Americans!, give me a perspective on ‘choosing a career’ , How does a Typical American Teenager think about his career ahead?

14 comments

1. They generally start with the things that they are interested in, the things that they have an aptitude in, and the availability of further education within their financial grasp. How do teenagers do it where you live?

2. Pick a major and a college and hope for the best. If either don’t work out choose something else

3. Teenagers often don’t think about their careers. The vast majority of my university students are there aimlessly, simply getting a degree to have one. The few that do gravitate toward that career because they think it will be fun or interesting to work in. The unfortunate reality is that a very very few actually achieve the dreams that they set for themselves as teenagers.

4. Well I can tell you the way I did it. Dropped my major first semester of college, did some research and said “oh, that job will be needed for the rest of my life” and changed my major to it

5. What I did was not really have any idea as a teen, then go to college knowing I liked science, studied biology, got a few random short term office jobs after college before finding work as a junior biologist for a few years, then shifted sideways into data analysis by 30.

   That’s where I’ve been working for the past 10 years, and am thinking about making another career shift.

   Teens do not know what they want to do nor are they expected to have more than a vague, shiftable idea. By the time you’re in your early 20s, it’s good to have a clue but not having one won’t shut you out of anything.

   I’d say that by 50 most people know their career is.

6. They’re thinking teenager stuff mostly. I’m sure some of them already have it figured out, but how in the hell are we supposed to expect 16 year olds to know what they want to do with the rest of their life when they have barely experienced life yet.

7. I’m 34, so I can only remember how it went 15 years ago. I just remember my school hammering in the idea of going to college for a 4-year degree, racking up a mountain of debt and just… enjoying the fruits of your labor afterward. It’s not like you’d have a hard time finding a job with a degree, right??

   ​

   They didn’t put trade school in a good light at all. I remember one teacher saying something along the lines of, “You COULD go to trade school…. buuuut you’d probably have to do a lot of manual labor, uproot your family frequently, work longer hours, etc. Why would you do that when you could just get a college degree and have a cushy office job from 9 to 5?” Who in their right mind would want to have any kind of other job, right?

   ​

   My sister is a teacher, and she said that they have since started taking trade school more seriously, at least. But from what I can remember, they did try to help you figure out what career you wanted… as long as it involved going to a university. If not, you’re on your own, loser.

8. Some kids get pressured by their family to do something specific. But majority of kids are told to follow their dreams. I think my friend tried about four different programs of study while in school eventually double majoring in math and informatics.

9. There’s WAY too many teenagers, and WAY too many lived experiences to give you a “here’s how,” example. The typical post-high school routes are this however:

   * Go to college

   * Go get a trade degree

   * Just work

   * Just work, but trying to start your own business

   * Join the military

   How one thinks about a career varies widely on their environment and upbringing and how much development and maturity they have done. American environments and groups range from “You are going to be an X-job and only do X-job,” to “Do whatever you want.” And there is MASSIVE middle ground between the two.

10. Endless variety of answers. For my friends and myself, we researched which jobs paid well and then figured out which colleges would land you the highest paying versions of those jobs and then figured out what it would take to make it there. While life throws in twists and turns and not everything goes to plan, having a path resulted in a 100% success rate (defined as making it to top 10% of income by 27ish) for the dozen or so people I knew. Those who do not plan, plan to fail.

11. My father is/was an accountant. Does more than quite well for himself. So, I took accounting all throughout high school then went to college for an accounting major and computer science minor (since I was pretty technical). Absolutely fucking hated school. Got a job with a BPO that handled SaaS clients, did pretty well, rose up, left school entirely, ultimately got to a COO/CTO position, hated the direction the CEO was taking the company, so, now me and the old CCO do management consulting in the CX space, primarily around technology, data, and staff/volume forecasting.

    Not exactly where I thought I would end up if you were to ask 18 year-old me.

12. As an Indian American the decision is a binary one: doctor or lawyer 😀 Or end up as a hooligan and causing the stress related early death of your parentals.

13. One thing I’ve learned in life is that for 98% of people, what your teenage self thinks you’re going to be doing with the rest of your life is complete bullshit.

14. For me it was declare a major, change said major every semester, realize I had more credits in a particular major and therefore was closer to graduating if I stuck with that major. Got the diploma. Then looked for jobs.