Free higher education in Russia is given only once. Entrusting the choice of profession to schoolchildren, when many graduates are not even 18 years old, is a dangerous decision. According to Rosstat, only about 40% of the population works in our specialty. The numbers not only hint, they shout that more than half of graduates wasted several years on unnecessary studies.
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The normal desire of parents is to help their child make a choice. The only question is how to do it.
Nurture independence in your child
Unfortunately, it’s too late to do this a year or two before graduation; you should have raised an independent child from birth, but it’s better to start at least someday. The main rule in career guidance is simple:
The child must choose a profession himself.
Only the person himself knows what he needs. And this is the only way the child will not blame his parents if something goes wrong, or think that he missed his chance.
I wanted to study acting. But dad said that all the actors stay in the regional theater, earn little and become drunkards. An engineer is another matter. I was obedient and entered the radio department. It was fun at the polytechnic, I took part in the student spring for 6 years, but I have zero knowledge in my head, as well as the desire to work as an engineer, even though I have a master’s degree. Because of this, all my life I have been haunted by a feeling of unfulfillment and thoughts that everything could have turned out somehow differently. Although I understand that dad is right and the work of actors is bestial. I don’t blame my parents, I blame myself for not doing what I dreamed of.
Maria
editor
Don't force your child to become something you yourself haven't become.
Never transfer your unfulfilled dreams of youth to your child. Have you always wanted to become a doctor, but have dedicated your life to raising a child, and therefore now demand your child’s professional fulfillment? You risk ruining the life of a person whose upbringing you dedicated your own life to. Your dreams are just your dreams. Your child has his own ideas about the ideal job, and there is no need to destroy these ideas. Let him make his own choice. Remember that a child will only be successful in the area that interests him. Respect his “I want!”, this is the main motive.
From my experience working with teenagers, I have identified the following pattern: 80% of those who chose a profession under the pressure of their parents subsequently left the university and went where they wanted.
Find out what professions are in demand
Only they are actually in demand, and not “prestigious”. To understand this, you don’t need to read the selections and ratings. We need to open the websites of employment centers and websites that help in finding a job, and look carefully at the vacancies.
Grandfather advised me to choose something related to foreign languages, because it is in demand. I tried it, got carried away, so it was easy to follow his advice. The demand faded into the background because it became interesting. Now I’m in my favorite job in the IT field. Grandpa won't give you bad advice!
Angelina
translator
Viewing vacancies helps assess the popularity of the profession, possible salary and requirements for applicants. It may turn out that one higher education is not enough for your dream job: at the same time you need to learn languages and attend some courses.
The importance of choice
As surveys show, many high school students at the age of 15-16 do not yet know what they would like to do in the future. Only 15% of them see themselves in some kind of business, another 15% don’t think about it at all, and 70% don’t know where to choose. It is important to convey to a teenager that everyone works as an adult. And profession determines a person’s position in society.
People spend many hours of their lives at work. And it brings more than just income. First of all, work should develop a person’s personal qualities and not cause him discomfort. It is worth remembering that any activity has an impact on the individual.
You need to make it clear to your son or daughter that hobby and work are different concepts. When choosing a profession based on your hobbies, you can make a mistake. After all, not all animal lovers will be ready to work as a veterinarian. Not everyone can study medicine. Or those who like to draw will not always cope with the work of a fashion designer or designer.
It’s good if you can attend open lectures at the educational institution where the child plans to study. It is worth taking courses related to this matter. Then it will be easier to understand whether your passion can be connected with your future profession. After all, sometimes a hobby still becomes a favorite job.
Show the profession from the inside
Adults have a large circle of acquaintances with a variety of specialties. Ask your friends to tell your child what and how they do at work. It is important to hear about the most common everyday activities. For example, about how you have to write letters, how to work with drawings in real conditions, how you have to arrive promptly at eight in the morning, how to fill out reports and drink tea with accounting.
Many businesses hold open days. At such events, you need to ask the right questions: not about high performance and a great goal, but about routine, the organization of work places.
My parents are teachers. They told me not to go into teaching, so I didn’t go.
Lida
advertising specialist
We have a vague idea about many professions. It is better to get to know the work better than to spend several years and face a conflict between expectations and reality.
It is also important that health must correspond to working conditions. It is possible to understand whether a child can handle it or not only in combat conditions or at least during a frank conversation with a representative of the profession.
Family as a reliable base
The founder of the St. Petersburg school of psychotherapy, Vladimir Myasishchev, said that the inclinations and abilities of children are formed, first of all, thanks to the encouragement and praise of others. So this issue cannot be considered outside the system of relationships in the family.
Professor Sandra Black directly links the success of children to the success of parents. In her research, she carefully traces this connection, but notes that the desire to be successful is transmitted through the environment in which children are raised through access to additional tools in education. And here is an important clarification: it is not transmitted genetically. For example, it is parents' friends who often become mentors or even investors in the first companies that children found.
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John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth first began to use the term "secure base" in relation to the family when researching attachment theories. The role of parents in this system is to give their wards not only care, peace of mind, social environment and privileges, but also space for risk. In this case, children develop a “secure or confident” attachment style. In turn, if there are biases towards excessive patronage or, conversely, strict demands, children develop ambivalent behavior. Such a person ceases to treat others or himself with “unconditional positive acceptance” and becomes either dependent or overly pessimistic.
American researcher John Krumboltz believes that the process of professional self-determination is directly related to the processing of certain information received by the child during contact with a consultant, whose role can be played by both the parents themselves and people from the child’s inner circle.
A professional consultant helps to reveal the potential professional capabilities of another person, argued Abraham Maslow, the author of the well-known “pyramid”. Most high school students have only partially formed professional plans, and even if they were able to choose a profession, they still have no idea how to realize themselves in it. In this situation, the factor of social approval becomes significant for a teenager.
Find study options in other cities and countries
Often we don’t even know where we can work and who we can work with; we have no idea what specialties are available at universities even in neighboring cities, not to mention universities on the other side of the country. And completely in vain.
When the time came to choose who to be, I was only 15 years old. In my city it was impossible to study in the specialty I dreamed of, and the school had a different profile. To enroll, you had to transfer to another school, study according to a special program, travel several hundred kilometers to another city and submit documents. I couldn’t pull it off, and my parents weren’t puzzled; in the end, I chose a profession from those that were available nearby. I'm almost 30, I still regret it.
Nastya
copywriter
Of course, moving a child to another city is not a joyride in the park; supporting a student from a distance is more difficult. But it's worth it if we're talking about a profession for life.
Career Guidance Test
Choosing a profession is one of the most important stages in a person’s life, because most of your waking time (about 60%) is spent on work, preparation and travel to it. It depends on the specialty in which circles communication takes place and whether colleagues will contribute to personal development.
Only 22% of the working population are satisfied with their profession (according to a Raiffeisenbank survey in 2021). Therefore, it is important to choose your favorite field of activity to enjoy your work and achieve the best results, for example, using a career guidance test.
It is often difficult to find a favorite profession, especially for high school students - without real work experience, one cannot understand the true interest in the field. But it’s worse to graduate from college and then realize “this is not mine.” We recommend that you try working as an intern in advance and see how the process actually works and whether you like it.
It will be difficult to change a wrongly chosen professional activity over time due to the obligations that arise and the difficulty of starting from scratch. You will need to spend a lot of time on retraining and working in entry-level positions.
It is important to remember: “The world is accelerating.” And if earlier there was often one profession for life, now, most likely, you will have to change several. Therefore, it is important to be able to adapt and be open to new things. It takes a lot of time to achieve high professionalism. Anders Erickson of Florida State University proved the theory that “it takes 10,000 hours of dedicated practice to achieve mastery of anything.”
The number of different specialties at the moment is several thousand, each has its own specifics and features. In order not to get confused in all this diversity and somehow narrow down the search for the ideal direction, you can take a career guidance test and the Holland test.
All professions can be divided into several categories:
- people (doctors, teachers, law enforcement agencies, psychologists, lawyers)
- nature (veterinarian, ecologist, agronomist, biologist, geologist)
- equipment (driver, system administrator, welder, turner, auto mechanic, carpenter, electrician)
- sign system (programmer, accountant, economist, translator, mathematician)
- artistic images (designer, artist, architect, actor, director)
To narrow down the scope of your search for a future profession, you can also take a professional interests test.
Read more about E.A. Klimov’s technique in our blog.
Don't confuse your favorite lesson at school and profession
Standard logic: if you're good at mathematics, go study to become a computer scientist; if you're good at literature, go become a philologist; if you don't like anything, then go for a manager's degree, there's an Unified State Examination in social studies.
This knowledge needs to be tailored to the goal, and not choose a job based on knowledge.
You need to choose a profession that will help your child earn money, and not a favorite subject. Maybe a child likes a teacher, a comfortable office and beautiful visual materials, but nothing like that will happen in the profession.
Don’t force me to go to college
If the child has not yet decided who to be, give him time and the opportunity to think about who to become. Nothing (except the boys’ fear of the army) prevents them from working for a couple of years after school, getting acquainted with real life, devoting time to educational courses and finding themselves. If you can't imagine not studying after school, try college. There the exams are simpler, the cost of training is lower, and you will get a ready-made profession faster.
My mother forced me to go to a technical college (at the age of 15 I did not have the right to vote), which I was not very happy about, so I tried with all my might to get me expelled. Did not work out. After college, I myself already chose a university and a specialty. Now I don't regret it. After college, I was sent to practice at AvtoVAZ. At the age of 18, I already had a normal position and salary.
Maria
manager
The craze for higher education does not lead to anything good. Often a diploma is just a piece of paper with not an ounce of knowledge and skills behind it. But there are several years lost and hundreds of thousands spent.
Don't force me to finish my studies
In the period from 18 to 23 years old, a person grows up sharply; this is the age of formation. Sometimes the eyes open and the student realizes that he is not doing his own thing: he finds a more interesting specialty, and realizes what his goal is. As a rule, this is a more conscious choice than the decision of yesterday’s student; such a turn will bring more benefits than the dull receipt of a diploma, because “once you start, finish.”
After ninth grade, the class teacher advised my mother to send me to a technical school. My parents didn’t really choose, but sent me to construction, because all my mother’s colleagues were graduating from it. I was told that the main thing is to get a diploma. I obediently agreed. I suffered for four years. Afterwards, I independently decided to get a higher education in another specialty. My parents agreed, although they said: “Was it really a waste of four years of schooling?”
Anton
designer
An education diploma and several years of study are not a contract for life. Everything can be changed at any moment. Don't forget to tell this to a child who isn't sure what he or she has chosen.
Don't be afraid of mistakes
And finally... Allow your child to make mistakes. There is no need to hammer into him the stereotype that a profession for life must be chosen in the 11th grade “once and for all.” Many come to professional self-determination much later. You just don’t need to give in to momentary impulses; balanced, thoughtful decisions are the secret of success. Your support, acceptance and understanding of the child’s life position and his desires is now necessary for him. Let him know that you are there and will always help, but he must make the choice on his own.
Ekaterina Safonova
ya-roditel.ru
Checklist for a caring parent
Briefly about what to do to help your child:
- Do not insist on your choice and let the child decide for himself what to do.
- Tell us what professions are needed now.
- Offer those professions that will interest the child, and not those that a test or grade in a magazine will suggest.
- Give as much information as possible about different professions.
- Show non-obvious solutions: specialties that have not been heard of in your field.
- Don’t force yourself to study for the sake of a diploma: it’s better to spend a couple of years on self-determination, and then find the ideal profession.
Did your parents help you with your choice?
Soft Skills from childhood
Parents do not always think that for the future success of children in the modern world, it is necessary to develop soft skills that are in demand in any activity. First of all, this is the ability to act in conditions of uncertainty, creative thinking, creative skills, empathy, teamwork, effective communications, etc. To develop these skills, it is essential that children have space and time to make their own choices, experiment and be creative.
The vast majority of modern children are incredibly overloaded, says psychologist Marina Melia in her book “Our Poor Rich Children.” In her opinion, the inevitable consequences of such a childhood are the habit of subordination, indifference and joylessness, inability to be creative, neuroses and anxiety.
