The pressure on sixth formers to have a plan is, by most accounts, arriving earlier and with greater intensity than it did for previous generations. University open days, personal statement deadlines, and the quiet but persistent question of ‘what do you want to do?’ create a context in which teenagers are expected to make significant decisions about their futures at a point when most are still working out who they are.
Career Conversations
Parents and educators both want to help. But the conversations that are most useful are not always the ones that feel most productive. Knowing how to talk about the future with a sixth former, in a way that opens possibilities rather than closing them down, is a skill worth developing.
The Problem With ‘What Do You Want to Be?’
The question is a staple of careers conversations, but it has some significant structural problems. It frames identity and vocation as synonymous, implying that a job title is the same thing as a self. It asks for a conclusion before the exploration has happened. And it places the pressure of an answer on someone who is, quite legitimately, still in the middle of the process of figuring things out.
More useful questions tend to focus on interests, strengths, and values rather than job titles. What subjects or activities produce a state of genuine absorption? What kind of problems does the young person find satisfying to work on? What matters to them in how they spend their time? These questions are generative rather than conclusive, and they tend to produce conversations that are both more honest and more useful.
The Value of Exploration Over Decision
There is a growing body of evidence that early foreclosure on a career path, committing firmly to a direction before adequate exploration has occurred, is associated with lower long-term career satisfaction. Young people who are encouraged to explore broadly, to try things, to spend time in different environments, and to hold their plans loosely while doing so, tend to make more informed decisions when the time for decision actually arrives.
Work experience, volunteering, informational conversations with people in different fields, and even the experience of studying a subject at a higher level than expected, all contribute to a more grounded and realistic picture of what different paths actually involve.
University as Exploration, Not Just Qualification
The framing of university purely as a route to employment misses something important. For many young people, the undergraduate years are the most significant period of intellectual and personal development they will experience. Choosing a degree solely on the basis of graduate earnings data, without reference to genuine interest or suitability, often produces students who are technically present but intellectually disengaged. At well-regarded sixth form colleges focused on university preparation, the conversation about university tends to integrate both dimensions: what does the student genuinely want to study, and where will that take them in practical terms?
What Parents Can Actually Do
The most helpful thing a parent can often do is to be genuinely curious without being directive. Sharing their own career journey, including its non-linear elements, the false starts, the unexpected turns, and the things that were discovered along the way, normalises the reality that most working lives are not the result of a plan formed at seventeen.
Connecting a young person with people doing interesting work, without pressure attached, is also genuinely valuable. A single honest conversation with someone working in a field a sixth former is curious about can do more than a dozen careers leaflets. These conversations work best when they are low-stakes, curiosity-driven, and conducted without an agenda.
Holding It Lightly
The sixth form years are not the last opportunity to make good decisions. They are one point in a much longer story. Young people who are helped to approach this period with both seriousness and a degree of equanimity, who are supported to make thoughtful choices without being paralysed by the weight of them, are the ones who tend to arrive at the next stage with the best foundation for what follows.
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About the Author
This article was produced in association with MPW London, an independent sixth form college providing expert academic tuition, university guidance, and career preparation for A-level students.