Your mistake is letting yourself be misled into choosing just "a path."
Courses ❌ Are Not a Reflection of a Career.
Choosing a path means choosing subjects to study.
The daily reality of studying, the nature of the courses, and what you have to learn to enter a profession do not reflect the actual practice of that profession.
A path is the training that leads to professions.
A profession is a broader, real-world activity within a specific field.
👉 You must separate the concept of a profession from that of an academic path. Let’s break it down.
The Major Mistake Everyone Pushes You to Make
Schools, teachers, career advisors, tests, and assessments all push you to choose a path instead of a profession.
Why? Because choosing a profession requires time, introspection, and deep reflection. Only after this process can you make a truly informed choice.
⚠️ Choosing a path is NOT the same as choosing a profession. It does not have the same impact.
This is why so many students lose motivation when they don’t enjoy the subjects in their training program.
I have already explained in a previous article that the first visible effect of rushed, poor career guidance is a lack of interest in courses, leading students to quit or switch programs.
Separating Path and Profession is Crucial
Let’s push this distinction even further by breaking it into three layers:
- Studies.
- Profession.
- Final professional activity.
Example: Journalism
1️⃣ Studies in Journalism → Require acquiring broad knowledge and skills.
2️⃣ Profession of Journalist → Applying those skills, with diverse career options (e.g., political reporter, tech journalist).
3️⃣ Final professional activity → The actual tasks performed, which may not align with what was learned in school and evolve with experience.
Let’s go even deeper…
A political journalist does not do the same work as a tech journalist—their activities and expertise are vastly different.
But beyond that, a journalist can become a writer or copywriter. The gap between academic training and real-world activities becomes even wider.
Yet, they all started with the same studies.
The Right Approach to Career Choice
Choosing a career should mean choosing a professional activity.
This should be your goal.
Any process that suggests another goal is superficial (there are different levels of depth).
Failing to take this into account can lead to career misalignment, contributing to the 37% reorientation rate among students.
Why You Must Choose a Profession, Not a Path
To make the right choice, you need:
- Self-awareness – Understanding what you truly love and want.
- Introspection – Digging deep into your motivations.
- Curiosity – Exploring the world of work beyond school subjects.
- Critical thinking – Making a decision based on what fits YOU.
Your career choice should be your own, not just a selection of academic subjects.
This article is an AI format of my original article in French and the content reflects my words entirely.
This version, is the one without AI formatting so you can see the difference, I thought it was interesting (January 2025) :
The training ❌ It's far from the reality of a profession. Choosing a path means choosing subjects to study.
The daily reality of studying, the nature of the courses, and what needs to be learned to practice a profession is not a reflection of actually working in that profession.
The path is the training that leads to professions.
A profession is a global professional activity in a particular field.
You must separate profession and path. Let's detail this.
The major problem, and the mistake that:
- the school,
- the teachers,
- the advisors,
- the tests and assessments,
push you to make is choosing a path.
It must be said that choosing a profession takes time, introspection, and reflection. And then, it is about making a choice.
Choosing a path is not at all the same as choosing a profession, and it does not have the same impact.
That is why many students get discouraged when they do not enjoy the subjects offered in their training.
I have already explained in a previous article that the first visible effect of a rushed and failed orientation, which has not been sufficiently thought through, is not/no longer enjoying their courses, and that being the main reason for quitting or changing.
The separation between path and profession is essential.
I would even go further in the conceptual distinction, we have:
- The studies.
- The profession.
- The final professional activity.
Example:
Journalism studies require acquiring overall knowledge and skills.
The profession of journalist is the application of those skills, and there are many applications, from reporter to journalist specialized in new technologies or politics.
The final professional activity is a set of tasks and subjects that do not necessarily correspond to the skills learned in school, and that evolve with experience, or that have been built based on our knowledge, experience, or desire.
Let's go into detail...
On one hand, a political journalist does not do the same work as a journalist specialized in new technologies and does not deal with the same topics. Their activity has nothing in common...
And on the other hand, a journalist can become a writer or copywriter. The difference here, at the level of the final activity, becomes even greater.
Yet, it's the same training.
Logically, when you go deeper, career orientation should be about "choosing" a professional activity.
That should be your objective, any other process that offers you a different objective is, therefore, more superficial. (There are different levels)
And it can potentially lead to the reorientation issues that affect 37% of students.
That is why it is important to choose a profession, and not a path.
To do this, it is necessary to know yourself well or to introspect to understand what you love or what you deeply want and why, to be open, to discover the world, to think, and to make YOUR choice.
