Proposal- Decision making for young people

When you’re younger nearly all your decisions are made by someone else, usually parents/carers: Where you live, what school to go to, even who you are friends with. It wasn’t until the age of 15/16, at the end of secondary school, when I had to start making decisions of my own and most likely is the same for the majority of people. These choices are very stressful, being that they can be the most important of someone’s life. Also at this time, there are added pressures such as hormones, getting boyfriends/girlfriends, being stressed with exams.

Certain organisations exist to give advice and direction, and most likely parents/carers will be ready to give their verdicts. However, these voices do not always agree with a young person’s intentions, and if they don’t know what to do, the services are often unhelpful. Maybe I’ve just had a bad experience but I seem to believe the majority of these advice centres are fairly stuck in their ways, and are almost just as helpful as a tape on repeat. Consistently suggesting to me that studying at sixth form and continuing to university in the best route, regardless of what outcome it would deliver. I was instructed to avoid studying a National Diploma for it narrowed my options. Many friends were told to attend a sixth-form and study core subjects because they were uncertain of their career path. While this advice usually helps to get jobs in the long-run I think people should be given a better direction.

There are handy guides for finding which careers can be attained from studying what subjects. These I felt were a lot more useful in decision making so I might incorporate into my designing. I am aiming to deliver a personal journey involving my experience of making decisions, which I would love to give my younger self to ease the stress of an already difficult time. I intend to design a guide to help those at the stage of finishing full time education and being confronted with very important decisions. I hope for my own experience, and the realistic background that I’ve come from to be valuable for my selected audience. The guide could consist of various printed materials as well as a website for stories and links of others experiences.

I am extremely pleased with the decisions I’ve made, and certain risks I took definitely paid off. I now do something which I love and feel passionate about, which when I started my journey of graphic design at the age of 15, I was very optimistic about.

In order to create the guide I plan to gather other people’s stories of how they ended up in whichever path, and if they felt decisions they made were the right ones. I will also look into schemes set up by organisations such as Aim higher, Connections and UCAS.

I’m reaching the point in my life where I will again face with endless opportunities, and a guide like this from my future self would be most appreciated.