Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion If academia doesn't work out (career planning).

Totally agree.

YES!! This. SO much.

DD14 has only the most vague of ideas, really-- she's just too interested in too many things. This causes her a great deal of anxiety because most of her friends seem to be the types who are less even/global in ability, and therefore have a far better idea what "their thing" is going to turn out to be.

We have encouraged a major in Math/stats or another STEM field that will translate well into a wide variety of things that she has had sustained interest in-- but not because she isn't interested in the humanities or good at them, but because her odds of finding a deeper pool of similar, cognitively able people is higher in those fields like physics, math, and chemistry than it is in history, elementary education, or psychology.

Like Geofizz, we're about "don't close doors" and not about "choose! choose!" around here.

DD hasn't seen enough of life and the world around her to be able to make an informed decision, and she knows this. I think that makes her wiser than some of her 18yo peers who think that they have, truthfully.

You and geofizz have a point, but there are some "behind-the-scenes" careers that may not cross the minds of even high school students unless someone brings them up. What fraction of the population knows what an actuary does or has considered an actuarial career? I did not until I was well into physics graduate school. (I went into finance instead.)

What does he want to do? Have you asked him? My twins (7) have a long list of careers they want to do - inventor, artist, poet, archeologist, nuclear physicist, epidemiologist, chemist, and toxicologist; just to name a few. It constantly changes (with the exception of chemist - that has been mentioned for a very long time).

I tell them that they can do anything they want, if they are willing to work for it.

Social skills are going to be important in any job, so if you already think those are a concern, then possibly work on that.

However, in my personal experience (and also with my peers), any career that a parent was pushing was the career least likely to be chosen.

We do emphasize the importance of college and graduate school. Right now, they are planning to go to schools in other country, but I expect that will change. If not, we will help them strategize as to how to choose a school.

That's the part about telling our kids they have options.

My DS15 doesn't have a clue what he wants to do yet, although I assume it will likely be in the STEM area, math/computer science/engineering/science realm. Kids who have strong mathematical abilities can be successful in any of these fields and don't necessary need to go into academia. Many of the people I know including myself went into fields in computer science. And there still is a huge demand in that particular field. At this stage one thing we are doing with his lack of motivation is having him look at possible career choices to hopefully motivate him to do better in H.S. so that he can go to university.

Most of my peers when I was in H.S. who were gifted math students, went into computer programing or other computer science related fields. We joke around our house that if my husband hadn't gone into academia we could have been millionaires, because he did get an offer to work in the early days at a start-up that shall remain nameless.

Indeed. DD's love of statistics has led us to describe "actuarial science" for her quite explicitly since she was about five years old. Because it's not something that you hear much about, but BOY, is it ever important in a variety of fields.

Bostonian, your post made me chuckle, since everyone in our household is fully aware of those options in particular. Esoteric, probably, to be sure-- but it's been a relatively frequent topic of discussion here. DD really likes the idea of flagging people for insurance fraud, for example.

In the U.S. most states require English through year 12. All universities require passing a writing class, although many universities accept on of the AP English courses. In the U.S. to get a BA one must take a maximal set of breadth coursework.

IMO I think this is one of the good things about the U.S. system. Students don't have to know early as early what they want. I have seen many a student go to university only to change directions completely. Although it sure helps to know if you are going in a STEM direction or a art direction, or a language arts direction by the end of the sophomore year in H.S. But what courses one takes the last two years of H.S. can vary widely depending on what one intends to do after H.S. ie go to university to study STEM, go to art school, or a culinary arts program. One can't go wrong by taking the more advanced route.. one can always study advanced math & science, and history. Then study poly-sci at university. But it's hard to get into STEM programs if one hasn't taken advanced math & science in H.S.

I have to say that I'm not convinced that the "Lisa" model is necessarily a bad thing for a child 8-10 years of age at this point in time and human history.

Workplace change has been so rapid-- for example, DD had envisioned becoming a research professor as her de facto career path, until she (and we) realized that with most public institutions running more and more toward adjuncts-as-faculty, the tenure model may really and truly be gone in twelve years when she is there.

So in some respects, I'm glad that she's more flexible than that. I would NOT have predicted the whole.sale (sorry--it's to get around the netnanny) move toward adjunct teaching even at state flagships and tier one institutions even five or six years ago, and I'm pretty well in tune with that environment. The speed of that transition has been breathtaking, frankly.

Taking the most demanding coursework available without failing to develop a well-rounded appreciation for other areas of study-- that's the ideal that we've attempted to communicate to DD as keeping the most options open. EVERYONE needs scientific and communications literacy skills, and everyone needs numeracy. The deeper and more expert those skills, the better. No matter where you wind up, that much is true.

Developing individual passions is a second pillar of our approach. Sure, they may not be truly viable career paths, but why on earth would I stop my 10yo from drawing Pokemon creatures if that makes her happy? I don't consider that kind of time "wasted." I mean, why play chess for that matter-- it's not as though very many people are going "pro" at that.

Having a STEM career I can say that even within my particular degree there is a HUGE variety of job opportunities (and that is just within my specific branch). I've worked with people with a wide variety of degrees (math, various science and various engineering specialties) and I have classmates of my particular specialty that went into a wide variety of fields. In the end I think the comments about keeping doors open (while avoiding closing any if possible) is very appropriate. Learning about various options is interesting (and will eventually be useful) but knowing the general direction can be enough as long as you are going in the right general direction. Slight course corrections are usually workable unless you want to completely switch to something in the Arts.

I will also say that I started engineering thinking I was going to do X. In second year I was going to do Y and then about a week before we had to specialize switched to Z. I've worked in the field for almost 20 years and my exact job has changed many times over that time. In the end something that changes constantly has been the perfect match for me. DH totally stumbled into his STEM career as well. In the end both of us couldn't be happier.

I'll be shocked if DS8 chooses a non-STEM career (he's very math/science focused and has been since birth it seems). We talk about a variety of fields to try to show him a glimpse of what is out there. Our DD5 seems more even so we really have no idea. For us that might be more of a challenge since we don't have the same network for learning about the non-STEM options. At least we have time.