University and Career
Planning
3
Up
University
Planning
The biggest determining factor of a person achieving personal success, is a clearly laid out plan of what they want. However, the immense pressure heaped on young minds is the fallacy of the "forever job". The overarching "forever job" belief system (or BS for short) is as follows:
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The University degree you pick now will determine your career, the rest of your life and subsequently your success and happiness.
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The University degree you pick now will directly link you to the career you will do for the next 35-40 years until retirement.
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The high school courses and the grades in those courses directly link to the happiness you will find in the career that loosely relates to those courses. You like Biology class, so a laboratory technician is pretty much exactly the same.
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You are capable of making this choice without any experience within the field you are planning to work in, and don't bother researching, interviewing, or visiting anybody who works in those fields, just choose.
AND DON'T CHOOSE WRONG...
While we make light of this situation, this belief system is an accurate representation of the inner thoughts that a lot of young minds are grappling with. With the thousands of different career options now available to students, young minds struggle to pin down or filter the noise and the misinformation that floats in from all sources. This leads to a natural and instinctual response to "disengage" in both planning, and in school.
The problem is that choices in the now are highly dependent on the future reward of that choice. Whether to put in the extra mastery work on a random Wednesday's math homework HAS TO LINK TO WHY. Without it, students are working at a fraction of their capacity and potential success.
Elements uses career algorithm programs and simplifies university enrollment practices to help educate the student on the WHY and remove some of the fear of the unknown. We also tend to help guide students to more flexible and useful university programs, so they don't end up "stuck in the 35-year career". Most of all, it provides a link to mastery on the random Wednesday, which tends to improve engagement, performance, and planning in the now.
With Josh’s patient support, by teaching simple and effective executive function skills, but also by his encouragement, by really seeing not only Sam’s challenges but also his gifts, Sam has turned a corner. He is increasingly independent with school work, he is more willing to participate, he is having more success and, in turn, can see school and life with more humour and joy. He kind of got his groove back.
Jeanette Mother of Three
Testimonial written when Sam was in Grade 8