Hi my name is Caitlin,

I am 15. I am getting to the stage where I have to start making big life choices such as subjects.
It would be fair to say that I am gifted so the door is open to just about everything except sports.
I want to be a stand up comedian and I really don’t know what to do.

Any advice from older kids would be greatly appreciated

Hello cait1205...

Welcome to the forums..

Making life decisions can be both fun and hard at the same time..

I know it’s your choice, it’s your life...and you need to do what you feel is right for you..for now and in the future...There are so many options available for different types of careers...sometimes it helps to check out what your passionate about...as well as the others careers that you might be interested in..

I’m wondering if you’ve sat down with a careers advisor at your school and had a talk about your options in regards to the best career that you could be suited for...and also talk about stand up comedy...They are trained to help young adults to understand about different career/jobs that are in demand...and the subjects you need to select to do them...

I think that if you have a passion for something, then go for it....maybe you could do stand up comedy on weekends, children’s parties etc.. While you still study for something else you like....

Its always handy to have a couple of jobs/careers that you’ve studied for..just in case work becomes scarce..

I thought I better let you know, that I’m a grandma...but I felt the need to reply you ...

Kind thoughts and care..

Grandy..

Thank you.
That gave me a little bit of hope that I actually can end up where I want to be unlike most adults seem to tell us.

Hi Cait1205,

I'm really glad that you decided to make this post. Alot of people feel the exact same pressures about the future in high-school so you are not alone. I personally think doing stand up comedy as a job would be really fun!

From a future perspective (I'm now 27) you really can end up anywhere you set your heart to be, and knowing what you want to do for the rest of your life in high-school is really REALLY unusual. The average person changes careers roughly 5-7 times in a lifetime so its likely that the job you choose now is not a forever thing. For me I had no idea whats so ever, it was so confusing for so long but I eventually set my heart on something and now I'm about to become a qualified psych who never completed VCE. What I'm trying to say is that life will always have open doors for you when you are ready and that the decisions you make today, although they can really help you in moving forward, they are not everything.

I think Ggrand makes a fair point about seeing a career advisor as they have the skills and knowledge to help you make a more informed decision. They can explain the types of industry's that are out their and help you to match your skills and interests to studying something that suits. I personally didn't find this helpful for me, and instead found talking to adults in the professions more helpful. Findings out things like how they got to where they are now, what they do, what they wished they knew before, stuff like that..... maybe a particular person such as a comedian could be cool to talk to?

PS. as an older kid and with friends of many older kids we don't really have it all together like you think, and we also have passions and interests that we do outside of work. Work is a big thing that we commit lots and lots of our time to, but that doesn't mean it defines us, and is all we do.

Hope this helps, please let us know what your thinking!

I am 21 and am feeling similar to you! if any thing covid has made this process of making big decisions or even thinking about what you might want your life to be like a very hard thing to do! Many adults and students like myself are back to the drawing board as some careers get forgotten/lost/recreated within this pandemic, many that are older than you myself included have no idea what the future holds now for the plans and desires we once had! I think it has just made me think having a plan that is too structured may not be the way to go in this modern world! we might need to go with the flow more and see where we end up because those with a plan or general idea of a life they want may suffer more disappointment as things keep changing so uncontrollable in this world, covid as an example. I know that's how i've been feeling! but i think you can not lose if you are smart about your decision and you do what you are interested in!