It happens to every youth – at some point in their school career someone will ask “so what do you want to be then ?”
I’m not so sure that it happens so much these days though, my eldest offspring is studying law at university and she’s not even sure, not even two years into the course, that she wants to actually do a job connected to the law stuff when she graduates.
It was all so different in the 1970s.
Sometime around 1970 we were introduced, as 14 year olds, to a man we had never seen before, a man who sat in a small cupboard that we had not noticed before, in a corridor where we were not usually allowed to roam, we were sent to him individually and told to knock on his door and wait for the “Careers Advisor” to invite us in.
It cause all sorts of consternation among the 30 boys in our form, for none of us had any idea of what it was that happened once you had left school, work was for your dad, school was what we did, the thought that in just two years time we were to be flung out of the gate and told never to darken her door again, and that we would then be expected to join a workforce somewhere and spend the next fifty years of our lives grafting, was simply unthinkable, the stuff of fairytales, it applied not to us, it would never happen.
So much so that none of us actually knew the name of a job.
Sure we knew what our fathers did, apart from Chris Smith, the only boy in the school not to have a father (see how times have changed), but we didn’t want to appear to be unambitious by simply reciting what our fathers did “I want to be a salesman” is not the stuff of legend to a Careers Advisor is it ?
It was Trevor Rowland who came up with a belter of a job, “I’m going to be a Marine Biologist” he stated proudly, he couldn’t swim at that point but still, it sounded fantastic.
“What does a Marine Biologist do ?” we all clamoured
“Its Jacques Cousteau” he replied, “he is a Marine Biologist”
“Nah” we all replied, “Jacques Cousteau is that bloke off the telly”
“Yes, but his proper job is a Marine Biologist” said Trevor Rowland confidently, “thats what I am going to be”
And we all said nothing, but secretly we were all thinking the same, that sounds ace we thought, thats what I want to be then.
So it was that on a day in February 1970 a Careers Advisor sat in a small cupboard in which there was only just enough room for two chairs and a shelf laden with his leaflets on careers, and a procession of 30 boys from Form 3S arrived at his door at ten minutes intervals, all of whom told him that they wanted to be Marine Biologists, the one profession that he did not have any leaflets for.
He gave us all a leaflet for the civil service and sent us on our way.
Only Dog Dirt Davidson followed his advice and eventually became a civil servant, but we could have told you that in the First Form.
Our career advisor was called a “guidance counselor”. The only thing I ever got from the guy in my 4 years of high school was a day pass to visit my eventual university.
They gave each senior two days to “scout” potential colleges. My girlfriend at the time was a freshman in college and I used the day pass for a nice visit–excused from school, to boot!
Our careers day consisted of a teacher asking us inturn if we were going to Oxford or Cambridge. Anyone mentioning a red brick uni. was looked on with disgust, then I said I was going to get a job…..
I’ve just remembered the careers advice that Jodie was given – must write it down now !