What kind of job is that?!

"You know, we are going to have to start working soon," Joshua said. "I won't see you, once I'm working with my father."

"Joshua, look around you, do you see any trees?"

"No."

"And the trees we do have, olive trees - twisted, gnarly, knotted things, right?"

"Right."

"But you're going to be a carpenter like your father?"

"There's a chance of it."

"One word, Josh: rocks."

"Rocks?"

"Look around. Rocks as far as the eye can see. Galilee is nothing but rocks, dirt, and more rocks. Be a stonemason like me and my father. We can build cities for the Romans."

"Actually, I was thinking about saving mankind."

"Forget that nonsense, Josh. Rocks, I tell you."

 (from Lamb by Christopher Moore)

When I was a teenager I announced to my family that I wanted to be a zoologist.  (I actually wanted to me Jaques Cousteau albeit without the Frenchness).They were dismayed. In their mind that meant I was going to spend my life in a zoo, shoveling elephant poop. My grandfather's suggestion was to either (a) put up telegraph poles or (b) be a gravedigger. Two careers he saw as being growth areas where there was"good money in that" to quote him. Luckily I never listened to his advice otherwise I'd be an unemployed telegraph pole erector in the days of mobile phones and shrinking landlines.

My sister was told that there was no point in her looking at A levels (= AP classes for US readers) or university because girls "get married and have babies" - and that was from her high school teachers! Our home town growing up was a little like a West Virginian coal mining town in many way - one big, dirty industry that everyone worked in, surrounded by rural redneck territory, which might explain some of e careers advice.

I was the first in my family, ever as far as I know, to go to university - it was something "our sorts don't do" again to quote my grandfather, and broke the glass ceiling for my siblings and cousins (all of whom went to college/university at least for some time). 

Luckily, in some respects, my family were as poor as church mice and I got scholarships and all my tuition paid for, so I could choose whatever course or university I wanted - but then again they were supportive of whatever I wanted to do - just happy for me to leave the town/villages our family had lived in since the doomsday book (written in he year 1086 for those not of a historical bent).

So why am I telling you this?

In my job I have to go to a lot of admission events, I'm effectively a recruiter for our undergraduate program. I get to see a lot of eager young students, and not so eager students I have to add, usually accompanied by their parents. A few weeks ago I was at such an event and was in a good mood because we were getting a lot of interest in our program, and the kids were generally enthusiastic and seemed bright. I had one student that I had a great conversation with about sharks, she really wanted to do marine biology, but then her mother dragged her away saying "come away from there, you're going to medical school." this depressed me in so many ways. Now the student may have the smarts to get the grades to get into medical school, but then that's your life, you will have nothing else. Our so-called "pre-med" students who complain about how tough their current classes are, and how little free time they have now, have no idea how their life is going to be a never-ending series of exams, lectures, practicals, followed by long hours and sleepless nights of hospital residency, if they do get into medical school. A schedule that will make their undergraduate days look like virtually nothing, a huge vacation with a couple of classes thrown in. It's not a step to be taken lightly. Your heart not only has to be "in it", but also your liver, lungs and spleen as well. I often hear parents say "I'm paying the tuition, so you're going to study what I tell you". To see a parent basically force a student into going into medical school when they don't want to, in my mind it's no different to a 17th century parent selling their child into indentured servitude. On the positive side though, I see a lot of mature students who come back to university - their family having forced them to try for medical school, or go into business or accounting - but now they have the independence to do what they want at last.

Last week I was at a prize giving event with one of my mature students. There is only a couple of years difference between us in age. He had gone into retail at his family's urging, but he had just finished his BS in conservation and we were at the event because he had won a prize for the best research project. Now he's going on to do graduate school, and study marine biology. It was a bittersweet moment -  he had spent decades doing a career that essentially bored him and left him unfulfilled, but now he finally got to do what he really wanted. But I guess I'm a sucker for a happy ending...