To think it really isn’t necessary to have your whole life mapped out at 15?

[VanillaMummy]

DD (15) has just finished her Year 10 exams. There’s since been a lot of talk at school about A-level choices and what’s required for different degree courses.

She’s got herself all in a panic this weekend that she doesn’t have her whole life mapped out. She’s erring towards humanities subjects but doesn’t really have any more direction than that currently.

I’m trying to reassure her that lots of people are the same at her age and still go on to be perfectly successful as adults. It’s also easier than ever these days to change direction later on and careers are often not for life anymore. Yet she won’t hear it from me. Any good advice/anecdotes/encouraging stories?

One of my dc at that age had no idea what they wanted to do in life. That dc was also very stressed out by people constantly asking, especially as their siblings all had strong career choices, and chose GCSEs and A-level subjects that gave them a clear route. Eventually dc started telling everybody who asked that they wanted to be a teacher. Perfect answer. It got the questioners off their backs. Dc was (is) a good academic all-rounder. We encouraged to dc choose subjects that interested them, with a good range of facilitating subjects and a good balance between coursework and exams. Just follow their interests, get the best grades they can, and see where it takes them.

As soon as dc got to uni, they stopped wanting to be a teacher. People had stopped interrogating them about a career, and the pretence was no longer needed. They are enjoying uni and doing well. Time enough to worry about a career later.

FWIW I never had a career. Worked in one field before having dc, and returned to work in a completely unrelated field. I had no formal training in either field. I am happy, have what I need and a bit more, and have pride in my work.

He must have had support though. Who supported him through Oxford? Who then supported him while he retrained as a doctor?

loads of people had no idea what they wanted to do at that age. I certainly didn’t. I went on to be pretty successful career wise. Honestly I’d tell any kid that age not to sweat it. Most kids have no idea what actual careers are out there anyway, bar the obvious doctor, lawyer, nurse, police etc etc

This is only true if you want to follow a very specific pathway.
You can always learn languages later in life, engineering can be approached through apprenticeships and BTECs - and I am sure there's a workaround for dropping chemistry as well.
It's difficult with only three A Levels to keep all your options open. My DC is making these choices now as well and it's tough!

I do agree with this @EarthlyNightshade. It's really tough and DC have been through it and found it hard, particularly DD who could have succeeded at pretty much any subject and wanted to keep everything going!

I guess it's helpful to be armed with as much information as possible - a good example that wasn't obvious to us was that many top economics degrees require maths/further maths but not economics.

Lots of people fall into something after a twisty turny journey through life.

How many people wake up age 15 having had an epiphany that their life's purpose and passion to be payroll and benefits administrator in a HR department for eg?

The kids who have it mapped out are usually following a specific path - doctor, teacher, lawyer, architect, nurse- with specific training required.

If she's not sure what to do, she should take broad spectrum A levels and take a year out to work and travel. She'll figure it out!

I left home at 16, spent a couple of years working a variety of jobs, partying, clubbing plus at school full time, unsurprisingly failed everything in sight.
Shared a flat with a friend who'd left school at 16, who was working and studying part time to train as an accountant, which I thought was unbelievably boring.
She gave up after a couple of years, trained as a nurse. I went off to France for a while, came back and did "A" levels as a mature student (that hurt at 20!) - since I then had A levels in Law, Accounts & Economics, with Accounts the only A, I trained as an Accountant, later did an MSc. Still working as a Finance Director 40 years later.

I wouldn't necessarily recommend the leaving home at 16, clubbing/partying/failing everything in sight (including many of the O Level resits) - but I didn't have a clue what I wanted to do, and ended up doing the very thing I thought my friend was crazy to even contemplate.

My story, if it helps...
Took GCSE options that I either liked or was expected to for various reasons. Started A levels, changed my choices 3 times in the first 6 weeks and left to get a job at the first half term (I was still 16 at the time). I'm now 52, have been made redundant or threatened with redundancy 3 times, have been employed and self employed. I went back to college and eventually university with support from wherever I worked at the time. None of it was mapped out at any time. If you'd have asked me at 15 what I wanted to do, I didn't have a clue. I found my niche through work experience and time. Good luck to your DD. 😊

Closes them in the short term only. My DF has just done his A level French exams and he is 73. Nothing to stop you going back and getting the qualifications you need later on in life.

I always promised myself I'd get O Level maths once I'd qualified as an accountant - they abolished O Levels the year before I qualified* *🤔

Thanks everyone. There are some great stories here.

I especially love this one. Presumably he made a fair amount as a banker which helped with the next stages.

Eh?
He did all that before the days of Student loans
Oxford is cheaper than most unis after all

Not only is is not necessary to have your whole life mapped out at 15, it is pretty much impossible!

Ah yes, I'd forgotten that. So could you do two degrees all for free? There were no tuition fees were there, and you you got a 'grant' for your living and accommodation expenses I think?

We even got housing benefit in the summer holidays back then !

There’s more to life than university. If my kids were young again I’d be helping them explore apprenticeship opportunities

I'm 33 and have never had a plan! Just made the choice I needed to make at the time. Please reassure her about that. She needs to have fun and enjoy herself, just do enough at school to get to the next stage, that's what I tell mine.

I’m 28 still don’t know what I want to do with my life 😂

I once heard a mum describing her career - I forget the details, but she'd gone into a random admin job when she left school, moved to another one in something a bit related, then moved into a non-admin role in that organisation, and ended up with an interesting career in a field she'd never expected. I thought then that perhaps there should be more careers talks from people like that, who didn't have a particular goal in mind but ended up finding something that suited them.

I did have an idea of what I wanted to do at 15, but I'd completely changed my mind by one year into my degree. What I ended up doing was something I wouldn't have contemplated at 15.

At a sixth form careers workshop, DD was criticised for not having a plan for what she was going to do with her degree. The person leading the workshop seemed to think there was no point in the degree if you didn't know what you were going to do afterwards. DD is doing a subject which will make her very employable; she will have plenty of choice when she graduates, and four years is not only plenty of time to choose, but also to mature and explore new avenues.

From my own experince I had no idea until I was 19/20. I think Gap years are fantastic I took 2 years off after A Levels to work full time - save for uni - mature and decide.
Tell her to chill out GCSEs mean nada in the long run.
All employers care about A-C in Maths and English and some want science to.

He didn’t “retrain as a GP”. He went to medical school.

never qualified as a doctor as he realised he didn’t enjoy medicine at med school, and went into tv on leaving.

as a second degree it would have cost a fucking fortune as you only got grants/ fees paid for your first undergrad.

Ask her how many adults she knows who are doing something now which relied on the decisions they made when they were 15. Or even 18 or 21. I bet it's hardly any. Almost no one I know is doing what they thought they wanted when at school, or even doing a job they'd even known existed when they were at school.

Fell in to cleaning as a stop gap and loved it . I've loved both my cleaning jobs despite people telling me and me knowing g I could "Do better". Now I'm not suggesting your child becomes a cleaner 😂 but the point I'm making is sometimes life throws up surprises and your child may end up by accident with a career she would have never thought she would do . Man makes plans and God laughs .

DH and I are of that Labour generation of "50% of teenagers going to university". We were both the first from our families so were the poster teens if you like. In hindsight neither of us needed our degrees to get where we are. We think it helped DH progress a little quicker in the earlier days but his industry is so varied. One thing we've agreed on is that we will encourage our kids to go towards their interests. What comes after that is up to them, we definitely won't be forcing them to go to university. We will however encourage them to look at what they can achieve within that industry. For example if one wants to work in childcare then what would you need to do to become a manager in that field or run your own childcare setting? Is there anything additional you can do now to set you on the path for achieving more? Or perhaps one wants to be a nurse, ok which sector? could you potentially do a gap year and work in childcare or a care home first to help your application towards your dream university?

I think the younger generations are going to be working for much longer, poorer pay and struggle to house buy etc. I'd be terrified at 15 too if I had to think what I wanted out of life. Why not push them into worthwhile careers that they enjoy. I think the days of studying hard, forcing yourself to go to university and then a professional career is not necessarily attractive to a lot of teens now.

@toomanytonotice
We did not pay for degrees in the 80's
there were not limits on people becoming perpetual students
there were no loans
we got grants
MM timed it very well

Yes, it's fine. DC has just turned 16 but has changed their mind a few times in the last year about their direction. About a year ago it was definitely psychology A-level and a psychology degree. They've now dropped the idea of psychology for a degree but are taking biology instead because they are looking to a degree involving anthropology, which they have found usually wants a core science A-level. I'm not bothered whether they change their mind about degree as changing the to biology has given them a better balanced set of A-level subjects anyway, so it's a good thing regardless.