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The article is subjective and expresses the personal opinion of the author.
The issue of choosing a profession is important, and the cost of error is very high. But how not to make a mistake when there are only doubts in your head? Intense preparation for the exam and the race for high scores replaces the goal, the desire for success changes to prepare for the exam. But the main goal is not an exam at all, but the right first steps in his future career, in the conscious choice of the work of his whole life. And maybe not all - because sometimes people change their profession. Confucius correctly said: "Choose a job for your liking, and you will not have to work a single day in your life."
Recently, professional psychologists have increasingly replaced the word “career guidance” with the phrase “professional self-determination”. Career guidance is a preliminary selection of the trajectory, landmarks. Most often, psychological tests are meant, which help to understand your interests and tell you what type of personality you have. This is very useful to do, and you need to start not in high school, but much earlier.
In our country, the career guidance of students is still spontaneous, there is no state program to help children with the choice of profession
Professional self-determination is a fundamentally different approach, it is important to create the conditions for a person to carefully choose a profession for himself, going through a kind of chain of thoughts and specific actions. You can’t do with some tests here, because he must come to the main decision himself. At the exit, he must be absolutely sure that this is his business, his profession.
After testing, the child still does not say goodbye to all his doubts, then it is very important to organize the following stages of immersion in the topic of choosing a professional activity: to see it, as they say, from the inside, even try your hand at an internship.
In Japan, for example, each student, in addition to mandatory testing, consisting of 62 points, undergoes a mini-internship in 16 major professions. Moreover, practical classes are stretched for more than one year. This practice is called "professional testing." Agree that this method perfectly clarifies what the child has talent and interest in: business or medicine, for example.
I’ll tell you what forms of professional self-determination exist today.
1. Psychological testing
This is a proven and scientifically proven way of identifying professional interests and preferences using questionnaires. It is necessary at the very first stage of finding yourself. The test results are not needed for an urgent decision, it is usually a good place to think and move forward. I believe that it is with testing that preparation for the USE should begin, because the choice of subjects is directly related to specific departments of various universities in the country.
At Lancman School, we pay great attention to this and conduct vocational guidance testing for graduates absolutely free of charge, considering this work to be our social mission. We very much welcome and support those families and schools that understand the importance of the professional choice of children and organize similar tests for them.
2. Excursions to production and enterprises
This form of acquaintance with different professions is useful primarily for primary and secondary school students. It’s always interesting to see with your own eyes how something is produced. Adults accompanying such excursions are sometimes surprised no less than schoolchildren. If the tour is organized for production related to food or catering, then various tastings will be a pleasant bonus.
3. Workshops and internships
A pen test like this is an indispensable experience. Agree, it’s better to understand that the profession is not suitable for you even at school, at a master class or internship, than at the 1-4 year of the university, when you begin the real practice. Participation in master classes can be organized for students of any age, but internships are, of course, relevant for high school students.
What is the difference between internships? A master class is usually one practical lesson, and an internship involves immersion in the profession for several days. Unfortunately, in our country, the organization of internships for schoolchildren during the week, for example, is associated with great organizational problems. Unfortunately, no one is involved in supervising such events at the state level. But you can always try to negotiate directly with the management of enterprises and organizations and get practice on vacation.
4. Parks of professions
Parks of professions is a unique space where every child and adult can plunge into the world of different professions for a while. Finally, in Russia, they began to appear in large and medium-sized cities. Parks of professions (sometimes called cities of professions) is really a whole city that is filled with all kinds of professions and functions according to the laws of a real city, a small society. It has a theater, a TV studio, public transport, banks and shops, an airport and much more. The age of visitors is from 5 to 17 years. Anyone can try themselves in any of the proposed positions: not just learn about the profession from a lecture, but work in this position, try it on yourself.
Some parks have more than 100 professions: ambulance doctor, catwalk model, climber, news anchor, theater or television series actor, airplane pilot and even secret agent. A nice bonus: in the territory of such parks you can not only get into the shoes of a special agent, but also go through all kinds of tests, participate in master classes and have fun in local cafes. Parks of professions are a very fashionable and, of course, useful type of family leisure.
5. Gap year - an intermediate year between school and university
This method of determining your path is certainly not suitable for everyone. Not everyone will decide to take such a long break and not go to college immediately after school. Go work, for example. By the way, not all parents are ready to support such a decision. However, in some situations, it is the gap year that helps to understand what you want to do and what your vocation is. For a small number of schoolchildren, this particular intermediate year is salvation from emotional and physical burnout after passing the exam. This year is the answer to the questions: who I am and what I want to do.
It's great that the USE results are valid for four years, so you don’t have to retake anything in a year - you only need to provide your points obtained a year earlier. The attitude towards gap year in our country is clearly changing from condemnation to adoption. Fortunately, many began to realize that for some teens this is useful.
If you take professional self-determination seriously, you should remember that success in choosing a profession is based on three prerequisites:
1. Freedom of choice. Adults should not be crushed and imposed; they should be trusted and supported.
2. Conditions for reflection and practical methods based on errors and experience.
3. Understanding of the modern labor market. To know about new interesting professions, as well as to understand which professions may soon disappear, is also very important.
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