Does My 17-Year-Old Really Need a Career Plan Before College?

Your child needs to think about how they want their life to look after college. What values are important to them? What skills do they have? What’s their vision? We really encourage students to think about what their days will look like in a chosen career path.

Let’s say you want to help people and think you want to be a nurse. Are you up for night shifts or missing holidays? Are you ready to do what nurses are required to do? Is that the life you envisioned? If not, there are many other ways to help people.

Being able to experience careers before choosing a path and going to college is the best way to know. Due to budget cuts, a lot of high schools don’t have this opportunity in their everyday high school classes. There are so many options, but without exposure, children usually know the big careers (doctor, lawyer, etc.) and the ones held by those around them.

There are hundreds and hundreds of careers out there and available. When they get to college and see all the major & minor options, they think it all sounds interesting and jump around majors. That’s a costly thing to do, as it postpones graduation.

We don’t expect kids to pick the right job at 17. But with our guidance, we can narrow that field. We’re able to narrow it down to 3 or 4 careers that they’d like. That turns into tweaking some electives, maybe their junior year of college as their interests narrow even more. That’s a lot different than changing majors and doesn’t lead to a postponed graduation date.

Exposing your student to a narrowed down career path before college has one other benefit we haven’t mentioned. When this is narrowed down, we can guide the student towards experiences, internships and organizations that will help them down the road in their chosen career path. Oftentimes, these experiences will help the student learn what they don’t want, this helps narrow the path even more.

More than that, these experiences help students get hired at a higher rate out of college. Give us a call today to get started on planning a career path for your college-bound student.