagree...and the examples confirm the point I believe in. I think career thought needs to start earlier. I totally agree that career research in highschool is typically ineffective and narrow, when students focus on one career. Most high school career "planning" I have seen when it exists at all, is to ask a student to pick a career, shadow a professional, and / or perhaps write a paper on a specific career. They may take an aptitude test. Rarely are the results discussed in any depth.
So students pick a career. Then they ask the question: "What school is the BEST in Engineering, English, Pre-med, etc. I see that everyday on the forums. Just as Carolyn says, many students have one or two options in mind. That's the problem. No one has probably discussed with them WHY they want to be a Dr., or the road to get there, or the lifestyle afterward. Asking some of the questions, and thinking about them early may make them think more critically, and open their eyes to other options. I don't think students are being asked the right questions in the right order.
I feel good career planning starts with asking questions rather than giving answers: What do I like? What do I do for "fun"? How do I see myself in 10 years? If that doesn't work, what are other options? What are my goals? How have they changed over time, and how are they likely to change again? What are some common threads that I have seen in my chosen activities? What are some options I've never considered? ETC. Some career tests match your ideas about yourself with how people in certain careers think about themselves, to see if there are common threads. In fact, I would argue that effective career planning starts by asking more questions than giving answers. Shadowing is only a small part of it. Are 16-17 year old students too immature to ask the questions? I don't think so. Will their ideas change? Of course!
|
WestrnMom
Super Moderator
| Joined: | Fri May 26th, 2006 |
| Location: | West Coast, USA |
| Posts: | 1173 |
| Mana: | |
|
Posted: Sun Feb 17th, 2008 02:20 am |
|
I like this website to help students match their strengths and interests with their majors and future career goals. http://mymajors.com/
I'm like pencilnpaper in that I think it's a waste of time and money to spend four years and as much as $100,000 or more to find oneself unless the student is working toward some type of career goal. My children have both changed their original plans, but they are majoring in subjects that are within the realm of their strengths and interests. My artist child changed concentrations within the major, twice, but is still in the art department. My other child is still figuring out which area to focus on, but is taking classes in his primary area of interest and I think will have a major selected by fall of sophomore year. Neither one knows exactly what career they are going to end up in, but they know the general area. That means the degrees they get are going to move them toward the right careers, so they are on a career path that makes sense without being tied to something as specific as a law degree or a medical degree or a career in graphic design.
Last edited on Sun Feb 17th, 2008 02:21 am by WestrnMom
|
Current time is 10:15 pm | Page:   1 2 |
|
|
|
|
