High school is a pivotal time for teenagers for many reasons, one of which being that it’s a time to figure out what you want to do for the rest of your life.

Whether you want to go into the military, the workforce or college after high school, it’s important to be prepared and have a plan for your future.

However, many students don’t know where to start with their future plans, and even though the guidance department should be an essential resource, is it currently as helpful as it could be?

Back when I was in middle school, we did numerous career cluster surveys to help point us in the direction of a potential career. 

I found those to be very helpful because they showed me lots of career choices I’d never heard of before and they gave me lots of good information about each one. 

Now that I’m in high school, I find it surprising that we don’t use those surveys anymore, given how much they could help students who don’t know what they want to do with their lives yet.

I think it is helpful that we have options like Swofford that give students hands-on experience with different careers, but not all students have the schedule space to make it work, so it’s not a viable option for everyone.

Future plans are also talked about in IGP meetings with a student’s guidance counselor, but what are we doing to point students in the direction of a career?

It’s definitely helpful to encourage students to think about what strengths they have that could be put into a career, like helping others or being good with numbers, but this isn’t enough.

Even after narrowing down your strengths, there are still so many careers that fall under each one, which means that students still need guidance to help them pick the right one. 

For example, if you enjoy helping others, you could fit that interest into anything from teaching, social work and even financial advising. 

It is possible to go into college and figure out what you want to do while you’re there, but for a lot of people, not having a plan means wasting time and money taking classes that aren’t related to a potential career. 

High school should be the foundation for students to develop interests and find passions that could carry over to a career, but in order for that to be the case, we need to do more than yearly IGP meetings and the occasional Flex time lesson.

Bringing back career cluster surveys, having our guidance counselors offer more year-round help, and incorporating more conversations about career options into the regular curriculum would all play a big part in helping solve this problem for our students.