Guiding Teen’s Self-Discovery as a College Advisor
“What would you like to do when you grow up?” This is a familiar question we have faced since childhood. We could come up with these fantastic answers when we were little, but as we go through high school and especially as we prepare for college applications, this question becomes increasingly relevant, if not urgent. And for most of us, it’s a tough one.
“They are still so young! Back when we were at their age, we didn’t know anything,” many parents would protest. “Isn’t college for exploration? Let them take more classes and they will find what they’re interested in.”
But would it be better if they figure out the direction that suits them and aligns with their interests and strengths earlier? Think about how much more intentional they can be in allocating their time and taking advantage of the available resources. Think about how much more confident and more prepared they can be to take on the challenges ahead.
More importantly, high schoolers today are flooded with choices that leave them feeling confused and overwhelmed. They are unsure whether their interests and hobbies are indeed their passions, and when it comes to potential college majors and career paths, they lack the knowledge and experience to know what each path means and how well they can do in these different paths. The fast-changing technologies and market dynamics make their choice even harder, given how difficult it is to predict how each career path will evolve.
Let’s also look at the external factors. Competition for name-brand universities has increased significantly because, while so many more domestic and international students are now vying for admission, the number of seats haven’t expanded very much over the last several decades. As a result, leading universities get to choose the more mature and prepared students. They not only ask students questions about their strengths and goals but also ask for demonstrated track records in students’ professed areas of interest. In any case, college tuition has reached such heights that the prospect of our children making unprepared explorations at college feels quite hard on both the wallet and the stomach.
Lastly, we’ve always encouraged our children to be themselves and to find their own paths, but self-discovery actually needs a bit of external input and support. We should provide that support, helping high schoolers figure out who they are, what makes up their distinctive strengths, where their deep interests lie, and what future directions would suit them. We should support our teens in building up self-confidence and conviction.
The question then becomes: is it even possible for us to achieve this goal, and if yes, how can we do that?
It is indeed possible, and this has become the foundation of my work. My experience has shown that students demonstrate their distinctive strengths as early as middle school, and high school is the period they can achieve transformative growth when they establish a strong sense of self, pursue activities that suit them, and challenge themselves to do hard things well. Most students should be ready to identify their future directions by the end of their junior year, although some students’ vision and roadmap may be very specific than others’. The timeframe is all the more reliable if students get to choose from, and to engage in, a wide variety of activities outside the classroom. Extracurricular experiences can effectively reveal students’ motivations, interests, personal qualities, interpersonal competences, and so on.
The process of self-discovery takes work. It requires a lot of input and a great deal of self-reflection, and it can be hard to get the time and patience necessary from students. That’s where college counseling comes in. As a college advisor, I get to spend hours and hours in deep conversations with my students. I ask them about the choices they’ve made and the underlying rationale. I ask them to share with me their memorable experiences, challenges they faced, and moments they’re most proud of. I observe how they communicate, analyze how they think, discern what they care about, dissect what motivates them, and much more.
Conversations with parents are another essential part of my work. Many parents who have chosen to work with me are accomplished professionals, scientists, entrepreneurs, and educators. They are observant and analytical and enjoy strong bonds with their children. Unfortunately, teenagers tend to resist having deep conversations with their parents, and it can be very challenging for parents to avoid projecting their needs and dreams onto their children. Thankfully, teens behave very differently with a credible, third-party advisor.
I’ve discovered a few additional tools and sources of input as I continue to hone my process over the years:
Writing, specifically writing of personal narratives. Students need to think harder when they write, and the words on the page provide tangible material for our discussions. It is no coincidence that colleges ask students to write about themselves, their experiences, and their interests.
Personal assessments. We’re all familiar with the Myers-Briggs framework, and there are online tests that students can conveniently access. CliftonStrengths is another helpful test that focuses on natural talents versus personalities. What is critical but often missing from the process is digesting the results with students so that they can truly embrace and act upon the new understanding of themselves. That’s why I tend to recommend these tests to my students only AFTER I have come to know them relatively well.
Ba Zi. This is rooted in ancient Chinese wisdom, and it’s a complex analytical system that only needs information on a person’s gender, location, date, and hour of birth. A guru can analyze one’s personality and natural talents. A guru may also be able to point to a suitable future career direction -- with less accuracy usually -- or opine its suitability. To be sure, I view Ba Zi only as an additional source of input. For the result of the Ba Zi analysis to be accepted, it must both make sense to me and resonate with the student. At the same time, the Ba Zi analysis has been remarkably valuable as it can often illuminate something unexpected or clarify a confusing picture.
By applying logic and intuition, we can form a multidimensional student profile from the multitude of data points. It feels like all the puzzle pieces are put into place. The clarity is enlightening and empowering because when students use their distinctive strengths in the direction that suits them, they get into a virtuous cycle of growth. With confidence in their strengths and conviction in their longer-term direction, they can also stay more centered and more positive in the face of ups and downs and make much better use of the resources and opportunities they will gain as they enter college.
What are your distinctive strengths? What would you like to do when you grow up? These are hard questions and we can and - I may argue - need to guide our children so that they would find the well-informed answers for themselves. Let us utilize the college application process to engage our teenage students in exploring these questions. The answers will help them build confidence and conviction and set them up for successful long-term growth.
