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

I'd recommend checking out Cal Newport's So Good They Can't Ignore You. It's an alternative viewpoint to the pervasive idea of finding your passion. If nothing else, it might give you and DD different ideas for how to tackle the problem.

Brown and RISD have a dual degree that may interest her or give her some ideas see link. Dual degree grads fuse art + science

Thanks for the book recommendation! I'll check it out. I'm a little resistant to the "find your passion" concept myself. "very few people at a young age know enough about life to choose something to be really passionate about, and even if they do, they are bound to be wrong"--Yes, I do see this point indeed, and yet, I sure see a lot of kids who think they know...and I feel like there's this THING where schools want you to have a THING.

Meanwhile, like her dad, DD is strong in a lot of areas and probably would do fine in many jobs.

That book sounds great! It sounds like it jives with what I was trying clumsily to say, too- find things she’s good at and interested in and ideally she will find a career where those skills are valuable. It seems like jobs and even college majors nowadays are much more interdisciplinary and flexible, and at least my view is that choosing a specific field is not as important as it once was.

You know, it's not so much that I'm worried about her finding a field except for two things:

1. She has to decide which way to "go" in high school (humanities or science/math track)

2. It seems like colleges want you to have a focus/passion. Do you all think I'm wrong there? I'd be happy to be wrong!

Um, certainly views vary on these points, but I can say from our recent experience applying to and beginning college, that

1. It probably depends a lot on what type of school, but my DD is still interested in both “tracks” as you put it. I guess I was trying to point out that I don’t think there is a division any more, unless one is persuing a very technical field. To that end, we knew that a liberal arts college would serve DD well, (math and sciences are part of the liberal arts definition) and she wanted to be surrounded by kids with diverse interests. So far, so good- there are engineers taking philosophy, math kids trying Arabic, there are two kids on her floor taking beginning Japanese, but also the advanced compacted math class DD is in. And her interests are still developing, and will surely change as she gains exposure and new opportunities arise. We’re more than ok with that.

2. I can only speak to my DDs experience, but colleges welcomed the breadth of her interests and experiences. That said, I would say she showed passion in many things, both in her essays and letters of rec, but also in the intensity of her participation- she had a few areas/activities that she pursued for many years, held leadership roles in these and participated at national levels. But she could not be pigeonholed as either math/ science or humanities- she found areas in both that excited her and in which she excelled. And she intends to continue this trajectory- to the point that we are slightly concerned she won’t be able to keep up with all of it, but that’s a different problem... So far, her experience has been phenomenal and the college community has been totally welcoming; she feels like she has found her people.

Almost every college that we visited said that most kids who declare a major change that major when they get to college. They also say that there is nothing wrong with being undecided. Hard to know if declaring a major makes a difference.

For my college Freshman, she had two areas of interest (math and music) but went in as undecided. I wish she had declared at least one as an intended major - mainly because she might have gotten an adviser with a bit more knowledge of her interest areas.

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I am following this post for sure. We have 2 9th grade girls. DD14 is challenged and doing fairly well socially. DD13 has declared, "What does it matter?" when we talk about school. We are in an incredibly academic school, but not a school that caters to DYS types. DD13, like ultramarina's daughter, isn't engaged. She received A's this semester without trying, but I am worried that the attitude will eventually cause the grades to slip. The only thing DD13 seems to care about is her art, and because of block scheduling, there isn't room for art right now (gym class is taking up the elective spot). She spends all her free time drawing at home and creating new languages and fonts. School is absolutely boring for her.

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