My learning and motivation was interrupted during Covid and my parents don’t understand. Deciding what to do when I leave school is really difficult. 

Disruptions during Covid

Even before the interruptions of Covid, it was common that senior school students and their parents didn’t necessarily agree with decisions when it is time for you to leave school. Let’s face it, it is enough for you to be navigating your social life with your parents, and trying to gain independence, let alone dealing with the stress of not agreeing on what happens when you leave school. It all comes down to the uncertainty of it all – both for you as a student not really knowing what it will be like to be an independent adult, and also for your parents who are wanting you to pave the way for a good future. So if you are clashing with your whanau over your career, know that this is common and quite normal, it’s nothing new!

With the added disruptions to your learning during Covid, there have been a number of impacts on you. For many students, grades haven’t been able to be as easily achieved due to the Covid impacts, so that in itself has meant that there may not be as many options in terms of programme entry requirements if you are intending to go on to teritary education. Your confidence may have taken a battering, especially if you were doing well at school before Covid hit and then you found that you haven’t been able to concentrate and do as well, partly due to the health and global concerns, as well as the educational disruptions and having to learn how to study from home. Do know that are not alone with this and employers and universities understand this and it will all work out in the end.

Teritary study

If you are not feeling like you are in the ballpark yet for tertiary study, then talk to your Career Adviser at school to work around some options. Perhaps you could take on an apprenticeship, or enter in to tertiary study through a certificate, which may not be necessarily through your preferred University. There are absolutely multiple options available to you, so the main priority is to try and keep optimistic and keep motivated to work out what is the best option for you for now. Whatever you decide is not going to have a major negative impact on your future, so it just may be an opportunity for you and your parents to look at things differently and know that career pathways are not linear and they take many twists and turns and that is ok too.

There are always options to employability

There are a number of options available to you in terms of your career progression and how this looks for studying and developing your career, so there are different pathways you can take. The first step is to really think about what you would like out of your career so that you can start to put some plans in place. If you can’t work it out, or you aren’t ready for further study and would like a break from it, then working for a while might be one option. Working can give you some time to work out what you really want to do in the longer term, can help you to put some money aside, and you can gain some important employability skills that will add value to your future career. Here are some top employability skills that employers look for, to name a few:

·  Customer service

·  Collaboration

·  Teamwork

·  Problem solving

·  Critical thinking

·  Leadership

So you can gain these skills prior to going on to tertiary education, it is not a problem when you get them, as long as at some stage you do. Having worked with university students for many years, I noticed that those who got to the end of their degree and found work more easily were those who already had a job history and employability skills. They were the ones who could take their work skills and add them on to their newly acquired qualification and career specialisation skills and knowledge and blend them into a great package that was really attractive to future employers.

Just say for example you had thought that fashion design was going to be your future pathway but you weren’t able to meet the entry requirements for the university degree progamme due to your school results and also portfolio requirements. You could give yourself a break, work and also study part time to gain some skills in fashion. You could at the same time study some design software online that will be helpful in the future. You may find some work that also relates to fashion, for example manual work in a cutting room on the production side of things, or working in fashion retail in sales and/or management. At the moment the economy and job market is not highly favourable for job seekers, so it might be that you will do some work that is unrelated to to your preferred career future, but regardless, you will still be gaining employability skills for the future, no matter what the job.

While you are trying to make a decision, and also listening to your parents concerns, might be a good time to get in touch so that you feel supported with what you do next. We would love to hear from you.