Hi there,

It can feel like there’s lots of pressure to make big decisions about your future while you’re still young. Pressure from parents and pressure you put on yourself can make you feel very stressed.

There are some decisions you could make now that could help with your future career. But most of the time you’ll still be able to change your mind later - which a lot of people do.

You have a right to decide what you want to do with your life, no matter what your parents want. It's usually a good idea to think about why your parents might want you to get a certain job.

Parents usually want their children to be successful and happy and this could be why they’re trying to encourage you to go in a certain direction. This can be harder when you have different ideas about what it means for you to be successful and happy.

As with many problems, such as family problems, talking about it is usually the best thing to do. The more you talk about it, the better you can understand each other and hopefully get on the same page.

It can be useful to try and gain experience from the lessons your parents have learned. They might have made choices when they were younger which didn't work out the way they hoped. It's also important for them to listen to you and to hear what makes you happy and what you want for your life.

Whatever happens, there’s still a lot of time to make up your mind. Even after finishing your education there’s a lot of room to change your mind and try something new.

The main choices you'll have to make are about what you study. It's a good idea to study subjects that leave lots of options open to you, so you have the best chance at a career later in an area you enjoy. Even these decisions aren't final though as you can always go back to education later in life if you wanted to or find your way into the right career a different way, such as through an apprenticeship.

I would recommend doing some research about environmental geology by looking at the National Careers Service website. This can help you be assertive and explain to your parents why you want this career and show you understand the reality of what the career may look like for you.

It can be a good idea to be a little open minded about what other jobs you could do too, as if you get too specific then it can sometimes be harder to get into that particular job. Try thinking about what aspects of environmental geology you like and see if there are other jobs that let you do similar things too.

If you’d like to talk about this more, you can always speak to a Childline counsellor. 

I hope this has helped, thanks for writing to me.

Take care.

Sam