I have an OK job which has taken me a long time to get, had to work my way up literally from the bottom. I can't help wondering though, whether if I'd had a good careers advisor/teacher at school I could have achieved my real potential. I wanted to be a social worker but was told this would be to stressful and advised to become a secretary. Nothing against being a secretary but I was getting really good grades, was young and enthusiastic and thought I could be "more". Unfortunately my mum, a single parent, was to busy holding down 2 jobs to raise me and my sisters so obviously didn't have a lot of time or experience to encourage me to broaden my horizons. I just wish a careers advisor/teacher had said to us all at school "why don't you think about being an optician, dentist, accountant, doctor etc etc" and this is how you do it. What makes people at a young age know for e.g they want to be a dentist? When I look at my very high achieving colleagues, many of them seem to come from very well off backgrounds and went to excellent schools. What I'm trying to say really is this: If your come from a background where no-one in your family has ever had a "professional" job or vocation and you go to a crappy school with no careers guidance, do you ever stand a chance of getting into professions like medicine or law? I feel so sad sometimes because I know if someone had sat me down and told me that it was possible for someone like me to think of e.g being a vet I know I would have thought seriously about it and my whole life could have been different.