Our Mission: Career Education for Teens

One of the most common questions a student under 18 gets from older adults is: “what do you want to be when you grow up?”

And like all of us at that age, most students have no idea! Usually they do come up with an answer. Maybe they rely on an emotion or feeling, reflect on some early work experience, or think of the career of someone in their life or on social media that seems exciting or cool.

The question of “career” for a young person is daunting. What should I spend my life doing? Where is the intersection of meaningful work and a career? How can I earn enough to support myself and possibly a family? And what careers will still be around in ten years given the rise of AI?

Let's break down the “career question" into 3 parts:

(1) Career discovery
(2) Career decision
(3) Career prep

All three are crucial and in the United States our educational frameworks and institutions are not up to the challenge. We need to do a better job helping young people figure out what careers are available (discovery), which career is right for them (decision), and what are the qualities, stepping stones and requirements to enter those careers (prep).

Currently our society's answer to career discovery and decision is the internship. The internship is attached to the old idea of apprenticeships. A young person goes and works under an experienced person in a career and (in theory) learns on the job.

While internships are useful and important, there are several problems with internships:

First, there are few internships available for high-demand careers. High demand careers are often intense and challenging, and the people in those careers don’t have extra time to coach interns. They’re too busy simply doing the work.

Second, like it or not, getting an internship is often more about who you know (or who your parents know) than your skills and resume.

Third, and maybe most important, an internship is a large investment of time for low pay, so a young person can only realistically do an internship in one or two fields before they need to make a decision about their first job and career path. Some students can't afford to take a low-paying internship because they need to earn more to live, even just for a summer.

Fourth, for many career fields, an internship is an understood pre-requisite to get a job in the field, so we have a situation where most young people are not using an internship to figure out whether a career is right for them, they’re deciding on a career and then getting an internship as their first “mini job” in that field.

Fifth, in most cases internships are only available to college students. Why shouldn't high school students start exploring careers?

We started Outset because we wanted to create new programs to help young people, particularly teens, answer the career question. The model we came up with is far from perfect, but it works well.

Our immersive, in-person, 1-week summer experiences provide teens with summarized career knowledge, hands-on, realistic simulations, and access to the time and attention of people who are already in a high-demand careers.

We chose medicine and healthcare as our first domain for programming because these careers are particularly complicated and require a special degree of dedication, time, and monetary investment.

What does success look like?

The test of whether or not we are succeeding is two-sided. Success for Outset means that our programs inspire students toward careers that are good for them and also that we help students avoid careers that are not a good fit.

One of my favorite stories illustrating this point involves a student in one of our Dentistry programs. This student was excited about Outset and engaged from day one. On day 3, halfway through the week, we received a call from their parents. The student wanted to leave Outset early.

Naturally, our team was very concerned that something had gone wrong. Was this student not getting along with their peers? Did our instructors fail somehow?

But the parents explained it was something much simpler: their student decided they did not want to be a dentist!

I love this story, because it illustrates the often immediate impact of career programming for teens. Instead of spending 5 years of their life telling friends and family they want to be a dentist and investing hundreds of hours in pre-dental college courses, this teen figured out in 3 days at Outset that dentistry was not right for them. Now they are free to explore a new path.

When young people can find a career where their particular skills and aptitudes are useful and appreciated, not only are they happier, but everyone is better off. Our communities work better when, as Aristotle said a long time ago, everyone is “at work in their own proper work.”

Outset programs are not cheap, and they represent a significant investment. They are not right for everyone. We are trying hard to make our programs as accessible as possible through financial aid and scholarships, but still, not everyone can afford it.

If you are a teen who can't afford Outset, I encourage you to still find ways now to explore careers that interest you. Ask a physician in your community if you can shadow them for a few days, or check in with your local hospital if they allow teen volunteers. Don't wait for college to begin.

If you have any thoughts or questions about the Outset mission or our programs, or are interested in working with us or partnering with us, please reach out anytime. My email is lawson@joinoutset.com. I would love to hear from you.

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Lawson Kuehnert lives in New York, NY and is the founder and Executive Director of Outset. Lawson has been designing and leading experiential and career exploration programs for high school and college students for over a decade.