Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion How are they supposed to choose a career when...

they are passionate in everything? The school gave DD(oh-so-close-to)15 a long list of good careers, and are trying to pressure the students into figuring out what they are going to be, and she was interested in anything from urban planning to veterinary science to anthropology to marketing. She also has considered music and neuroscience as "tied in first", however all of these careers are so close together, it's hard to tell. And of course "go with what you are good at" and "go with what you enjoy doing" doesn't work for her- she's *good* at pretty much everything she does, and she enjoys anything relating to the sciences, anything requiring meticulous planning and scheduling, anything that would involve using history and geography, and so on.
My husband is gifted and was from a young age focused on what he is still doing today, (software) engineering. He has a very "engineering" and computer oriented brain, so it wasn't hard for him to decide. DD, however, has really only said that Engineering/Computer science are the only careers she *isn't* at all interested in.

So I know some adults on this forum are gifted, or have kids the same age/older than DD who are in a similar situation or had gone through this. Any tips on narrowing things down?

Go to college. Try stuff. Does she need to narrow it down at almost 15?

I don't know, the school is being pushy about the kids figuring it out. They have college prep programs (so next year she could do medical science clinicals, veterinary science preparation, etc) , and most of her friends already know what they are doing. And she really wants to sort this all out, as she has a 4th year in college brother who still has no idea. Yes- I said a senior in college has *no* idea what he is doing when he gets out of college, and he told himself all through middle and high school that he would figure it out the way you listed above. The other problem is that she has a school she wants to go to that will combine her 11th and 12th grade years with college if she chooses a math/science career.
I see what you are saying, but I think there is just too much on the line to wait until then.

Plans are useless; planning is vital. If you had a dollar/pound for every one of us who had, at 15, a clear idea of what we wanted to do that turned out to be quite wrong (in my case, I was just wrong about what aspect of my favourite school subject I was going to enjoy most at a high level, but it still made a big difference in terms of what career choices were sensible).

I'd recommend taking a step away from the idea of getting a single label for a career she wants to do, and looking at it several ways. E.g.:

Get her to think about what decisions she has to take when (not just now, but later too) and what paths there are towards the various things she wants to do. E.g., if she's interested in neuroscience, there are endless different ways in. People go into neuroscience from medicine, mathematics, biology, physics, computer science, psychology... Other careers such as veterinary medicine may be much more restricted in terms of what she has to decide soon if that's where she wants to end up.

Get her to make a graph, with a node for where she is now, edges for the different choices she may make next, nodes for each college major she might end up at, etc.! If a choice she makes soon is going to commit her to only one of the things she's currently interested in, that's OK if she's OK about it (there are always more choices than one realises at the time!) but there's an obvious advantage in making choices that leave several of one's favourite options open - not least that if a choice leads to several promising career options, it suggests there may be something about the choice that fits one's preferences, and it might also lead to other good options.

Get her to list as explicitly as she can *why* she's interested in each of the things she's interested in - and why she's not interested in certain other things - and help her to see patterns. It's quite likely that she hasn't yet ever heard of her eventual career, or even that it doesn't exist yet...

(Btw, you'd better not tell her so, unless your DH already has, but it's very suspicious that she claims not to be interested in computer stuff but is interested in anything involving meticulous planning and scheduling - I'd hazard a guess that what she's got there is some seriously denied software engineering talent :-) But that's fine, she can use it for something else :-)

Make sure she thinks about aspects of her future career other than just the academic interest of the job. For example, does she want to travel? Does she see herself in management some day, or running her own business in whatever it is, or does she recoil from those things? Does she like meeting new people all the time, or does she prefer to get to know a group of people well? Does she get on easily with all kinds of people or is she happier in a group that's mostly like her? How much does she think money and what money can buy will be important to her? Security versus risk? Suppose she had children, would it be important to her to be able to take a significant career break and still go back? Of course it's impossible to give definite answers to any of these, but thinking about them may help her to get a clearer picture of what kind of career she's looking for.

And in the end, she can give a label to school - she isn't bound by it :-)

Schools do push kids to know, but as someone who chose something, then had to go back and do it again because I chose wrongly, I think Cathy's advise is very good. What you think a subject is and what it really IS can be two different things! What the school is really after (most of the time) is checking that the subjects they are doing in upper high school will let them get into the courses they want in college. (Or at least that's the case in Australia.) Knowing that might help her (temporarily) choose something acceptable. She can always change he mind later.

I think this is a good exercise for students. It does matter what subjects they take in high school. If your child is good at everything, take all the advanced subjects.

Choosing a career has so much to do with other goals such as raising a family, location (including staying in one place or constantly moving), social skills - and many others.

My daughter is in 8th grade and has chosen Neuroscience. She hopes to attend Colorado College, a gifted liberal arts college where the courses are interesting.

This was definitely a struggle for me. I took 5+ years to graduate college, got a double major, and have dozens of extra credits in interest areas. And someday I might go back and do something else! I think it's good to keep your options open as long as you can when you have many interests and talents.

I think it is important to consider lifestyle. Although I was good in math and took engineering because it was a no brainer and didn't conflict with cheerleading and social life, I never wanted to work as an engineer. I always wanted to fly around the world and make money. I ended up on Wall Street and by mid 20s was heading up automobile research at a global bank and flew around the world. I spent weeks in Europe flying from car factory to car factory and then weeks in Asia doing the same. Engineering would have had me design I beams for 10 years. My nephew is a mechanical engineer and loves it and loves his job. So how does your daughter want to live? That is my key question for the kid that has options.

Ren

Maybe try to arrange for her to interview people working in the various fields she thinks she may be interested in to help get a feel for what they do beyond the classroom.

My DD20 was 100% certain she wanted to be a Middle School History Teacher at 15, after 1 year of college she wanted to be a School Counselor. She is about to graduate with a Criminal Justice degree and will go straight to grad school for Criminal Justice.

I had no clue what I wanted to do at 15. What really helped me was being told the percentage of people who don't end up in the field they got their bachelors degree in. That took the pressure off and allowed me to try different things. Despite being gifted, my career profile suggested my ideal career path was to be a roofer(!) I decided I better pick something before someone else picked for me so I pursued Animation/music. Then Law (pre-law), followed by sociology, then Child Development. I ended up with a graduate degree in Public Administration but specialized in planning and legal issues/administrative law. None of it was wasted, I have been able to use everything I learned along the way in my career as an Urban Planner.

My DD15 has no idea, she's batted around neuroscience, astrophysics, law, philosophy/classical studies, cooking! My advice to her is to enjoy stretching her brain in college and not feel like a decision right now will lock her in to a lifetime career. Why put that pressure on them?

I realize some of those fields might require many years of study but what's the point of jumping the gun and taking off running in what may turn out to be the wrong direction?

Just my humble 2 cents...

Great advice!
I've heard from Wenda Sheard that to get into really interesting work, taking two fields that haven't before been combined and combining them is the key. So music and anthropology are classic combinations, and music and neuroscience are or should be key. Has your daughter heard of 'Psychoneuroimmunology' - delicious!

I have more to say, but for now...
Love and More Love,
Grinity