Commentary: O-Level results and the problem with expecting youth to figure out their life based on an exam
SINGAPORE: What do you want to be when you lot abound up?
It'south a loaded question we're bombarded with from immature. As soon every bit we understand the concept of a career, we are asked to pick i — just one — for supposedly the rest of our lives.
But what starts out as a fun mental do when we're young becomes more than existential as we get older.
On Monday (Jan 11) after the O-Level results are released, 16-twelvemonth-olds will revisit the question in their minds, every bit they make up one's mind whether to head down the junior higher (JC) or polytechnic route.
READ: Commentary: Junior higher or polytechnic after O-Levels – does it thing?
READ: Commentary: How to sabotage your child'south future – five dangerous notions most life, careers and education
Aside from understanding their preferred learning style, whether information technology's an academically inclined JC surroundings or a hands-on arroyo in a polytechnic, they're told this decision largely depends on the work they want to do in the time to come.
Equally 16-year-olds go, some will have a rough thought of their bones interests, skills and talents. Even fewer will know exactly what lights the burn in their abdomen.
They see with absolute certainty the career trajectory they wish to take over the adjacent 10 years and the academic qualifications needed to go at that place.
Many, even so, will fumble in quiet. They may non know what they want to exist when they abound up, even after attending several JC and polytechnic open houses.
They may end up picking a course or a school because their peers do so or because their parents expect them to. They may resign themselves to the path of least resistance to placate their families.
And more than unfortunately, they may feel shame for existence lost or less certain well-nigh their future than their high-achieving peers.
YOUNG AGE, High PRESSURE
Unlike at PSLE where grades seem to be the main deciding factor for the next step in teaching, the narrative around O-Level results no longer hinges on scoring practiced grades. Getting an excellent O-Level score isn't plenty — knowing what to exercise with it matters more.
Just pressure by whatsoever other proper name is simply every bit stressful.
Schools, teachers and counsellors — an unabridged ecosystem exists to be helpful to a immature teenager in figuring out what might suit them.
Years earlier they fifty-fifty sit down for the O-Level examinations, youth are already exposed to instruction and career guidance in secondary schools, such every bit having JCs and polytechnics invited to share their offerings and attending career talks conducted by alumni.
This noesis is invaluable and even amend if a friendly career guidance counsellor is on paw to help y'all uncover your true calling. The aim is donating — to match skills and talents and so that coin and fourth dimension can exist well-spent.
In the all-time of circumstances, it tin can besides fuel ambition and drive, when nosotros know conspicuously the path we want to take. Take the recent news most the 19-twelvemonth-erstwhile polytechnic student running a US$25 meg tech offset-up.
Yet, this heavy, single-minded expectation to figure life out at that pivotal bespeak implies our pick is somewhat cast in stone forever.
It also encourages an intrinsic human relationship between career and our identity, where we're expected to dedicate our lives to finding a singular professional purpose if nosotros oasis't decided on a career that will decide our passions and pursuits.
In reality, our choice at this bespeak in life is non a done bargain, fifty-fifty if information technology feels like our entire life rests on this one conclusion.
ADULTS STILL DON'T Accept It FIGURED OUT
Equally a teenager on the precipice of making a conclusion after my O-Level results, I distinctly remember thinking, "I can't wait to be an adult and so I can experience sure nigh my life choices."
The joke was on me.
Some adults remain miserable, because they're stuck on a career trajectory they're too afraid to change, or they're constantly affected by a sense of wishing they could do something else.
Of course, many others lead happy and meaningful lives regardless of their jobs, because they've learnt to make the best out of what they accept, fifty-fifty if they're unsure near their calling.
A famous quote by English actor and author, Stephen Fry, comes to listen:
Oscar Wilde said that if you lot know what you want to exist, then you inevitably become it — that is your punishment.
Merely if yous never know, then y'all can exist annihilation. We are not nouns, we are verbs. I am not a thing — an thespian, a writer. I am a person who does things — I write, I act — and I never know what I am going to do next.
I think yous can be imprisoned if you remember of yourself as a noun.
It reminds me of my friends who've strayed from the paths supposedly dictated by their decisions they made at sixteen.
A friend, who was the valedictorian for his mass communication course in polytechnic, went on to exercise law in university. He completely abandoned the media industry despite having done well in his diploma.
Another friend got into the science stream in a JC, studied geography in university and graduated with honours, and became a content strategist in a media agency.
Even among more well-known Singaporeans, switching careers is non unheard of. Chef Willin Low and fashion designer Ong Shunmugam, for instance, studied law once upon a time.
READ: Commentary: How I picked upward the pieces after failing my A-Level exams
READ: Commentary: PSLE scores and the problem with the beloved belatedly bloomer narrative
It's increasingly mutual for adults to change careers and to land upwardly in vastly dissimilar paths than the one they imagined for themselves when they were 16.
That'due south even encouraged today in a world of disruption. They phone call this "career mobility".
READ: Commentary: Career Mobility is the new Career Stability
Non THE DESTINATION, BUT THE JOURNEY
Not being fixated on a clear path after your O-Level results has its underrated benefits.
For one, not being chained to a projected career path that you chose at a young age, or that your parents and peers expected y'all to pursue, leaves you open to explore varied interests. From business organization to biology, art to compages, this inadvertently cultivates a great sense of curiosity.
It also teaches you how to neglect or how to accept failure, when some interests inevitably don't pan out or when you realise some personal passions make poor careers.
Having curiosity and resourcefulness, the ability to conditions uncertainty, and the ability to find pregnant and happiness that's independent of professional success, is far more valuable than simply being sure about what you want to be as a teenager.
So maybe, rather than expect 16-year-olds to have the side by side 10 to 20, or even five years of their lives figured out, nosotros should normalise feeling clueless virtually what they want to do. Certainly never berate or belittle these feelings, but encourage them to use such sentiments to effigy out what'south next.
It'south wonderful if you know what yous want to do from a young age. Only few of us are Tiger Woods.
For those who haven't got a clue, hither's a secret I've uncovered since becoming a working adult: Many of us, even the conventionally successful ones, are often winging information technology. We've taken many varied paths; some delightful, others dreary.
Some of us still wish we could practice something dissimilar — merely despite or because of how life hasn't worked out the way we planned, it's all the more than interesting and meaningful.
And strangely, to end upwards with such a life beats whatsoever reply we could've given when we were asked what nosotros wanted to be when we grew up.
Grace Yeoh is a senior announcer at CNA Insider.
Listen to three working adults reveal how their PSLE results shaped their life journeys in a no-holds-barred conversation on CNA's Centre of the Matter podcast:
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Source: https://cnalifestyle.channelnewsasia.com/commentary/commentary-o-level-results-and-problem-expecting-youth-figure-out-their-life-based-exam-278731
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