Wanting to be listened to

[mumbodragon]

Our 16 has just finished school.
In November last year my husband and 16yr started looking a collages (It was hard for me to go as the disabled access was not always available or I was having a bad day)
They went to lots of collages for the subjects the 16yr wanted to take, last week was induction week and we had narrowed it down to 2 so off the 16yr went for the tasters.
In November we all sat down and talked about what subjects to take and I suggested not to take art as it was a broad subject with lots of areas that might not be any help in career the 16yr thinks of going into.
So decision was made Art, Psychology, Biology, we have filled in all the forms and had the yes's back attended the collage days then tonight the 16yr turns round and says "I dont want to take art as I would rather concentrate on Psychology and Zoology "
I just looked at my husband and said its a bit late now as you have excepted the two places (wanting to say I thought this in November). So now we have the task of writing to the collages to see if we can change the subjects should be ok I hope just leaving it to the last minuet.
I saw this coming and gave my advice but it fell on deaf ears my husband and 16yr made the choice of subjects and which collage to go to.
I also have a nagging doubt that the collages that they chose might not be the best for "Psychology and Zoology"
Feeling a little bit invisible.

what does he/she actually want to do?

If it is any help.. I didnt have a clue when I went to college, and when I left at 18, the career path I chose, and was very succesfull in was not remotely related to the subjects I took at college.

what is your dc choice of career that they want to do at this moment in time?
bearing in mind that a lot of people went to college to study different things that they now do, it may seem major now but may not be. if you see what im saying x

It probably isn't too late to change. 16 is very young to know exactly what you want to do. Maybe see what the GCSE resuls look like.

This was half the problem she has a few ideas become a Psychologist go onto art and media or Zoology.
I still think they are to young to choose what they want to be at this age
Also she is an A*-B student so all the collages she applied to excepted her it sound ungrateful but the is to much choice if you get what I mean

I suppose I am just scared for her and want to help her make her mind up but its not up to me what she should do with her life I can only advise

If she wants to go on and study psychology or zoology at uni then she should probably look at some of the uni courses at places she might be interested in or that she has heard of to see what a-levels she would need to get in. That way she will know if she is doing the right thing in dropping art.

I did psychology (a long looong time ago now, so probably out of date) and it was a good uni but even then you needed to have 3 good A-levels. I'm guessing that these days it will want 3 very good a-levels, not sure that Art would have counted towards it?

We were also told that if you wanted to do psychology then you didn't need psychology a-level, they preferred it if you had subjects that showed you had a good range of skills (maths or stats for numeracy, biology or another science to show you could cope with scientific concepts, something like geography or history to show essay writing and fact recall etc - my course actually preferred you to not have had psychology a-level so they had a clean slate and could teach you what they wanted how they wanted, although again things might have changed in the last 20 or so years since I applied!)