In the FT today there are the results of a survey they have done on 11K pupils aged between 13 & 16 all about how teenagers appear to be mostly misplaced in their career choices. It showed that more than a third of teenagers were interested in just 10 occupations. these included acting, professional sports and teaching, law, medicine and psychology (pleased to see that banking no longer makes it into the top 10).
So what did you want to do when you were that age? I was going to be an air hostess, a nurse and a hairdresser in my spare time. Can’t believe what stereotypical choices I made. As it happened I ended up doing a Psychology degree and a paper on “Sex Role Stereotyping”. Followed by a job in the music industry even though I am massively unskilled musically, followed by being a mother (debatable credentials for that job), then a florist, then a writer of an unpublished book on pregnancy, then a Pilates teacher (massively unfit with tendencies to behave very badly when it comes to substances to avoid whilst working in the fitness industry – mainly alcohol), then all of a sudden something else again. My brother always wanted to be a doctor – life must be so easy for him. My other brother didn’t discover his true passion and career until he was into his late 30’s.
My children have aspirations to be WAG’s, footballers, famous in some way, make millions without doing anything very much to earn them and so on. Has anything really changed? Don’t we all aim high and then spend the rest of our life being disappointed or compromising? In my case I aimed very low initially and it’s all worked – life is a constant surprise and I am continuously amazed at where I find myself.
So, my point is….does this survey actually mean anything? Aren’t teenagers always going to be misplaced about jobs? If you don’t aim high and follow your dreams to start with life isn’t that exciting – they list the least popular careers – including a factory worker, call centre worker, miner, locksmith……well who is going to list any of those on their aspiration lists for goodness sake. None of those things would be your first choice surely. We can all dream can’t we?
What I think is hard is how difficult it is for our children to get a job at all. They are even having to work as interns for free in order to start somewhere. Get on the ladder.
ALSO don’t you think it would be much better if they could go to university and try out lots of subjects like they do in the States – where they don’t specialise in one particular thing but “major” in lots? It’s so hard to have to make such a serious and long term decision about your future career when you are 17.
It’s tough out there. In addition, with the world changing so dramatically – there will be a whole load of new jobs they haven’t even thought of yet, let alone invented….
