When I was a kid, in the US, that was a fun little question. Even as a teen, it was not something to be taken overly seriously--no one really expected me to have my life planned out by highschool, or even by graduation. Starting college (which was still reasonably priced) with no declared major, and figuring it out while you worked on core classes was a perfectly legitimate option.
I do realize that now that as college costs have risen, and graduation requirements have gotten more intense, teens in the US do need to have more direction before taking on the cost of a degree. Nonetheless, I think it is still fairly common in the US to not really have much of an idea of what you want to be until midway through highschool, and even reasonably normal to not know upon graduation, and take a few years to work or attend community college before deciding on a likely career path (which may or may not include getting an advanced degree--I think there is a push back now from the idea that everyone must have one).
And then, we have Germany. I do really like the system for vocational training in Germany, and the fact that those kids who are not wanting or able to attend college have a great way to learn a trade (and resources are not being squandered forcing everyone into the college path, when in reality no society flourishes with only degreed professionals in the population). I am less impressed with what goes along with it; the fact that in a typical German school set up kids are put into tracks by grade 5 and specialize more and more from that point, so that by 15 it is very odd indeed to not be heading towards at least a general set of careers (something in the science, or hands on but technical, or clerical, etc), in fact, from what I can tell, in the standard school system that is almost impossible to avoid.
And that is how, even at the Waldorf school that Rio attends (Waldorf is an alternative education, much more focused on the whole child and much less tracked) I found myself attending a meeting today with his teachers. They want to know his future plans. What he intends to study and where he intends to work. You know, because by 15 he should have his life all mapped out, or last some reasonably good idea of what he wants to do and how he is going to get there.
The ironic thing is that Marika, my kid who is heading back to the US for schooling, DOES know. She is my planner, my goal oriented kid who focuses and needs a picture of the future to work towards. but, Rio, well not so much. There are things he is interested in and good at. He wants to try working a contract on a cruise ship, as a member of the activities staff, and see how he likes it. I think he has a real chance at that and speaking both English and German will be a big boost. Whether he would like it enough to try to make a career out of it, even he cannot say. It's probably more of a get some work experience and meet people and travel while young kind of thing. He loves all things technical and spends a lot of his free time keeping up with the latest innovations in computers, cell phones, and science as a whole, which could lead to any number of careers if he so desires.
He is really good at math and logical reasoning and could decide to attend college in the US with an end goal of working in some sort of related field (though, lacking a third language and being unevenly great at math and science but not strong in language arts in general he could never attend university under the German system).
I am lucky to have found a great school, with really caring teachers for him. One where, after talking to me today they are okay with keeping going at trying to get Rio up to the next step in the German testing system, just to open up more options for him, but also knowing he is not focusing yet on any particular career, and being his own self will likely take a very non traditional path, but still make it work.
Funny thing is, even as a young child, Rio would usually refuse to answer "what do you want to be when you grow up" He used to get irritated at being asked and not understand why people expected him to know already. We would try to explain that it just meant what was something he might like to be, not a hard and fast answer--maybe he had some vision of his German future and the box an answer might put him in!
--Hadley
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