Study by vocation or by job opportunity?

There was a simpler time when it was not so difficult to choose a career orientation. If your father had a workshop, you learned the trade and ended up inheriting it, if you were lucky enough to be able to access higher education, you joined a market not collapsed, and if all else failed, there was always the possibility of accessing certain public or private positions, perhaps less glamorous but just as worthy.

However, at a time when there are so many obstacles to fulfilling the dreaded role of freelancer and with fierce competition In the job market, there are more and more prepared graduates who on many occasions have to seek luck beyond the Pyrenees. Choosing a career path is an increasingly dramatic decision. And when it's time to decide... ¿it is better to choose to study what we like, or what has more chances of giving us work well paid? It is not an easy question to answer, but a good part of our life is involved in it.

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Choosing studies by vocation or job opportunity?

Today aptitude tests are done, academic performance is valued according to success in different subjects, sports, artistic abilities... to, in general, end up giving the as accurate as generic advice: do what you like it

Yes, it is important to work on what we like, not only because we will do it happier and spend more time happily (which is no small feat) but because a high motivation for the task to be carried out predicts a greater probability of success, by predisposing us to learn about it, overcoming failures, etc In other words, we are good at what we like. But beyond the child who asks kings for a stethoscope at 5 years old... Do our students know what they like?

The question is not trivial, since, if I like, let's say, psychology, I will need to have a bachelor's degree in health sciences, and to accessing it will be convenient to have completed the electives related to it in 4th of ESO, when you fill out the registration at the end of 3rd... So that, yes i want to be a psychologistI'd better discover it before I'm 15 or be lucky enough to have done science because, according to my counselor, "it opens more doors for you."

Uncertainty when deciding profession

However,how is such an inexperienced person going to choose a profession, among all that there is, with the information that you can have? Normally, we tend to look at the subjects in which the kids stand out. If we are lucky that they are evenly distributed corresponding to one of the three or four high schools, we jot down our first clue.

Here we run into a certain logical problem. On the one hand, it is a simplistic view to associate jobs with their corresponding baccalaureates. In the case of psychology, science major, what is more important that you like it? Mitosis and integrals, or contact with people? Which skill is more important, mental arithmetic or empathy? What does a future journalist, a humanities major, have to like more? Kant and etymology, or actuality and narrative?

Do not get us wrong: all competition is welcome and knowledge always adds up (although it does take up space, according to the psychology of memory), but we may fall into a fallacy if we intend to corset professional opportunities to primary school subjects.

Perhaps the most advisable thing would be to create an environment that facilitated more skills than academics. That it wasn't all "behaving well" and passing exams (which, I insist, is just as important). That motivations for those competencies such as creativity, social skills, humor, initiative, effort... be attended to, not to enter into the eternal debate of those subjects so unworthily undervalued in the curriculum, such as artistic education, music, education physical…

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The key is to detect sources of motivation

Each professional opportunity usually has very specific skills and abilities, which is why it can be a mistake to stop attending to the student's motivation for certain elements that can later be surprisingly crucial. It is vital that a student be able to identify those skills that motivate you, since a high motivation for the task to be carried out is a predictor of success and well-being.

Therefore, it is the responsibility of educators to establish an environment that facilitates the deployment of the different skills that the student can develop, and While schools and other formal learning environments adapt to these new times, parents, monitors and psychologists have the honor of complementing the job. An environment based on passive education will hardly be suitable for students to develop areas of interest, and therefore a good part of their potential will be lost.

And it is that, although at an early age we do not have to know how to choose effectively how we want to direct our lives, we do It is a key vital stage to autonomously develop areas of experimentation, curiosity and interests personal that will later become talents.