career?!

piggy1401 said:

I like having plans and it’s stressing me out because in less than 2 years' time I am going to finish my A levels and I have no plan for afterwards.

I think most people only start thinking about careers about 2 minutes before they end up having to LoL - 2 years is time to start researching only in my opinion.

I would spend at least the next year looking at what things in the real world interest you enough that you think you could spend all day, every day working with them. Once you have narrowed down the topics you can look at different types of roles in them and start to spend time learning more about them, spend time around them if you can and apply for volunteer positions with them if they allow it.

Don't be afraid to write to the companies / organisations directly and talk about why you are passionate about the company (this will take some "marketing" of your thoughts to make it seem plausable I expect).

Don't worry if you don't have any subjects to hand straight away - that is what the next year is about: researching options. The final year can be about the appying and doing of any such exposure to the roles as much as school and free time allow. It may be that if the companies only do office hours then you have limited options but in that case think of related areas you can actually get exposure to that will benefit you when it comes to working on it later.

Even if you are going onto Uni the voulnteering starts to open doors - and you will have a good 6 months before your a-levels to decide what to apply for. The volunteering will also look great on the application so long as it is relevant.

While waiting, also consider getting prospectuses from universities who do the sorts of subjects you like, read up on these but take time to look at other courses - you may find options you never considered.

Lastly don't forget your career is never set in stone. You can change and in fact most adults make at least 2 major carrer changes through their lives so it is the norm.

I graduated from uni with a BSc in Applie Physics and moved into IT afterwards - no design in that plan just circumstances co-incided and I was able to use my skills to pass the selection interviews and convince them I was a good trainee candidate.

In summary - chill, research and be prepared for the unexpected as it goes on.

You could try and find out the career outcomes for graduates in a particular subject from a particular institution.

Although a few years old here are some figures on number of applicants applying to study subjects

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-32230793

It says for Psychology there were 106,000 applicants.  I don't know how many applicants started (and subsequently completed) a degree in Psychology, but I am sure that most of them would not get jobs as Psychologists.

I think that a lot of people do what I did and like a subject at school and then apply to study it at university, if there are relatively few career opportunities in that subject, then many of them will have borrowed a lot oif money and will not get their career of choice.

If I had my time again, I would have done more research into degree courses (there are many more choices of degree courses than there are A level courses, many degree subjects are not taught at school) and find out career prospects etc.  With your sociology you could train to be a social worker for example (there are a number of routes into this):

https://nationalcareers.service.gov.uk/job-profiles/social-worker

A career that is unlikely to be replaced with technology anytime soon.

No, I drifted into mine. I saw a research job at a university advertised, that my degree 3rd year project fitted me for rather exactly. I applied, was interviewed, and then spent 34 years working in the field, during which I also completed an MSc and PhD. Scientific research is relatively autism-friendly as a career.