Just recalled my school work experience

[research_ftw@sciences.social]

@Richard_Littler careers advisors were terrible when I was at school! I said I wanted to be a teacher or a librarian. My careers adviser said you are too thick, just get a job in a shop.

[cstross@wandering.shop]

@Richard_Littler

That sounds familiar!

Careers: what do you want to do?
Me: I want to be an SF novelist.
Careers: hmm, there's no path in for that. Have you considered becoming a pharmacist?

(Reader: I became a pharmacist. You do not want a pharmacist with undiagnosed AuDHD, and the pharmacist with undiagnosed AuDHD does not want to deal with two police stake-outs in one month. I went back to study computer science, which hadn't been available first time round ...)

[matt303@cyberplace.social]

@Richard_Littler

Me: I want to be an electronics engineer.
CA: Oh an engineer, like being a metalworker.

I honestly kid you not.

[bez_lightyear@crispsandwi.ch]

@Richard_Littler Careers officer to a room of us 3rd years: "You want to be an artist, an actor, a writer, a singer? Don't bother, there are already people much better than you will ever be."

[http_error_418@hachyderm.io]

@cstross @Richard_Littler they told me I should be a librarian, and this was when comp sci *was* already a thing (presumably because my answers to their quiz said I liked books)

Those things are so desperately inadequate I've had a repeated urge to go back to my old school and tell all the current kids not to be disheartened by it

[quinn@social.circl.lu]

@cstross @Richard_Littler I was told that I'd never be a writer by my guidance counselor, who suggested I get a low wage job that I could hold down and focus on staying out of prison.

She expected too much of me. Never was able to hold down that day job.

[tony@toot.hoyle.me.uk]

@Richard_Littler Mine was:

'I want to work with computers'
'We have openings in the library. That's more your level'.

[printdevil@dice.camp]

@Richard_Littler My school made us do a JigCal which was meant to be an occupational suitability work inventory, and they did it *after* you'd already selected your O-Levels so it was a complete waste of time and told me I should be a Historian.

[eschaton@mastodon.social]

@quinn @cstross @Richard_Littler All of this potential wasted at the alter of profit for the aristocracy. Federation communism now.

[anarchic_teapot@oc.todon.fr]

@Richard_Littler We didn't get work experience. I think we were expected to magically know about all professions without being exposed to them in any way, same as with sex.

I'd have loved to be able to reply "CPO on a nuclear submarine"

[darkling@mstdn.social]

@Richard_Littler I did two tests. The one from the school gave me a list of 19 options, all of which included the word "engineer".

The one from my dad (who was testing it out for his business) came up with a mere six suggestions, which included surgeon, concrete sculptor, landscape gardener, and scuba diving instructor.

[cstross@wandering.shop]

@eschaton @quinn @Richard_Littler I'm holding out for the Culture.

[allicorn@mastodon.social]

@Richard_Littler Mine suggested I become a weather forecaster. This, because my hyperfixation du jour (probably, a few weeks actually) was meteorological jargon.

Could just as easily have been any other field featuring memorizable tabular data that I'd decided I absolutely must put into my brain.

[bluetea@ioc.exchange]

@Richard_Littler I wanted to be a pilot. They suggested secretarial work and had me sit the public service exam.

[quinn@social.circl.lu]

@cstross @eschaton @Richard_Littler word.

Though I really don't want to end up in Use of Weapons thankyouverymuch

[gillinger@mas.to]

@Richard_Littler
I was assessed in my 3rd year at high school (1966). I was good at Geography, English and Art. I was hopeless at maths and the sciences. One look at my school reports would have shown that.
When asked what I wanted to be when I left school, for some unknown reason, I said Radiographer. So they put me in the science stream.
I never learned another thing for two years.

[colman@mastodon.ie]

@http_error_418 @cstross @Richard_Littler complete perplexity when I said I wanted to do a mathematics degree but had no interest in being a teacher.

In those days Maths in Trinity College Dublin was minimum points entry due to lack of demand: no one had invented “STEM” yet. If I didn’t get that I wasn’t getting anything else. They still insisted I fill out nine other options. Would I consider applying for actuarial training? <sigh>

Useless.

[markmason@mas.to]

@Richard_Littler I left school in 1979. I was asked what I wanted to do. ‘There’s nothing like that around here’ and I was sent, along with most of the boys, to take aptitude tests for apprenticeships at
3 different engineering works. I didn’t get in but as it turned out all 3 works closed down within a couple of years.

[eschaton@mastodon.social]

@cstross @quinn @Richard_Littler I don’t want to let the better be the enemy of the good.

[bazzargh@hachyderm.io]

@Richard_Littler Career advisor: think big, I know one family where generations of kids like you with unrealistic dreams of being astronauts or cowboys got their start as hereditary rulers of this kingdom at their dad the king's workplace