“You need to think about where you want to go.”
“I want to be an artist.”
“Pshaw. We’re going up to Denver for you to take an aptitude test at the VA.”
“Why?”
“They won’t pay for your college if you aren’t going in a direction that makes sense according to their test.”
“What? Those tests are bogus.” (Actually they are not but at 18 I knew more than anyone else had ever known anywhere at any time.)
Drive, drive, drive. Park. Go in. Sit down. Take multiple choice “test”. Wait for scores. Scores come out. Lowest, office work and food service. Highest, forest ranger. Semi-high — in order — creative work, news reporter, writer, lawyer, newscaster, teacher.
“Miss Kennedy,” says the counselor, “you have a lot of possibilities. You need to find the right direction. The VA will pay for any of these majors.” The list says “Journalism, English, education.”
Nowhere does it say Forest Ranger.
Over the years I sent a lot of students to get that vey same aptitude test — the Strong Interest Inventory. I usually sent them when they confided to me they didn’t want to major in business or engineering or something that their parents had set them on. Sometimes they were REALLY in the wrong major. Sometimes they needed confirmation they were in the right major. Sometimes they said the test was like a horoscope. For a while I argued with them, then I just said, “You’re right. You fill in hundreds of questions about what you like and do not like in order to get your zodiac sign.”
But what no one, no counselor, aptitude test, mom or dad can tell anyone is what lies ahead in life, where the turning points are, or that life is a lot more than whatever your job turns out to be. The best aptitude to have is one for patience combined with a sense of humor. There’s no test for that, as far as I know, other than life itself.
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I know you have a good sense of humor, Martha. Do you have patience too?
Yep. You can’t teach 18-19 year olds for 35 years without it. 🙂
You’re my hero. 🙂
Ha ha ha! 😀
I took an aptitude test in high school. I don’t know which one. It was useless. I indicated I could do well in almost any field of endeavor. I thought the purpose was to narrow the selection a bit.
That was a lame test — or you were exceedingly neutral in your responses! 😉
The test asked a range of problem-solving questions from various field of endeavor. To resolve them you had to know the fundamentals of the area and then use logic to reach a conclusion. Ever hear of such a thing?
“Fred, you can do anything you want!” was not a useful result.
That’s not an aptitude test. How weird. But even when the result was “useful” as in my case, it doesn’t mean that much. It’s just a guide, a direction. I think most of the time with my students the Strong Interest Inventory (not the test you took) confirmed their knowledge of themselves. That’s pretty useful to an 18 year old.
forest ranger, artist and dog person. Taught english to 18 and 19 years old. A courageous and gifted individual.
I found the test results about 20 years ago when I was packing up to move. It seemed prophetic. 😀
The Stong was good. I encouraged all my kids to take the ASVAB.
I think you are absolutely right…patience, humour and I’d add kindness, life is more than a job!
Yeah, kindness. I agree. Life is a LOT more than a job. It was difficult persuading my students that a lot of what they were learning would be useful in LIFE. They were very career focused… But that makes sense. They were products of a system that stressed the college admission, the degree, the career. I am sure they’ve all found out by now. 🙂
They probably have like the rest of us! Youth is wasted on the youth…who said that!
So true!!! 🙂 Maybe Mark Twain? I don’t know.
My brother took that test and they said he SHOULD be a forest ranger. Unfortunately, my parents weren’t prepared for a son who wanted to be a forest ranger. He had to be a professional, but oddly, that never happened.
I think my test screamed ENGLISH, writer, ENGLISH, writer. So I became a music major. Because I really liked my piano teacher. I too knew absolutely everything. These days, I don’t know anything.
I don’t either, yet I’m pretty jaded. 🙂
We had a careers interview. Be a nurse they said? Stereotyping, I wanted to be an artist, and I am (plus a lot more)
I think they try to send us in a direction of earning a living. Anyway, the test was right about me and I should have paid better attention to it. Teacher was at the BOTTOM of the list of careers at which I might succeed. 🙂
It was far more random here, no selection just opinion, but that was 40 years ago. Things may have changed.
I had to do this exam because the government paid for my education because my dad was a disabled veteran. Most kids didn’t have anything like this to deal with. It’s just as well. I seemed always to have a strong effect on my art teachers. Either I was a genius or in the wrong field. I decided over the years that the result of that was that I never had to sell my art to live so I was free. 🙂
I think I need a new career now! When the money runs out I will have to work x
Oh no!!!! ❤
💕