[prawn]

"being forced to pick your major before entering college, which unfortunately negates a lot of the self-discovery that happens in freshman year."

I was generally a straight-A student leaving high school but lasted six months at university before quitting. I distinctly remember much of my career decision was based on a single sentence description of the engineering degree flavour. I had good entrance scores but wasn't interested in medicine or dentistry. The description mentioned computers and design which were two things I enjoyed, but in reality it was more about designing computers rather than with computers. Had great teachers and parents but don't recall being steered by any of them on my selection.

Not sure what the answer is, but I imagine it involves more flexibility in that process (rather than prerequisite courses that start to narrow in at age 15) and more guidance.

At one point, we were given a large book - an index of jobs, basically. We flipped through and laughed at "cheesemaker" and "crane chaser" but there was not much about areas of interest or one-on-one with counsellors. Is a high school teacher really going to be best positioned to coach their cohort (with varied interests) on what direction to take?