I wear a mean dark pair of shades..

[Siva]

Well, not just me.

Most kids in my school still have their heads filled with these ideas of them becoming a Chart-Topping musician of some kind, an Astronaut, curing the common cold etc, completely oblivious to the fact that the world is full of many, many, many people who are trying to do the same thing, and are probably more likely to do it than you.

It's not bad to have these dreams though is it? Aspirations and all that, motivation etc, but if you have no backup plan, and continue chasing pipedreams for all of your life. I'm not advocating the idea of your parents or the government dictating what you want to do from the moment you are born and essentially shaping your life, but I'm not too much in favour of the half-assed way we go about educating people like me on what their options TRULY are.

If I had a pound for every time I was told I HAVE choices I would be a very, very rich person. But if I had a pound for every time an adult sat down with me, and discussed what my options truly were, and how to go about them, I would be no richer than I am now. This generation so far doesn't have alot going for it in my eyes. No motivation from what I see, no role models, even in parents anymore. Thankfully I do know what I want to do in life, and if I hadn't been adamant on this for the past year or so I would be extremely worried about my future. I'm sure alot of kids with not the best upbringing are worried about their futures are and where they'll 'end up'.

But so far, no-one seems too bothered. So generation after generation, we'll be producing adolescents with very few of them knowing what they want to do, and even fewer who succeed in knowing what they want to do. The doctors of today aren't going to live forever, so what will we do? Continue importing them like we seem to be doing now? Maybe the less civilised countries have the right idea. Make sure that every child knows without a good job he will earn nothing and die of starvation. That will produce a little more motivation.

[Baleout]

Well my school is pretty good for careers. Teachers talk to yeargroupd about stuff There's one or two scheduled careers meetings for everyone at some point, and you can basically pop in and ask about anything you want, any time. It starts in year 9, when people are choosing their GCSEs.

However, I know people from other schools that have no idea about what they want to do, how they can achieve their career etc. They had no idea about anything to do with careers. One of the problems is that they don't even realise they aren't getting the advice they need, and so don't go looking for it.