My high school actually made us write career planning papers once a year for 4 years. It certainly helped some people, but the big problem for me was that I was not smart enough and did not know enough to make those plans then! Now, looking back a decade or so, I am perhaps competent enough to do useful planning for my high school self, but I certainly couldn’t do the planning for someone else.
The advice I’d give to a general audience like my past self would be to try the career paper thing in case it works, but also put a high, high priority on taking summer internships doing and observing and making contacts in actual day to day work in areas you are interested in. Try to keep some record of how much you enjoyed each thing—then go back to the person who was your boss for your favorite internship and absolutely lean on them for help and advice and recommendation letters.
And yet even that would only have been moderately useful for me. So maybe as a last ditch effort, try to find someone who is highly similar to you but at least 5 years older and get them to tell you what to do—and try it for a little while even if it sounds like something you wouldn’t have decided on yourself. My high school self would not have known how to implement this advice properly, but this is absolutely something parents can help with if they don’t know how to guide a child who is interested in things they don’t have experience in.
Wow, it’s awesome that your high school had you write career planning papers, too bad it was only once a year though. Glad it helped some people.
Good points about the summer internships and observations post-factum. Also interesting thoughts about the person who is highly similar. I know my high school self would have had trouble figuring out who would be highly similar to me but 5 years older, but still, something to try out.
I’ll be writing future posts about this topic, and will definitely integrate your suggestions into them. Thank you!
My high school actually made us write career planning papers once a year for 4 years. It certainly helped some people, but the big problem for me was that I was not smart enough and did not know enough to make those plans then! Now, looking back a decade or so, I am perhaps competent enough to do useful planning for my high school self, but I certainly couldn’t do the planning for someone else.
The advice I’d give to a general audience like my past self would be to try the career paper thing in case it works, but also put a high, high priority on taking summer internships doing and observing and making contacts in actual day to day work in areas you are interested in. Try to keep some record of how much you enjoyed each thing—then go back to the person who was your boss for your favorite internship and absolutely lean on them for help and advice and recommendation letters.
And yet even that would only have been moderately useful for me. So maybe as a last ditch effort, try to find someone who is highly similar to you but at least 5 years older and get them to tell you what to do—and try it for a little while even if it sounds like something you wouldn’t have decided on yourself. My high school self would not have known how to implement this advice properly, but this is absolutely something parents can help with if they don’t know how to guide a child who is interested in things they don’t have experience in.
Wow, it’s awesome that your high school had you write career planning papers, too bad it was only once a year though. Glad it helped some people.
Good points about the summer internships and observations post-factum. Also interesting thoughts about the person who is highly similar. I know my high school self would have had trouble figuring out who would be highly similar to me but 5 years older, but still, something to try out.
I’ll be writing future posts about this topic, and will definitely integrate your suggestions into them. Thank you!