Career guidance for secondary school students in Nigeria

Career guidance and choice for secondary school students in Nigeria

As a teenager, life feels easy as the few things you have to worry about includes; getting good grades, house chores etc. Your worries are quite limited as opposed to your parents who daily think of how the next school fees is going to be paid or the house rent or NEPA bill.

However, as time roll into days, days into months and months into years, the worries of your parents officially gets bestowed on you (isn’t life just exhausting! Lol) however, these huge needs are nothing a phenomenal job with great pay can’t fix at the snap of the finger.

Notwithstanding, as great as a “phenomenal job” sounds, it is only fantastical as long as it is not clearly defined. It is cool to want to be rich and wealthy. But, wealth is often linked to a fantastic career or entrepreneurial success (except if you want to be a yahoo boy.

But, wealth gathered through this means is ephemeral; it won’t last long). As a secondary school student, you are in the perfect place to start building your career.

Although you fear the fact that your graduation ceremony is almost upon you and this means you join the train of millions of Nigerian teens seeking admission into this school or that.

But, yikes! You are quite indecisive as regards the career path you should follow. Don’t worry, stick with me till the end as I demystify this whole “career madness” and help you attain clarity as to what career is best for you and how to get into that career industry.

Career guidance and choice for secondary school students in Nigeria

Gather Knowledge:

Reading is necessary and also essential for those (you) who seek to rise above the ordinary. – Jim Rohn

Thank you for saying that Jim, you are absolutely correct. Reading is one of the crucial aspects of success. This exposes you to a lot of information that would be useful to you in certain areas of your life. The quickest way to gather knowledge is by reading. It is noteworthy that books aren’t the only things that can be read.

Metaphorically, you can read people. If you can read people, you can read yourself. The truth is the key to discovering which career path is right for you, is to know yourself. As much as you read wide and try to get familiar with careers in the art, science or commercial departments, you should also know yourself and understand your interests.

Ask yourself questions like:

• what comes easy to you?
• What do you enjoy doing?
• Which subjects unleashes depression on you and which ones ignite a fire of passion within you?

Understand yourself:

Understanding yourself would be the judge of which field interests you and is right for you. While you gather information about courses and a variety of industries, do well to measure them by how much interest and passion they stir within you.

It always begins with you. A handful of motivational speakers have endlessly emphasized the fact that you spend most of your life working.

Don’t get stuck in a career path that would make you live life in misery. Spend quality time practicing self-awareness. This will help you figure out what interests you. Then, seek and devour information on how this interest of yours can be monetized.

Which career path do you need to chase to express this interest/Find out who the pacesetters in that field are?

More so, do well to treat yourself to a delicious delicacy of the biographies of these legends. Learn what their struggles are, how they got in the field, what path did they follow? Also, figure out what skills you need to acquire to cement your success in the field.

The beginning is knowledge; know where you are, who you are, what you need, where you are headed and most importantly, how to bridge the gap between where you are and where you want to get to.

Build focused and healthy career goals and chase them.

After discovering the field that suites you and also educated yourself as to how the field works, take action. You want to be like Adesua Etomi? Join the drama group in church. Clearly, pursue a course in theatre arts. Nowadays, there are online courses that you can take to help you hone your skills so take them.

You do not have to wait for Unilag, Uniben or OAU to give you admission before you get in the field. Join drama clubs etc. if you want to pursue an engineering course, you can start learning topics that, go for it. Start learning topics that are useful in your course.

Look out for conferences in the engineering field to attend so you can keep up with the trends in the field. Network/ meet people at such event. You would meet like minds at such events and you cannot afford to form “introvert”. Instead, communicate, rub minds, ask the invited personalities for internship opportunities at their firm etc.

Thanks to event brite and fomo Lagos, you can find events related to your field that you can attend. You just need to stay woke. Join associations related to your field and participate in the activities.

This is part of how you build your career. Understand the peak for career success in your field and do what you can to reach the topmost height. Thus, it doesn’t stop at just knowing the skills you need to succeed, you also have to learn them and use them.

Know the degrees you need to earn in your selected field and go for it:

For future accountants, you need exams like ICAN etc. hence, while in secondary school, understand the nature of these exams. What subjects do you need to be good at to have outstanding results? More so, before you graduate from school to battle WAEC, UME and Post UME etc.,

understand the subject combination that is necessary for your field:

This is vital because you wouldn’t need to change your course to something you do not want because your subject combination is wrong.

Once you know the field you want to pursue a career in, it would be easy to set clear career goals. You would know the right moves to take and would take action without doubt. In doing so, you would end up building a solid career for yourself.

Remember, it starts with you first! Mastering what captures your interest. This builds the foundation. Once you figure it out, getting information as to the field wouldn’t be a problem. Understand the field, the strengths, weaknesses, trends, the value this field adds to the world at large, the legends in the field and their impact.

Most importantly, understand where you fit into the field. Seek out the necessary skills you need and learn them. Do not forget the internships too! This would widen your knowledge on how things play out in the field. It is like watching the field live in 3D.