To be a bit worried my year 12 DS doesn’t know what degree/job he wants to do?

[Billfortune]

Is it normal for them to not really know what career they want at this stage of year 12. DS is 17 and not sure but also doesn’t really want to talk about or explore options. He’s doing A’levels and wants to go to university so doesn’t he need to be thinking about this now? Feel like I’m being a bit pushy asking him about it when he’s clearly not keen to discuss it at the moment.

@miltonj

Wow! He's 12!! He'll be fine.

I read it like that too , but he's year 12 so 17

Relax, 3 sons and none knew what they wanted to do at 17. Don't push please. If they don't know what they want let them take a gap year, get a job, whatever. My youngest said didn't want uni, took a gap year then a job in a call centre, then independently decided to go to uni at 24 and is now a nurse. Both of his brothers ended up in something different to their degrees. 17 is often too young for them to know what they want to do but if you are just supportive in the background they will sort themselves out👍

My DD was the same. She looked at several universities and thought of primary teaching then she found a very niche course that interested her even though she wasn't 100% convinced that she would do the job it qualified it for her. This year she will start her 10th year in the job.

Super common! I teach A levels at a college. We recently delivered a personal development day for our AS students. Which was career focussed each session was delivered by subject specialists internal and external focussed on what career paths their subjects could lead to. Students signed up for whatever interested them.
I led an alternative session called ‘What to do when you don’t know what to do’
it was so popular I had to run it twice!

That's not unusual at all. I had no idea what I wanted to do. Went to Uni and did a degree is the subject I enjoyed the most. Started a postgraduate diploma in something a bit random but left half way through. Found job in related subject and did PhD through that. Then realised I wanted to do something totally different, joined the civil service at fairly low grade and have worked my way up over past 20 years. Absolutely no way I would have seen myself here 30 years ago when I was his age.

Another who’s DC benefited from a gap year.
Both DC started degrees in what they thought they might be interested in ( no strong conviction).
Both finished first year ( to get credits), then took a gap year.
DC1 has gone from science based degree to humanities, DC2 went from music industry to business. Both much clearer on what they want to do.
Suggest keeping subjects very broad.
Good luck

At 17 I absolutely KNEW what I was going to do: primary ed. All my work experience was geared to it, my A levels were geared to it, my degree choice and university choices were totally completely and utterly geared to it.

Within 12 months I had crashed and burned. Nearly had a breakdown and ended up changing my degree to a non-vocational academic one, where I had bugger all idea of what I wanted to do, but enjoyed the course content. Subsequently went into a non-graduate but enjoyable job and worked my way up from there.

Now I have a 17yo DS in Y13 who has picked his degree based on a subject he feels he will really enjoy, but he doesn't really have a clear idea as to where that will lead. Frankly, after my own experience I suspect his is the healthier approach.

I had it all planned out at 17... and then it went very wrong, and I never even finished uni!
He has a while to decide. And uni isn't everything. Sure, if he has a set career path and needs the degree, then go, but I wouldn't recommend just going for the sake of it.

My year 11 wants to work on politics and my year 10 wants to a police officer. Year 7 did want to be a teacher but realised not liking children (or most people) was a downside and now wants to be a police dog handler! The older two have been set on theirs for years, but I fully expect them to end up doing something completely different.
At 17 I nearly joined the army. Then nearly trained to be a medical herbalist.
Then had DC1 at 20 and didn't decide to go into nursing until my late 20s. Benefit of nursing is so many different jobs within it, so if/when I get bored there's always a completely different path to take.

I like having discussions with my DCs about uni or work or plans for the future, and am always enthusiastic about their plans, but I don't expect them to stick.

Eldest definitely wants to go University, but plans to have a gap year and work for a bit first. May well completely change plans in that time.

I wish I'd known it was ok not to know what to want to do in yr12.
I wish I'd known you don't have to rush in to a career in your 20s because the starting salary seems high, but all your mates end up earning more long term
I wish I'd known that office jobs don't have to mean staring at a computer screen all day and that p5 on a rainy Thursday I would kill to be staring ata computer instead of a stand off with some random kids who's popped in to disturb my lesson
I wish someone had told me to go for the money jobs.

How about choosing a well paid career and then working backwards to see what degrees offer entry into it and then see what his interests and skills are and the most suitable degree for him. That should point him in the right direction

This is what I did for law, accountancy and engineering. These days, I would add computer science in the mix. I chose law in the end. Never looked back. Gave me lots of options and the high pay gives my dcs even more options. Who loves their job? If it pays the bills and some, you are already winning.

My career did not exist when I was at uni. I had one vague and unrealistic plan - realised it would never happen and sort of fell into my current one.

Go for a general degree - maybe one of the STEM subjects.

DD is Y12 and doesn’t know either.

I didn’t know in Y13. Picked vague uni courses I didn’t really want to do, dropped out. As did some of my friends.

Picked up my degree again at 22, did really well and got a first, built my career and now own a successful business.

It makes me uncomfortable too, but it’s not a deal breaker.

I started off by studying philosophy and communications. My parents had both left school at 15 and had vague ideas about me studying business. Wtf was I doing studying philosophy?

Read all your replies and I feel a million times better. I’m going back off, encourage and reassure DS from now on.

Neither of my year 11s know either.
I still didn't at that age.

Yes, completely normal. I think the pressure on kids to decide at that age is enormous in the UK. It’s very different in my home country. At 17, I wanted to be a biologist. Then something else (I don’t even remember what, but left my biology course after a year). Then a social worker. Then wanted to be an academic in writing (looked at PhDs in writing and rhetoric). Then a social worker again. Then I got into public health. Eventually got a PhD and now an academic in a public health related field. I didn’t know what I actually wanted to do though until I was about 27. It was fine. I have a great career that I really love.

It's unrealistic to expect teenagers to know what type of job/career they want, especially when careers "advice" is so poor or non existent.

A minority of teens are very driven and have fixed ideas as to careers (often due to pushy parents), particularly those who've been indoctrinated by family to go into medicine. (There were several of those at my son's school from a certain ethnic minority).

Completely normal.

I'm 50 and still undecided tbh

I am 59 and have fuck all idea what I want to do when I grow up.

I'm in mu 40s up and still don't quite know what I want to do when I 'grow up'.

totally normal imo not to know yet.

Hugely unreasonable.

I didn't even begin to figure it out until my early thirties and I suspect I'll change paths several more times between now and retirement

I didn't know what I wanted to do until the end of my first year at uni. I did deliberately choose a degree that was generic enough to suit many different jobs.

I did a gap year, a degree that sounded fun and included a year abroad and then had 3 children before I decided what I wanted to do when I grew up. Then had to do a second degree.

Kids can't know what they want to be with the exception of some standard vocations and well known jobs. Do any of is really know all the job opportunities out there? You discover more jobs, fields, paths etc as you get older and travel and work.

I didn't even know my job existed until after I graduated. I did a degree in English Lit because I loved it and it gave a huge range of options afterwards.