As a student, employment is a vague concept. In fact, of the new responsibilities that adulthood presents, it is employment that is the least familiar.

The disconnect

With special classes for puberty, contraception, alcohol and other such adult burdens, I’m increasingly convinced – thus fearful – of the impending transition into tertiary education and later employment. Even my subject choices in the next three years will require some forward thinking as to where I see myself heading. Yet I’m not sure I have a clue.

This is the disconnect. After 13 years of schooling, it is still vague how this accumulation of knowledge and skills relates to whatever single occupation a student chooses.

The dilemma

But it’s a challenging dilemma, because some people seem to cope without trouble, while others struggle. The factors which influence either result are difficult to isolate, because doing so forces us to question where these life skills are learnt and whether they’re learnt in schools at all.

It would seem reasonable, then, to educate students on the available options in general terms, once in a while, to provide a bit of direction. If I remember correctly, we had 3 such sessions least year. But even attempting to educate about post-school careers in “general terms” would be immensely difficult, considering the many, ever-changing options available.

So we spent a class period on the Government’s CareerQuest web tool. At least this generated a bit of discussion and internal contemplation, for the day at least. Yet it still didn’t give one the depth of information required to make a decision or decide upon a direction.

The solution

Some of us have a passion and are fortunate enough that this passion translates conveniently into a career. But for many of us, there may not be such a job or such a passion. Somewhere out there, however, there’s a job – if not many – that would fulfill our financial and vocational aspirations.

What we need is a mentor, a wise person who has achieved their aspirations and would like to share their story. But more importantly, they would share with young students what their job entails, day-to-day, year-to-year, and why they chose it.

A mentor doesn’t necessarily have to take us under their wing, but they can simply act as a guide, offering advice that will amount to clues in our quest for a career.

The questions that remain are aplenty. Finding a time and place for mentors in high schools – as well as finding the mentors themselves – is a challenge that would require plenty of work and experimentation. But with technology, we could bring experts from all range of occupations into the classroom and allow them to impart advice to our students.