Should my daughter be thinking about jobs?

[Sandra6]

Is she has a job or career in mind, then yes appropriate A levels would help. If not, then she should study what she loves and/or is good at. Uni is the place to start stressing about job requirements.

Sometimes this route can prove counter productive. If she wanted to pursue a career in law, for example, many universities are not at all impressed by candidates who took law at A level, apparently it's not at all helpful when you get to degree level -and they're much more interested in well-rounded candidates.
I think having a part time job, as a waitress, in a shop, helping out in a local kennels, that sort of thing, improves your career chances later on too.

 

[marzjennings]

Sometimes this route can prove counter productive. If she wanted to pursue a career in law, for example, many universities are not at all impressed by candidates who took law at A level, apparently it's not at all helpful when you get to degree level -and they're much more interested in well-rounded candidates.
I think having a part time job, as a waitress, in a shop, helping out in a local kennels, that sort of thing, improves your career chances later on too.

Good point, my brother was told to study English, History and one more A level to help with law degree entrance and acceptance. He did all that and passed with good grades, but now 5 years later he's on his way to becoming a master mason instead.

 

[Yellow Fang]

Sometimes this route can prove counter productive. If she wanted to pursue a career in law, for example, many universities are not at all impressed by candidates who took law at A level, apparently it's not at all helpful when you get to degree level -and they're much more interested in well-rounded candidates.
I think having a part time job, as a waitress, in a shop, helping out in a local kennels, that sort of thing, improves your career chances later on too.

Mind you, my brother studied economics at A level and at university. He says the economics he learnt at university was useless to him as an accountant in the City.

 

[Yellow Fang]

How times have changed at 16 I'd all ready completed my first year as an apprentice and going to collage once a week from 9am to 9pm, we had it hard in them days

We studied at college 9am to 9pm every day of the week after a full day down the pit.

 

[TheDoctor]

Whatever you learn at 16 will be obsolete when you're part-way through a career anyhow.
If you study stuff you like, you'll get into the habit of learning, and that's a useful skill to have.

 

[Canrider]

I decided I wanted to work in IT when I was 13, I've now clocked up over 20 years. I did take 2 years out to work in vaccine distribution but that was because I thought some of the IT people I was working with were complete and utter t**ts rather than disliking the job.

I think it LIKELY you aren't working on text-parsing...

 

[Arch]

I'd go with choosing subjects she likes, because those are probably what she'll do best at, and in the process learn the learning skills that matter.

I thought I wanted to be a vet, so took A levels accordingly. I found they were much harder than O levels, and got sidetracked, and flunked the As, and got a job in a supermarket instead - which is where I learned how to work, get on with it day in, day out no matter what. I took an OU degree in humanities (3rd class), and then decided, on more or less a whim, to go and study archaeology at Uni full time. I found Uni much more rewarding as an adult than I would have as a child (I was still a child at 18 really). I did well, worked hard at it, did a Masters and started a PhD before life intervened and I decided I didn't want to be an academic after all. And now, I'm a glorified refuse collector. And happy.

Never been on the dole, never really had a career plan. Had a few lucky breaks along the way, and a few unlucky ones.

I guess what I'm saying is that a career choice made now might not seem so attractive by the end of A levels. But the confidence and enjoyment that comes from studying something that interests you akes you a better person.

 

[fossyant]

As a kid you don't usually know what you want to do. I thought I might like to work in a bank, good at maths etc. did a weeks work experience at 15, got glowing reports, but my god was the job horrible...

Ended up with a traineeship with a big national company, so was able to work and study what I was good at. Ended up in accountancy..FFS. (Where is the bike mechanic job).

I think the kids need to study at their strength, and O and A levels do not matter in a real world, other than getting into further qualifications. They need enough O and A's to get into what they want to do at Uni, so do some research.

My two are late primary and new to secondary. Both bright, but the brightest one won't apply himself. You have to step back a little as they go off on one and tell you that you are causing them stress (LOL) only because you remind them that it might be wise to do homework or a little revision, rather than Xbox, just whilst you are cooking tea, cleaning and everything else....

 

[Night Train]

If I had the option to go back and start again at school, and influence the options open to me, I would do an engineering apprenticeship. I would have concentrated on accessing the workshops at school for the engineering, metal and wood work, and blacksmithing. I would still have studied art and physics.

With that hindsight I would have been best off spending a good few years working at honing my practical machining and making skills in the early days while working for an small engineering company. Then, later on, I would have been better able to study my mech eng degree and obtaining a placement in a larger engineering company, Rolls Royce maybe.

By now I would be looking at early retirement and setting up a small workshop building bicycles, or electric cars.

Now, I am sort of there in a very bitty and circuitous way though not as well skilled or knowledgeable, and without a private pension to fall back on, but I can bits and stuff for bikes and electric vehicles.
But maybe I would also be less rounded as a person due to lack of outside skills, interests and experiences.

All in all, maybe I didn't do too badly after all, even taking 20-20 hindsight into account.

One often never knows how, and where, life will convey us during our adult lives, whether at 16, 30, 45, or 60 and so can only make the best of what we have, and enjoy it.

 

[theclaud]

I believe at that age I planned to be God-Emperor of Earth

How's that going, just out of interest?

 

[Canrider]

How's that going, just out of interest?

Still experimenting with spice melanges mixes, no immortality yet. I think I'm using too much nutmeg..

 

[Risex4]

For what little its worth.

When I was going through school I was taught very much that you should have a career path identified and that you should plan your education accordingly. The insinuation was, from quite a young age, that you should be making life decisions at 14 or 15. This was true of both my teachers (who I respected greatly), my school, and to a degree my parents as well.

Its only with hindsight that I can see the absolute lunacy of such a philosophy.

At about that age, I was developing an interest in computers. They were just starting to take off as a home appliance, the internet was growing (I had been fascinated by Peter Snow on Tomorrow's World talking about the "Information Super Highway" and shopping from your living room), and I thought it would be a great thing to be part of. As such, I took GCSE IT (alongside History and Geography among other things as childhood-born interests), got good grades, and then went onto College. Here, believing that I was training for my future, I took a GNVQ in IT and, after discussing potential complimentary options with various people, settled on A-Level Physics. I was roundly considered to be an "intelligent lad", and it was the 'smart' thing to do.

The problem was, and I don't think I'll ever understand why I was talked into it, I hated Physics. That got dropped within six months. Luckily, the rules at the time allowed me to continue my GNVQ and still be counted as being in full time education. I finished up my GNVQ with a decent passing mark, but by the end, I pretty much knew that IT wasn't what I wanted to pursue as a career.

Consequently, jaded and uninspired by the education system and feeling a bit lost, I opted not to go to University - the one thing everyone always thought I was destined to do. I started work full time in the shop I had been a part-timer in through College, and bereft of any inspiration of what to do with my life, stuck it out there for the next ten years.

I've made the most of the situation in so far as a decade of retail has given a lot of skills and developed me as a person. I've had a 'career' in terms of promotions into store management and such, I have learned to like, even love to a degree, the retail sector. I love serving customers and have discovered I possess a reasonable knack from training and coaching people. Is it my life's calling? If it is, at 30, I don't yet feel it.

If I had the chance, every day of the week I'd go back and study History or Geography or Philosophy at College as these are the things that have one thing in common; I enjoy them now as much as I did growing up. I never had an intention to go out and be a teacher at 14, so these options didn't seem practical at the time, but I'm sure after two years of studying something that I actually had a proper passion for, I would have decided to go on to University and done more of something. I don't know what, but I'm confident I wouldn't have had the "education blows" mentality I did when I left college. From there, who knows? Maybe I would have found another outlet for my education past the narrow options I could see at 16?

As an aside, this "chose your path" philosophy applied equally to myself and my sister's year group, two above me. A while back, whilst having one of those family chats about nothing, we actually audited the fates of those we knew through still being in contact with, friends-of-friends, parents still bump into parents, or what have you. From a test group of about 20-30 we could compile between my sister and myself, some had gone on to great careers, some were just bumbling along doing not a lot, but a grand total of just one was doing what she had set out at do at 16.

And she had wanted to do that what shes does now since before anyone can remember.

I don't pretend to offer advise, but that's my own personal hindsight. If I could go back and study what I actually wanted to study, and not what I thought I should study, I would in a heartbeat.

 

[sabian92]

I chose Geography, food technology, German and then the other compulsory subject.

In September I start a BSc in Computer Forensics. That teacher is talking shoot.

 

[Archie_tect]

Sabian, we have a couple of computers that died last year if you want to get some practise in.

 

[shouldbeinbed]

I have built a successful and long standing career that I fell into pretty much by accident after being made redundant a few times in the economic downturn in the late 80's, away from the career path I had earmarked myself for and studied towards at School & Polytechnic.
I'm a long way ahead of a lot of people who are more highly educated in general and specifically qalified to this profession than me.

Even as a school governor of many years and a defender of teachers generally, there is too much emphasis placed on the importance of GCSE's/A levels as arbiters for the rest of your life. At 16 your daughter should be enjoying what she is compelled to do as much as she can, not going in hating school now because it may mean shes a bit more sad to retire in 60 years time.

When I do interviews, it is often the people that have gone very narrow very early in their choice of options that give the poorest breadth of experience and least incentive to shortlist or speak to them. It is also much on the increase in application forms I see nowaday that people are chopping and changing far more & many have significantly changed direction at least once or twice in their working lives.