DD (Y8) wants something to aim for career wise, help me to give her some ideas.

[pickledsiblings]

She's a hardworking girl and enjoys school/homework/studying. Her strengths seem to be in those subjects that require extended writing although she is a pretty good all rounder. She has taken well to French and Latin too where I'm sure her good memory helps her along.

Anyway she has no idea what she would like to be when she grows up and would like to have something to aim for. All I've come up with so far is Law as I think it would be a good match for her skills but I'm not sure that's a good enough reason.

I'd love to hear your thoughts and ideas. What are your DC aiming for? When you were young, how/when did you decide on the career you wanted?

It can be quite hard to career-spot into the future in technological fields.

What I do really wasn't invented when I was at school - oddly enough I had a gut feeling that might happen. DH and I are both scientists; after qualifying he went into a huge successful chemical company with proper career development etc etc, looked like an excellent job for life. I went into a tiny start-up.

Guess which of us is in the same job over 25 years later while the global company was split apart for short-term gain and sold off bit by bit?

Would she do well in the foreign office? A good memory would definitely be an asset; lots of studying and writing documents - and the possibility of travel might be inspiring if she likes learning languages?

My best paid 'sciencey' friends are patent attorneys. Did physics and engineering at uni, tried a couple of other things but both ended up at a patent attorney firm. Now they work for household name companies doing in-house work. Linked to intellectual property and certainly very lucrative for them. However, as far as work conditions go, it's not so great; my friend has just had a baby and is planning on going back to work at 4m because she's worried about her career if she has longer off. friends in research / civil service have much more family friendly conditions; is usual to take 9-12m mat leave and come back part time if you want. Don't really need that kind of benefit until a bit further along in your career (although the generous annual leave entitlement is good whatever age you are!).

It is good to have something to aim for but beware of narrowing her options too early. Eg, if you want to do law there are post-grad conversion courses, you don't have to commit to a law degree at 18. Additionally in the same example, might be tempting to take a law a-level if you think at 16 you want to be a lawyer, but probably better to stick with more mainstream subjects that are useful for loads of different options later on.

Ps- all children love expensive holidays if parents are paying for them!! No matter what she does, she's going to have a few years at the start when she'll have to give up some of the nicest things in life.

I heard a programme on the radio where they were saying it is vital to do a health check for your proposed career. As said above, kids are teeming into law and very few of them are going to become Rumpole of the Bailey. Grunt jobs will be outsourced soon. Likewise journalism. I heard someone say that hearing a kid saying, "I want to work in journalism" is resonant of someone in the 16th century expressing a desire to become a monk.

Crikey she is only 12!

Not a direct answer here, but just to say - I am an academic, and now working in a scientific part of a mixed discipline (dont want to out self!) - but my first degree was an arts, essay-based subject.

I'm everlastingly grateful that that was the case. My first degree taught me to think, present those thoughts, to argue, to write well - and when I was doing my science-based PhD, the fact that I'd had that training really showed. So my first comment would be - never think even at degree level that your path can't continue to wander sideways a little, and second - being good at writing and thinking is a brilliant start point whichever path your DD chooses.

Why not get her to focus on skills, rather than a specific job.

I second (third?) engineering. Especially digital/technology stuff, there'll always be jobs and the field is expanding rapidly without enough good people. Writing skills aren't that important for studying, but they really are once working! You might not make the money of a city lawyer, but it's secure, flexible and without the crazy working all hours culture, and still a well above average salary.

For money, patent attorney in anything technical!

what an interesting thread.. and the u-explore website is fantastic! Thanks so much for the recommendation
I have 2 sons both taking their options atm... 1 is yr 9 at a super selective... and 1 is yr 8 at a comp.
We're finding the process much easier for ds2 as he has very definite strengths and interests.... I can see him becoming a geologist or something similar..
Ds1 is much harder, tbh he's good at everything so whittling the choices down is difficult. He fancies being an architect and it does suit his skill set, but I think it may be to competitive for him.. he's quite soft/gentle. He's a sailor so I keep suggesting nautical/maritime architecture, but he's not convinced :)

You asked what our DC are aiming for etc. My DD was asked in yr1 what she wanted to be - she said 'a builder' and the teacher said 'oh no, girls can't be builders'. DD was (rightly!) very huffy about that - she meant building things more than being a brickie anyway.

Now starting GCSEs, she's clearly going to lean to some sort of science or technology, currently favouring electronics.

For people with kids who are bright but don't know what they want to do, this is quite a good indication of which subjects are likely to leave doors wider open than others when it comes to A-level.

Try a free trial with the website fast tomatoe. And looks at the jobs4u section of the connections direct website.

She's in Yr 8 everyone! Bit early to narrow it down yet, surely. If she wants something to aim for, it may be worth exploring what jobs arise from certain degrees. It could be a good idea to do a broad based 1st degree e.g. English if she loves writing, or Modern Languages and then a Law conversion or similar. That way her options stay open as she matures. DCs school strongly advises a broad 1st degree and specialism later unless you are going for medicine.

An English degree for example, can lead to highly paid work as a business writer (six figure salaries for leading Annual Report writers) or political speech writer, policy maker etc, or into publishing, advertising, journalism, politics, media, academia etc.

I'd get her to dream more about the kind of life she longs to live or the uni she wants to go to. At her age I wanted to do art in London. A year later, I didn't even choose to take art as a GCSE. Don't encourage her to narrow her options, but to look around widely and see what makes her tick. Visits to university towns and out of town campuses might give her ideas.

Thanks again for all the comments.

TalkativeJim I agree that some training in a science discipline is very useful, I too have done the wander sideways thing. I took science at school because as it was a lab based subject I reckoned it would be harder to pick up at a later date via e.g. distance learning.

EduCated , DD read the thread last night and went through your list (that's my girl), she likes the idea of working as part of a team, travelling and office based (when not on the go) with the opportunity to work from home when the need arises.

woodrunner, having something to focus on shouldn't mean narrowing it down. it may be that the focus will change a number of times before she gets to the stage where it matters most.

Oh glad she found that useful It's really helped me, especially since I've decided that actually, I haven't got a clue what I want to do!

You seem to write off a range of middle-of-the-road jobs on the basis that they don't pay enough.

I see two problems with this:

your dd as she grows up may not have the same ideas as you as to the necessary standard of life

the careers which pay well tend to require a high level of drivenness and very long hours; this drivenness is something your dd has to come up with for herself, it's not something you can do for her.

I'd encourage more of an open mind at this age and more concentration on the skills rather than on one specific profession.

Plenty of youngsters decide they just have to be doctors or lawyers and are then devastated when they find they can't get into medical school or survive the early years in law before you start making money.

By all means encourage interest in a profession and hard work towards a goal, but don't feed her the line that she just has to achieve a certain level of success because she wouldn't be able to cope otherwise. The best way to achieve success imho is flexibility.

Yes, the OP sounds a bit like a Chinese one on another Forum, whose young daughter was good at music and who was focusing completely on how much money said daughter might be able to make out of becoming a musician. I gather that it's a common way of thinking about one's children in south east Asia, but it's certainly unusual here at the moment.

I do think a year 8 should be aiming for working hard, having as much fun as possible and trying as many new things as possible. Not thinking too much about future careers. As I said, my year 8 wants to go to Cambridge- because he thinks it's the best way into standup comedy! Not a very realistic ambition, but he knows he has to do well at school to have a chance, so I'm happy.

OP my comment was a response to people jumping in to suggest a specific career, many of which were suggestions that took no account of what you said she excelled at.
DS decided age 8 that he wanted to go to MIT and held fast to that idea which saw him through some tough academic exams at age 11 because he was so focused on getting into a school that could get him to MIT. His passion has totally shifted now, but having that goal helped him enormously. I wasn't knocking her desire for a goal - that's wonderful, just wary of people interpreting that as a request for specific careers advice when she is only 12.