Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Looking for ideas for my high schooler

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Hi UM-

does your counseling office at school have any career assessment tools? Our school has the kids taking multiple assessments like this over the Hs and middle school years- perhaps your school uses them with older students and they would provide them for your DD? That said, our kids generally found them to be of pretty limited value, but YMMV, and it might provide some direction.

Over the years I have followed your DD’s story, as she sounds very similar in many ways to my kids. Does she like languages? I remeber she was interested in music and composing at one point, as my DD was. She also was a very strong math student, but had little interest in it. I think her affinity for language is probably related, and wondered if your DD has this as well. Ours is in her first year of college, and is excited about the prospect of adding more foreign languages to her skill set, especially given all the travel/foreign study/international internships available these days. That said, it was important to her to choose a liberal-arts college, and she wanted there to be some distribution/core requirements, because she strongly believes in broad, diverse education, and wanted to be surrounded by kids with curious natures who also wanted to explore lots of varied areas.

You mentioned your DD is interested in travel, perhaps that could be an avenue to explore? It is very early to look at specific schools, but there are many that emphasize study abroad programs of all sorts, in virtually any field.

Along those lines, has she ever considered things like intelligence work? My DD would probably balk at some of the authority and rule-following required, but there are some interesting pathways there, some of which might appeal to your DDs technology/computer interests as well.

You mention she is strong in science yet not passionate- is there any way to get her exposure to more broad types of science? School science is pretty cut and dry. Our kids were lucky to have exposure to a lot of different topics through science olympiad, but there are many ways to explore. They found less-known subjects like remote sensing, geomapping, hydrogeology, glaciology, oceanography, protein modeling, wind power, etc, to be much more interesting than what happened in school science class. The courses they had available didn’t touch on these topics, but they were able to learn a tremendous amount on their own. Alternatively, there are likely some more exotic course offerings at the local college or even online. The science olympiad stuff was very time-consuming, but if the only science my kids were exposed to was in school, they would probably not have much interest, either...

Is there any way to get her involved in research? That’s another avenue that is really not touched on in most school programs, but made a big difference for my DD. Working in a lab was much different than she expected; she found she loved the collaborative nature of the work, and the camaraderie. She also loved the independence and responsibility, and the ability to be at least somewhat creative. She was surprised at how important her good writing skills were, and though oral presentations were stressful, found that they also required some very specific skills and strengths she didn’t know she had.

I guess what I’m trying to get at is that exposure is so helpful, either negative or positive experiences. If you can’t find help through your school, your university might have programs for high schoolers- that’s how my DD got involved (but just so you know, at least the program she did was very competitive, in part because it was a paid internship, but mainly because it was a program with limited spots in established engineering programs that have great results with students...so good grades and references were pretty important).

Just some random thoughts. Good luck, it is a very exciting and frustrating time!

ETA- what about doing an internship or volunteering at the zoo, a library, or at a museum? Or an arts organization? Something DD strongly considered but ended up not applying for was an internship with a symphony, where the responsibilities could be somewhat tailored to the applicant’s interests, ie, education, marketing/outreach, administrative/librarian type duties, etc.

Career assessments--I don't think so, or I bet that would have come up in our discussion. Yes, she still likes music and composing, though sadly she just gave up band...

I was thinking about zookeeper. Wondering if that's the kind of thing millions of people all want to do, though? And in reality it's a lot of picking up poop?

I sympathise with the asthma. It cuts out many options directly and a fair number indirectly. Unfortunately it often stops you getting a job where the asthma wouldn't be a problem because the step before would be a problem. Eg. No reason you couldn't be a scene of crime technician except you have to qualify for the police first (NZ).

I had her do a couple of career assessments this afternoon and her "career clusters" put her in medical, law enforcement, government, and travel/hospitality.

And yeah, the asthma sucks. It's not severe--mild/moderate-- but it's not going away. We didn't realize how much the classification of "asthma after age 13" can limit you.

Has she considered becoming a lawyer? It would be more school, but it seems like it could play to her reading and writing strengths well.

I think zookeeper probably encompasses a lot of career paths, though perhaps not under that specific title. Even in veterinary medicine the jobs can vary tremendously. We have a relative who ended up becoming a wildlife vet. Her career included a period of time where she was the director of an international animal foundation, focused on management of an endangered species. She had a very interesting mix of direct animal care and consultation, speaking/lecture engagements, policy work, etc. It involved a lot of travel, to multiple continents. She also worked as a high-level government employee for a period of time, primarily involved in policy and management of wildlife. We also have an acquaintance who ended up studying animal behavior- he’s currently a graduate student studying primates.

I also wanted to mention that a lot of labs can involve field work. The one my DD worked with was in environmental engineering, and there was a lot of field work involved (jiust not in my DD’s case). She is considering an earth science term that involves primarily fieldwork western Canada and the US, as well as some alternative emergy-related work in South Africa. There are a lot of interesting alternative energy-related opportunities in Germany, as well.

I guess the point I was trying to make is that exposure to less-traditional careers and pathways can be eye-opening. I didn’t mean to be suggesting science olympiad (our kids also hate the competition, and only manage to do well out of a huge sense of responsibility to their teammates). But I wanted to point out that it broadened their sights, and showed them possibilities. It also helped them to see the mentors and adults working and volunteering in all sorts of fields. And it taught them to persue and learn about opportunities themselves, independently.

Our kids sound similar in that school did not engage mine, either. The work was fairly rote, most of it, and often seemed to have little practical relevance. It was important motivationally for my kids to find outlets that preserved their love of learning and fueled their curiosity. However you can do that, I think it might help your DD get through the slog that is competitive high school today, and focus on the exciting opportunities that can come afterwards.

And one last random thought- any interest in architecture? I don’t know much about it, but the skill set seems like it might overlap with your DDs.

Where I am police forces have civilian employees as well. I have a good friend that has a 4 year degree in criminology and works for a local police force in the Guns and Gangs Unit. They study trends, look for patterns, link cases together, etc, etc. More big picture kind of thing. Before this job she worked as a 911 operator which she loved (just not the shift work part of it). Totally not careers that I could do but she would hate my "boring" job