Hello.

I need help.

I am doing my gcse's, and until recently, i wanted to be an animal behaviorist. Now, i am leaning towards an english teache, although other careers are not dismissed at all.

Do any of you
a) have any experience with these two careers, if so- can you give me some info/tips?

b) know of a careers wevsite where i can take a "career test"?
Thankyou.

No?
Please- somebody reply. I need help on this subject, and i would love it if ONE of you could reply to this.

Thankyou for thoes who do.

Hi Saffy

I can't help on either of your choices, but if you go to
Here there is a short test you can take to give you some options.  Its a Scottish website, but it still might be helpful to you and there is more on it than just the test.

You could also try to find out if there is an equivalent of a Careers Scotland office near your home (I'm assuming that you're in England) as they should have computer programmes that you can run through for pointers on what might suit you.

If you are seriously thinking about going to Uni with the view to being an English teacher, you might like to think about one which will allow you to generalise in the arts for the first two years, picking subjects that interest you, and you would specialise in third and fourth years. (Again, this is the Scottish system, where honours degrees are 4 years duration). This would allow you to get a taste for other subjects before committing to a specialist subject.

Good luck, its a difficult time when you are trying to decide what to do with the rest of your life :)  But remember, whatever choices you make now don't have to sit with you for life!  If you make a wrong decision somewhere along the line, then you can always turn things around later.  Hope this has helped a little!

Lesley

Thankyou LF.

I went on the site, and i had about 50 different options at the end!

Im school- they had a realy good careers test on the actual school computers called kudos. I, for some reason, can not get on it at school anymore (i think the school has expired its trial), and i cannot find it on the internet.

I heard that teaching is hard, but i would love to stand there in the front of the class teaching the pupils about conan doyle and romeo and juliet.... but i dont know if it will be the right job.

Thanks for taking the time to reply, LF.

That's the trouble Saffy, so many options in life to choose from :)  There is a lot to be said for the benefits of a University education, and you may find that if you choose to go to Uni it will help to focus your mind on what you want to do afterwards. Moreover, although the subject matter of a degree may seem to bear no relation to career choice, studying for a degree will give you many transferrable skills which employers value.  That is not to say that it will give you "better" skills than someone who has not done a degree; rather, it will give you particular skills that are helpful in some careers.  You just need to take a look at the range of employers who attend University careers' events seeking to recruit graduates to see how valuable a degree can be.

University life can be very enjoyable, if you are suited to higher education, and you would find it very different to school.  Often people who found school limiting or frustrating blossom at University and start to enjoy the academic subjects that bored them to tears at school :)  I should know, I went to Uni at 29 years old, having refused to go at 18 on the grounds that everybody else said I ought to!  If I had known at 18 what I know now, I would have gone straight from school :)

Please don't get me wrong, I am not advocating that Uni is the only choice for you - it may be that at the end of the day you decide to go straight into work and that would be brilliant for you too.  But Uni is clearly an option you are considering and I just thought I would bore you with why I think its quite a good thing :D  Remember, the world is your oyster Saffy, and you can be anything you want to be ;)

Lesley

Bear in mind you can always do both! I suspect that as long as you take a good range of GCSEs you will have the right entry requirements for each subject - presumably you don't have to make a big decision until you do your degree? After speaking to your careers office (which I've never found particularly helpful) why don't you contact a local behaviorist and ask if you can shadow him/her for a day - and the same perhaps with a teacher.

I think it's probably quite rare these days to remain in one career for your entire life. I've already had two and I'm currently planning number 3. :D So don't stress out too much!

Good luck

Jo

Is there a work experience programe at school, Saffy? Gothboy is going to an insurance company in spring for a week to learn about financial/clerical work which is the nearest thing they have to his preferred option of IT. Some jobs sound appalling on paper and are actually very interesting in practice - like housing management, sounds dry but every day is different, out on site much of the time, meeting all kinds of people and having a screamingly funny time. Like when I called to see why the builders refused to work on a property and found the occupier had turned his entire back garden into a fish pond with lights, pumps, massive Koi the lot....

Saffy
Have you thought about doing a degree which will help you with the animal side of things and following it with a PGCE, this way you would still have QTS at the end.  Whilst doing your initial degree you could be sure that you are making the right decision for you.  I believe that you can do a PGCE after completing any other first degree.
Steph

Yes you can. I am doing a Primary PGCE after doing a Media and Communications degree...but some uni's would prefer an english degree to specialise in English PGCE. It is also really intensive to do a PGCE...I am just keeping my head above water. The workload is massive compared to my degree, because the cousre has to tell you everything you need to know about teaching, and give you the practical experience, all in just 11 months! If you do a B.Ed instead, it only qualifies you to teach, but it is much more spread out. You are gradually introduced to different aspects of teaching, instead of being thrown in at the deep end. :)