Peak Careers

Professional Development for Career Practitioners

honor all jobs

INTERVIEW: Choosing A Career Pathway for High School Students

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Choosing a career pathway for high school students can be difficult, especially with this nation-wide ‘mantra’ that all students need to go to college.

Our economy and individuals self-worth would both improve by helping students in choosing a career pathway while respecting all occupations. There has been too much pressure for everyone to go to college. Our economy needs all types of occupations and there are many ways to find training for future work besides a four-year college.

This interview is a follow-up to a recent blog on Respecting All Career Pathways.

We discuss:

1] the needs of high school students for choosing a career
2] how to honor ALL career pathways
3] and what high school staff can do to help students

My guests are: Scott Harris, Karen McGrady, and Richard Hoffman

KAREN McGRADY has spent more than half her career working with high school and college students as a teacher, academic advisor and career services provider. McGrady grew up in rural central Maine and is well acquainted with the benefits and challenges the area offers to young people. She works for JMG as a College Success Specialist, based at Eastern Maine Community College in Bangor.

SCOTT HARRIS is a high school counselor at U-32 High School in central Vermont. He holds degrees in Education from UMaine and Goddard College, and in Restorative Practices from IIRP. He has experience working with all levels of students and has taught social studies, science, and behavioral support. Scott approaches school counseling from a holistic, developmental, and student-centered perspective. His work with students revolves around social/emotional growth, career exploration, community building, and action-based research.

RICHARD HOFFMAN is the Cooperative Education Coordinator for the Hartford Area Career and Technology Center. He spent 19 years teaching Marketing Education in Colorado, 12 years in postsecondary technical education administration in Kansas, and three years as the Director of the North Country Career Center in Newport, Vermont. He earned both his Bachelors in Marketing Education and his Masters in Vocational Education from Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colorado.

INTERVIEW: Choosing a Career Pathway for High School Students

Jim Peacock is the Principal at Peak-Careers Consulting and writes a monthly newsletter for career practitioners. Peak-Careers offers discussion-based online seminars for career practitioners focused on meeting continuing education needs for CCSP, GCDF and BCC certified professionals as well as workshops for career practitioners and individual career coaching.

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Respecting all Career Pathways

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There are many career pathways to success.

career pathways

Our job as career coaches and practitioners is to help our students and clients discover a career by exploring career pathways that match their strengths and interests. Then to explore all the career pathways on how to get there, whether it is an apprenticeship, bachelors degree, trade school, or certificate.

All too often, I hear people say they will go to college and figure it out there. That is a very expensive and time-consuming way to do career exploration. I do get the sense that the “college for all” mentality is slowing down, but we still have a long way to go. The message that everyone should go to college to be successful has hurt our economy a couple different ways.

  1. Many people attended college who should not have been there and incurred lots of debt that will need to be paid back.
  2. Those same people could have been working during that time and making money.
  3. Many of those people would have been happier in trades and technical positions which are in need of people.

One problem, in my opinion, is that we have too many colleges in our country fighting over the same 18-year-olds. The college’s motivation is to fill seats at their college, not to help these people discover their best career pathways. We have begun to see higher education institutions closing down and I think we will see more.

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Honoring All Jobs

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Far too often, the message delivered to young people is that “everyone needs to go to college” to be successful. Evidence of this assumption surfaces everywhere. High schools put up signs with seniors who have been accepted into colleges. NPR publishes articles that say the only downside to getting a college degree is not finishing the degree, picking the wrong college, or choosing the wrong major. As a career practitioner this strikes me as odd. Not only is this detrimental to our economy, but it is disrespectful to all those people whose skills and gifts lead them toward trades / crafts occupations. We need all jobs to be honored in this country. It is clear this is not often the case.

trades

There are 10’s of 1000’s of jobs that do not require a college degree that are wonderful choices for people, and YES, make very good money.  I know many people who have great jobs with no bachelors degree, from a great career in the radio business, to auto mechanics, HVAC, and many others. Businesses in the trades / crafts areas are desperate for bright people who can problem solve and produce quality work.  Why do we shuffle EVERY student who is bright in math / science to college?  If they want to work with their hands and produce goods, why wouldn’t we make it OK for them to choose a trade?  I think of the German model of education that provides two different tracks in high school allowing bright young men and women who want to work in a craft or trades area to get the training they need… and it is OK to do this, not second class like it is here.

If you have not read Shop Class As Soul Craft by Matthew Crawford, you should.  He has a PhD in Philosophy and was working for a professional journal writing abstracts, but was always drawn back to his work on motorcycles and the problem solving skills it took to do that job. Matthew is one of many people who probably was given one choice in high school. “You are bright, you are going to college.”  Matthew argues that our country has failed an entire population of people by continuing to cut shop classes and offering high school technical education for those people that can’t go to college.  (noticed I said “can’t go to college” which is loaded with all kinds of implications.  Because they do not LOOK like they are college material?  They don’t learn best by reading? Because they are poor?… this list goes on and on.)

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