If you’re one of those high school students who already has a future career in mind, consider this: what’s the high school version of that career?
Maybe you want to be a teacher. You can’t apply to a school and start teaching math next week. But you could pick something you know a lot about and teach other people how to do it. Start a YouTube channel and show people how to sketch freehand. Propose a continuing education class to a local community college and teach people how to program. Volunteer with a local organization that teaches illiterate adults how to read. Teaching in a school classroom might be limited to those with the right credentials. But the high school version lets you start teaching today.
A future doctor can get certified as an emergency medical technician and spend the summer running IVs in an ambulance.
A future full-time programmer can learn, experiment with, and spend time programming in their spare time.
If you want to make a living as a writer tomorrow, what’s stopping you from writing for a blog today?
Actors who spend two years vying for spots in community theater productions, or performing with a local improv group, or producing plays for elementary school kids will be a lot further ahead in their professional quest than those who limited their participation to high school productions.
Want to be a sports agent someday? Pick a sport at your high school and ask the coach, “What do your athletes need?” Then make it your quest to help them get it. Help raise funds to buy new uniforms for the lacrosse team. Find guest coaches to run clinics for the softball team. Handle all the logistics for the cross country team’s summer stay in the mountains to train at altitude. Imagine how much you’d learn about selling, strategizing, and advocating. Sounds like a budding sports agent to me.
Politics, philanthropy, business, art, music, dance, entrepreneurship–I can’t think of a profession that you couldn’t take some small (or even some surprisingly large) first steps towards while you’re still in high school.
What’s the high school version of your future career?