Advice for Year 12

Dear P,

When you said you were being pressured by your parents to study hard for
YR12, I thought I'd write you a note...


Taking advice from others is *always* fraught...
- They cannot know what's inside your head, what you can, can't and
will/won't do, and your hopes & dreams....
- They cannot know the future.
[The brother of a friend at Uni did brilliantly in his Honours Year.
Died a month later, climbing accident.]

More...

If people offer you facts that may aid in your decision, that's the best
they can do...

Trying to make up your mind for you is taking away your Rights and
Responsibilities as an Adult.

Whatever you decide, you get to live with it and the consequences for a
very long time.
- I chose to fail 3 subjects in 1974 and had to study part-time.
It radically altered my career path and opportunities.

Here are some things you may like to take into consideration on when
deciding how hard you'll study this year:

- You get one chance to do Yr12 the first time.
- It's really hard to repeat it later. After you've been
working/earning money, going back is really difficult.
- Good marks are about *choices*, not decisions and being locked-in.
With a good mark, you have the choice to leverage it and pursue a
bunch of options.
With a lower mark, those choices won't be available. Others may be...

- A good Yr12 result does not guarantee your future, in the same way a
bad one doesn't necessarily destroy it.

- If you intend to go to Uni, get a normal job and do the wife + 2.1
children thing, a good Yr12 result is mandatory.
- that may not be your plan.

- Performing below your ability is an easy habit to start. It's a much
harder one to break.

- Getting an 'ordinary' pass tells prospective employers one of two things:
- You are smart and can't be bothered working -> a NO HIRE
- You have ordinary talents and can apply yourself -> may be a HIRE

Joel Spolsky in "Joel On Software" talks about his hiring process.
He want people that are *both* smart and "can get things done".
Being able to complete a degree is one of the simple-minded markers
people use to quickly sort candidates.
That is usually the sole benefit of a degree - to land your first
'professional' job.
After that, you actually have to 'perform'.

- The world of work has been turned on its head in the last 30 years.
- It's no longer 'a job for life' - unless you go into Police,
Health, Public Service/Military, Teaching
- The received wisdom a few years back was people of your generation
would have 3-5 careers and 30+ jobs in a lifetime.
Advice designed to underpin 'job for life' no longer applies.
But the same qualifications may enable many career choices in
todays' work climate.

- At 17/18 you still have another 5-7 years of growing to do. Your brain
will be organically developing until you are 25.
yes! that's a long time... Remember how different you were at 11.

- An important principle is:
You cannot know what you'll feel and be like in another 10 years.
- Don't make decisions now that presume you'll have the same
priorities, values, interests, beliefs in another 10yrs.
If you lock yourself onto a path now, down the track you could
live to regret it.

- As a teenager, you are creating your own identity and sense of self.
Part of that is taking your own decisions,
being responsible for yourself...
One of the usual battles of adolescent males is rejecting outright
anything pushed by their parents - I know what that feels like :-)
Making a decision compulsively is not taking an informed choice, It
won't serve you well.

See John Marsden's book "Secret Men's Business" on claiming your own
identity different to your parents.

- As humans, we are at effect of our hormones more than we like to
believe. You can clearly see it with Women - they can be amazingly
fickle and over-react emotionally to nothing... Guys have a different
effect - we like taking risk and sometimes doing dangerous things. The
rates of male deaths increase hugely around 14/15 and aren't back to
normal until 25 or so. This is the reason that males under 25 get
expensive car insurance. And why the Military won't [or didn't] recruit
people over 30 - they have a different set of priorities and won't be
told what to do so easily ;-)

These overwhelming effects last maybe until age 40-45... Don't have
any figures/research to quote you.

- There are some very good books around about making decisions, such as
"Yes or No" by Spencer Johnson.
- some decisions, like drinking Coke or not, don't require a deep
decision process
- others require gathering information, researching choices and
careful deliberation

- the trick is not to confuse the two... To make hasty decisions when
you need to make a careful one - or vice versa.

- Your Intuition is your most powerful tool available to you.
Unfortunately, like any useful tool - it is both 'sharp' and hard to
use. You need to learn how to use it and when to trust it... Doubting
your Intuition undermines and destroys it. Jumping at anything isn't
"Intuition", but abrogating your responsibilities.
See "Awakening Intuition" by Frances E. Vaughan


I hope you find something helpful in this and wish you all the best on
your journey!

Hope to hear good things about you in the future.