Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums High School Looking for idea's for teenage career counceling

I'm trying to help my teenager figure out a direction he want to go after H.S.? Yesterday we had a meeting with his school counselor to plan for the last two years of H.S. and the upcoming college search. When the counselor asked DS what he was interested in doing after H.S. he just shrugged. After a few questions where he 'had no answer' which is very typical for him on this type of question. In order to move the meeting on I finally had to interject that we had already talked about going to 4 year college to study some type of STEM and DS planned to take 2 more years of math & science in H.S. (I'm trying hard not to speak for him but we could have spend the whole meeting hemming and hawing.) It's clear from his transcript that he is much stronger in math/science that the humanities so this was met by agreement by all.

The counselor brought up the results from a 'career inventory' that he has been asked to do. Recently he told me he thought this kind of thing was not useful as he had no idea how to rate any of the answers, the questions are all stupid and had no idea how to respond much of the time. He really doesn't play well with this type of psychological survey. Amusingly it rated my son's top choice as "Zoologist" which is something I might have said when he was 4 as his preschool passion was animals. But this is something he grew out of and not something I see him interested in these days. He even looks at me funny when I mention it as if he has totally forgotten. I see him more in math/computer science or engineering. And honestly he does better in Chem than Bio because it's more based on math. This survey that by his words he didn't try very hard on did identify computer programmer as another option for him so I'm not sure it's totally inaccurate. And if you ask what science he WANTS to take next year his topic choice is AP Biology over AP Physics or AP Chem, but I think that's partly because the other students say that AB Bio is a good class with a good teacher.

The question I was hoping this board could help me with was unusual idea's to help my 2E son figure out what he might be interested in besides playing computer games. Any idea's on how I can help him that don't involve filling out 'stupid' questionnaires. (His words) I don't think he needs to have a precise 'career" figured out at 16. And we can continue to plan around the fact he is interested in STEM. But to find a good fit college it really helps to know if you are looking in engineering, math/computer science or the biological sciences particularly if one is looking at smaller schools. In a search to see what colleges we might tour this summer it was very obvious that many schools don't have engineering programs. And while you can find good CS programs in engineering schools, you don't don't need a good engineering school to find a good CS school.

Has he had any exposure to what those career fields mean as far as a daily work life? It might be appropriate for him to shadow (ex. spend a half day) with people working at a variety of jobs. It's pretty hard to evaluate whether you might like something without having seen or experienced it in some fashion.

Alternately, has he attended any camps or other classes outside of school that have really excited him?

Is it possible to focus on small schools that have fairly good/small science departments instead of determining which STEM field he wants?

When I was in HS, I was leaning towards physics simply because I enjoyed that the most in HS and then in college, found no interest in doing physics, and "fell" into computer science my sophomore year simply because it was a requirement for another field that I was more interested in - if you had asked my first year roommate if she thought I would end up as a CS major, she would have laughed so far since I hated computers my first year.

And I have so many friends who had similar journeys to their major(s)... to make me think that unless a high school student is so passionate about a field, liberal arts college is not a bad option to explore - and really look at how comfortable he will be at that college. Although I did not really have any idea on possible career and would have never seen myself on the path I am on now, I did know what school environment I wanted and looked for that as my priority.

I have a similar story. I went to college with the idea of studying Environmental Studies realized quickly that the major was more politics and less science. Ended up with a math degree because it was easiest and took a lot of computer science classes. I ended up worked as a computer programmer for 15 years.

Unfortunately more and more schools make changing majors while at school very difficult because of increase in major requirements and demand to get students out in 4 years. This is particularly acute in Engineering. And very few small schools have Engineering programs. My local state schools that have Engineering require entrance into the major at the time one applies. What I think he needs to figure out before applying for colleges in 18 months is if he is interested in majoring in Engineering vs.. the rest of stem.

I love the idea of shadowing someone in the field. You could also arrange a couple of interviews where he can ask questions over lunch (free lunch is a great motivator).

If you don't know anyone who's working in the area, you could research the professional organizations for relevant fields and reach out to the local branches... they may be able to connect you to mentors to shadow or interview and you might be able to attend one of their meetings as a guest (these can be fun and insightful in an "inside baseball" kind of way).

For STEM research outside of the commercial sector, the local university is probably your best bet.

The book What Next might be helpful.

Also the college board list of majors.

While I don't imagine what you need right now is narrow suggestions moving forward, your post does holler "bioinformatics" at me.... might be interesting to take a peek.

More generally, he might benefit from wandering through descriptions of some major multidisciplinary areas - at lot of the major action in science is happening where traditional disciplines intersect. Computational biology is huge in neuroscience, genomics and pretty much everywhere. There's also incredibly cool combinations such as connecting physics and molecular biology to build a "lab on a chip" (OK, I'm dating myself with that example), biological batteries, mathematical epidemiology, biophysics, biomechanics, biomedical engineering - the possibilities are huge. I took a quick flip through all the things they now offer at my alma mater and found things called Geography and Aviation, and Global Business and Digital Arts; I can't tell you what they are, but they certainly get the brain heading in new directions!

One thing I did many (many) years ago, when course calendars were still paper books and I was disillusioned with my major, was to simply browse the university course listings in their entirety, and mark any course that appealed to me. The resulting patterns were hugely useful and rather illuminating. Perhaps it might help to take a wander through the program listings and courses of a few major STEM universities to see what most often catches his eye?

Not all engineering schools require admission to the major at the time of matriculation.

Some have gone to a professional-school model, where students APPLY to the major at the end of sophomore year, and until then, they are "pre-Eng" majors who take gen ed requirements for the institution as well as those engineering specific courses.

I'd recommend that he look at state flagships with a strong engineering program and a strong science research component.

That way he can explore those things that he is most likely to find engaging and interesting, and can shift by making small changes rather than a huge one like switching to a new institution.

Engineering and Science, unfortunately, have less overlap in coursework than is ideal from a student's perspective. So in that respect, asking both professional engineers and scientists why they chose one thing OVER the other... whether that was the right choice for them, what they find to be generally true of individuals in their own discipline on either side of that divide, etc. Job shadowing, but with a list of interview questions, I guess.

DD did that and quickly realized that while engineers work on interesting problems, she is emphatically NOT one of them, because her brain simply doesn't work that way. She's a scientist instead. I personally tend to think of this as a forest or trees orientation to problem solving. Scientists tend to see patterns in forest and sometimes get caught staring at one tree, and engineers tend to see patterns down in the trees and engage in breaking a trail through them without getting lost in the larger (or smaller) detail. Of course, each approach has distinct limitations and disadvantages. Scientists can take a year to plan HOW to build the trail that takes an engineer less than a month to construct, and engineers can miss the fact that they've just created ten miles of rough trail next to an existing paved one running parallel ten feet away, but there you go.

It's a matter of figuring out which mindset one is more suited to so that you find your tribe.


ETA: I love Michelle's advice above-- and concur strongly that interdisciplinary fields are especially well-suited to those at high cognitive ability since they value the idiosyncrasies and polymath tendencies that are so common in such individuals.

It doesn't sound like this young man would enjoy interviewing someone...just a guess.

Our state flagship has Engineering Open House each year. This event is huge and very informative, it is aimed at future engineering students. Maybe universities near you have the same event?
If not, there is another way to tell. All engineering majors (except maybe CS) require a lot of hands-on work. Is your son enjoying it? Does he repair everything in your house? Is he the first one who disassembles your broken vacuum?