Your Teen Doesn't Need to Know Their Major Yet. They Need This Instead.

Does your teenager have no idea what they want to major in or do for a career? That does not mean they're behind. Instead of forcing a 15-, 16-, or 17-year-old to choose a lifelong career path, I recommend helping them build a working hypothesis, then testing it through real-world exploration. In this video, I walk through four questions parents can use to help a high school student discover possible majors and career paths: • What kinds of problems do they enjoy solving? • What do they voluntarily learn about? • What kind of work gives them energy? • What kind of impact feels satisfying to them? Then comes the part many families skip: running small experiments. Courses, conversations, projects, shadowing, reading, and hands-on exposure give teenagers something much more useful than abstract career tests. They give them evidence about themselves. The goal at this age is not certainty. It is enough direction to say, “These are the questions I'm interested in exploring right now.” I'm Jenny Man, MIT '08 and a longtime MIT alumni interviewer. I work with college-bound students and their families on admissions strategy, differentiation, essays, and building a high school experience that reflects who the student actually is. Subscribe if you want practical college admissions strategy for thoughtful, ambitious families without turning high school into one giant résumé-building exercise.