How can you help your youth with career planning?
- Encourage discussion by actively listening to your youth about their career interests. Carefully consider their point of view and help them find answers to their questions.
- Set up a job shadow or interview with a person in the career field your teen is interested in. Help prepare appropriate questions.
- Ask your youth to investigate important details about a career, like the skills and knowledge required, the working conditions and rates of pay and the demand for workers in that field.
- Find more career planning tools on our resources for students and youth page.
- See Career Coaching your Teens.
Planning for high school
By encouraging your teen to explore and define their interests, you'll be starting them on the career discovery path to help them make decisions about their upcoming high school courses. Informed and intentional decisions made by your teen in Grades 9 and 10 can save them years of additional study and extra costs.
You can help your teen by letting him or her know about specialized high school opportunities and, in some cases, actively working with your teen to locate the resources that he or she needs.
Evolving post-secondary options
As a parent, you know graduating from high school is just the beginning of your teen's path to a successful career. Post-secondary study in their chosen field is a necessity in today's job market.
High school and post-secondary have changed in the past decade and the lines between a polytechnic and a university education are becoming increasingly open. Many parents and students will begin by researching degree programs at universities. However, your child's chosen career path may be better suited to an applied degree, journey ticket, diploma or certificate instead. Additionally, transfer agreements between post-secondary institutions offer students the opportunity to begin their studies with a certificate or diploma, then move on to complete a degree if they so choose.
SAIT offers many different accreditation options — including Bachelor degrees — that may open up new career possibilities for your teen. We encourage you to explore our programs and courses to learn more.
Explore further
The below resources may be helpful to you while helping your teen explore different career paths and learn more about SAIT.
Additional information for parents and supporters