I finish Baccalaureate, and now what study?
Most young people would like to have a magical recipe or a crystal ball to ver the future and be able to decide what career to study after finishing Baccalaureate. And we would like to provide it to you, and do not make mistakes in our advice to help you succeed in your Professional future. In any case we can always help them to obtain all the possible information before making a decision, based on the fact that in order to choose freely, we must first know, and being very clear that they are the ones who have the last word.
The conversations with our children about their professional future are usually very positive. However, they can contain a certain danger if we intend to inculcate the profession that we would like for them. If we do this our son can reproach us in the future that "we ate the coconut" taking advantage of a moment when he was very vulnerable to external influences due to his own insecurity.
Our role in these conversations is to listen, trying to guide their reasoning so that it addresses all the necessary variables before taking - he, not us - a decision. It must be a think aloud of the son, that we simply orient from the experience that we have, and he does not.
Choose with feet on the floor
It is important to help them to be realistic and to know their strengths and weaknesses, so that they choose their career or profession according to their aptitudes and possibilities when finishing Baccalaureate. It's about that do not impose goals that are so high that they are unattainable and end up frustrating them, nor so inferior to their possibilities that they end up not satisfying them.
That is why we have to start by being realistic parents themselves. We can not pretend that a child who gets dizzy every time he sees blood is a surgeon, no matter how much his father and grandfather have been ... It can be a success the opportune one consult with a teacher that he knows well the aptitudes and preferences of each concrete case, and his possibilities of success or failure in the career he wants to follow.
Vision of the future to choose profession
Although very important, the race is not an end but a means to access a certain profession. Our children should be aware that they are not deciding on five years of studies, but on forty of professional exercise, and therefore it is precisely the content of the profession that has most to weigh in its decision.
First hand information
When the field of interests is limited to a group of four or five professions, it would be good to put our children in contact with friends and acquaintances that tell them about content of work, of the necessary preparation to reach it and of the capacities and qualities required.
It is always better that this person is as close as possible to him in time, the son of a friend who has studied that career, for example. Your testimony will have more value for our son or daughter.
In touch with the profession
Ideally, he or she could check on the ground that, indeed, that is the job he likes. One possibility would be to do some Summer work so they can check "in situ" day to day.
For example, a boy who considers himself a lawyer could be part of his vacation helping in the morning in an office. Even if he does not do more than pass texts to the computer, or deal with secretarial work, the experience will be positive for him because of the contact he makes with reality.
When in doubt, open careers
If you continue to doubt what university degree to study, the most advisable, always respecting your decision, is to recommend the alternative that least limits the range of professional opportunities. For example, if our son likes mathematics, and wants to make a career with a strong content in that subject, but hesitates between Exactas or Industrial Engineering, from the practical point of view it is better to decide for Engineering, since The possibilities of specialization and choice of work once the race is completed are much greater. Maybe then, with a few more years, have more clear what you want.
Choose career and professional future: the decision is yours
- Help your child "think aloud" about their professional future. Enter in your reasoning all the variables that, in your opinion, you should take into account in your decision.
- Make him see that more than the subjects that make up the race, What you will like is the profession you will access later.
- Encourage him to do something to match his possibilities and skills. Nor above, because not getting it would be frustrated, or below, because I would end up regretting not having done more.
- Talk to a teacher who knows your child wellhis abilities to exercise one or another career.
- Make it easy to get in touch with your acquaintances to inform you about the different careers and professions that may interest you.
- Consider the possibility of doing some work, part time, in the work environment that you think you may be interested. It is the best way to get a real idea of a profession.
- If your child doubts between two or three races, Orient it towards the one that allows you to later decide on different exits.
- Never forget that the final decision is yours and that you have to respect it.
Give your child a list of five acquaintances of yours who work in activities that may interest them, encourage them to visit them and ask them about their work. Suggest that you write down the conclusions of each of these interviews in writing. Then talk to him. You may not be clear about what you want to do yet, but you probably know what you do not want, and that is a first step.
Ignacio Iturbe
Advice: Gerardo Castillo. Doctor in Educational Sciences and Deputy Director of the Institute of Education Sciences of the University of Navarra
