What To Do When Your Teenager Has No Idea What Career Path They Want
Last month, I leaned against the kitchen doorframe watching my 17-year-old daughter Mia pick at her cold mac and cheese, her Common App tab glowing blue on the laptop in front of her. The prompt at the top of the screen read “Intended Major & Career Goals.” I’d been biting my tongue for 20 minutes, but I couldn’t help it. “How’s it going?” I asked. She pushed her chair back so fast it scraped the linoleum, and said, “I don’t know. I don’t have a career path. Is that weird?”
I’ll admit, I panicked a little in that moment. I grew up hearing that you needed a plan by senior year, that wandering would leave you wasting time and money. My first impulse was to list out all the things she was good at, to nudge her toward something “safe” or “in demand.” I said the dumb thing that so many of us say: “Well, you love helping the little kids at the library, why not elementary education? You’re good at editing photos, why not graphic design?” She rolled my eyes, snapped her laptop shut, and retreated to her room, skipping dinner entirely. I’d managed to turn a question into a fight, and we didn’t talk about career plans for three days.
A few days later, I met my friend Jenna, a guidance counselor at Mia’s high school, for coffee at our usual downtown spot with the sticky maple tables. I vented about the whole situation, expecting her to tell me I was right to worry. Instead, she laughed and said she sees this exact scenario 9 out of 10 times she meets with seniors. Fewer than 15 out of 120 seniors she works with every year can actually name a clear career path they’re set on. The rest are either guessing, repeating what their parents told them to say, or shutting down entirely when the question comes up.
She gave me three small, concrete shifts that I could make instead of panicking, and none of them were generic fluff like “be supportive” or “give her space.” The first was to stop asking the big, scary question: “What do you want to do with your life?” That question feels like a test to a teenager, one where they have to have the perfect answer or they’re failing. Instead, she told me to ask small, specific questions about their daily routine: “When did you lose track of time this week?” or “What’s one thing you did this week that you didn’t have to do, that you actually enjoyed?”
The second shift was to push low-stakes tries, not 10-year commitments. If Mia is curious about something, she doesn’t have to declare a major tomorrow. She can try a half-day shadow, a one-week community class, or a one-month volunteer gig to see what it actually feels like. Even if she hates it, that’s useful information—she just crossed something off the list without spending thousands in tuition. Third, stop talking about “finding your passion.” Jenna said that phrase puts so much unnecessary pressure on kids. Most people don’t have one single, all-consuming passion. A lot of people like a few different things, switch careers multiple times, or have a job that pays the bills and a hobby they love for fun. That’s not failure, that’s normal.
I tried the first shift that weekend, on our drive to the grocery store. I didn’t bring up college or applications or majors. We just passed the high school, and I casually asked, “When did you lose track of time this week?” She turned down Taylor Swift halfway, thought for a minute, and said, “Huh. I spent three hours editing fall dance photos for the yearbook Wednesday night. I was fixing lighting on all the group shots, and when I looked up it was 9:30 and I missed our group dinner plans. That was fun, though. Also, when I helped that second grader at the library finish his Junie B Jones book last week, we sat for an hour and that didn’t feel like a chore at all.”
We looked up low-stakes options a few days later. The local community college runs a one-week teen summer photography workshop for $150, way cheaper than a college credit class. The town library lets high schoolers do a half-day shadow with the children’s librarian once a semester. She signed up for both. She did the shadow last week, and came home saying it was fine, but a lot of the day was filling out purchase orders and handling parent complaints, not just reading to kids. She liked the reading part, but doesn’t think she wants the whole job. That’s more information than she had a week ago, so that’s a win, even if it’s not a clear yes.
I still get that little twist of worry sometimes. I check tuition costs and think, what if she spends two years taking random classes and changes her mind? But what I’ve realized is that this indecision isn’t a flaw in Mia, or a sign we’ve failed as parents. It’s a normal response to a world that has way more options than it did when we were 17, and way more pressure to pick the “right” thing that won’t leave you in debt or unfulfilled. That’s a lot to ask of someone who still forgets to take the trash out half the time.
Mia still hasn’t filled out that intended major section on her Common App. She’s applying to three state schools that let you enter undecided, so she can test out different classes her first two years. Some nights I lie awake wondering if we’re doing the right thing. But the other night, she came downstairs for a soda after finishing homework, leaned against the counter, and said, “I don’t know what I’m gonna do yet, but it’s okay, right? I can figure it out as I go.” That’s more certainty than I had at her age, so for right now, that’s enough.
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