Unskilled jobs are disappearing fast, and they re not coming back. In most high schools, there is one guidance counselor for every 500 students, and he or she spends the better part of the day dealing with troubled youth and crisis control. Some populations need special help with career and life planning. Girls, for example, are still less likely than boys to think they will need to support themselves, though more than half of all women now work even when their children are less than a year old. Even young women who do well in school are at risk.
Good grades are often at least partly the result of taking less demanding classes.
When learning doesn t come easily, a common response is to drop the class or scale back ambitions. Of the brightest high school students who do not go on to college, the overwhelming majority are female. Young people with disabilities or who are from a disadvantaged background, or who may be the first in their family to pursue higher education, also need special attention. Career Choices addresses all these issues and others, offering general encouragement and support as well as specific advice on being assertive, taking responsibility for one s own life, overcoming anxiety, taking calculated risks, and so on. Establishing and consolidating identity is an important task for all adolescents.