The Learning Success Blog

Many senior secondary students around Australia are under considerable duress at this time of year. The Trials for the HSC, VCE and other State based credentials are over and students have received their results. 

It is often the case that results are not as good as the students hope.   

As a result, they sometimes feel dejected.  It can be difficult to get motivated in these circumstances, but they have little or no choice.  There is nothing they can do to change the past. 

Pressures ......

There are other pressures.  Schools, parents, peers, siblings, the media all bang on endlessly about “what course (and that invariably means what university course) are you going to do after you finish school?” 

The 1^st June tells me that not only is it the first day of winter, but that the year is flying by.  I avoid the temptation to look back at the things I haven’t done – and wish I had.  Or to dwell too much on the things I could have done better – if only there had been more .... time, perhaps?  Instead, I choose to look forward – and I want to encourage you to do the same thing.

Looking forward

Its a clichéd phrase I know, but apart from death and taxes there are no certainties in this life. If you’re a Year 10 student or a senior secondary student, you’re unlikely to be thinking too much about either of these, but almost certainly, the prospect of what you are going to do with your life after leaving school is likely to have already dawned. 

Looking forward, perhaps you can see the many opportunities that stretch out before you.  Perhaps you ask yourself the question:  What do I need to do to keep these opportunities open?  To ensure that I have choice? 

The opportunity to undertake Work Experience as part of the normal course of events in Year 10, is positive for students for many reasons. But I shall limit my discussion to two important ones, particularly for students in Year 10. 

First of all, school based Work Experience should always, in my opinion, provide an opportunity for a young person to test a career area of genuine, possible career interest to them. 

It is not about doing just anything for the sake of filling in a week.  Nor is it, if the young person has a part time job already, doing more of the same.  Neither is about working in a family business.  They can get that experience any time.  It is, as I have indicated above, about testing a career area of genuine, future career interest.

Do you have a son or daughter in Year 10 this year? 

These days, most students will choose to remain at school and complete Year 12, regardless of whether they have university or TAFE aspirations, are interested in apprenticeships or traineeships, or have other after school hopes. 

Think about the next 8 to 10 years

The post school options available to young people today are wider and more diverse than ever.  At the same time, competition for opportunities is also significant. 

The 2017 New South Wales Higher School Certificate (HSC) results were released on 14th December.  For those who wish to attend a university in 2018 – or perhaps 2019 if they take a gap year – the ATARs  (Australian Tertiary Admission Ranks) were released the following day. 

For many, their efforts and high hopes will have been rewarded.  For others, feelings approaching despair in some cases! More than once I have answered knocks at my office door, fielded phone calls, text messages or e-mails saying something along these lines: “I didn’t get the ATAR I need to get into my course.  My life might just as well be over!”

In recent years, there has been an obsession on the part of many in schools, in government and in the media to push young people off to university. Doing this is self serving, rather than serving the interests of the many who would be better, and more happily placed doing other things.  More practical things.  Like an apprenticeship.

University? Or a trade?

The trend to push and to value the university option ahead of apprenticeships and trades careers is to be greatly lamented.  In circumstances where this occurs, many young people with interests, skills and a passion for something more “hands-on”, are often made to feel their choices are second best; that apprenticeships leading to careers in the trades are what you fall back on if you don’t get in to university. 

Emphatically, they are not second best!

This year, some 70,000 New South Wales Year 12 students sat for the Higher School Certificate.  Many of these students will have university aspirations and of those who do apply, most will receive an offer.  The offer may not be to their highest preference, although Universities Admissions Centre (UAC) statistics indicate that 70% of those who apply will receive an offer to one of their top three preferences.

Understanding the options

Young people need to understand however, that, depending on what they want to do, university is just one way to achieve their career goal.