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Is “Find your passion” really a good way to choose a course?
It’s advice that is as old as the sun: “Find your passion, and you’ll never do another day’s work in your life”.
Or when you are heading off to university “Choose a course that you are passionate about”.
But, most careers advisers nowadays would say that such advice is deeply unhelpful. It creates the expectation that every young person should have found their passion. And since most of you simply haven’t found your passion while still at school, it just creates unnecessary pressure on you. Which in turn just makes you freeze; unsure of how to progress and how to choose what to do next.
However, perhaps there is something to be said for working out ways to explore your potential passions; how to find challenges, industries, and roles that might feel more like you are making a difference, and less like you are doing a job.
So how can you go about exploring what yours might be?
Applying through a Student Recruitment Agent
Last week we looked at how you might go about choosing an Independent Education Counsellor. This week, we look at recruitment agents. Sometimes it might not be obvious to you, as an applicant, who are independent counsellors, and who are agents. Sometimes you might find the same company is offering, in effect, the two models together. But we need to be clear, the business models are quite different, and this matters.
How to choose an Independent Education Counsellor
Last week, we looked at how best to work with your school’s university counsellor. Many of you will have one at your school or college, so if you do, please have a look at last week’s article.
Many of you, however, won’t have access to expert advice and support in your school or college. This will mainly apply to those currently at schools outside of the UK, but even some of you in the UK might feel that the support you are receiving is not quite enough for you.
If this is you, then read on.
How to work best with your university counsellor
Depending on where you are in your journey, you may or may not yet have worked out that UK Higher Education is complicated. And if you haven’t already, you are soon going to find out that the same is true of the application system. So naturally, you’ll want to find someone to help you navigate it, right?
Your first port of call should be your school or college…