Youth Quote Search

• Perceptions of the term 'career'
• Understanding Job/Work/Career

“Success.”

• Perceptions of the term 'career'
• Understanding Job/Work/Career

“Car.”

• Aspirations and Goals
• Imagining their future selves

“When it comes to what my dream is it would be a musician. But when it comes to want to realistically think about making money it would probably be going to school to be a designer and getting a job in that just because I would separate my passions with what I actually want to do to make money. Oftentimes it can be hard nowadays to make money as a musician, and I understand that. If it happens then it does, and if doesn’t then it is not a big deal. It is just a passion of mine on the side that I can still have something on the other side to make money off of, which I do still enjoy but I would prefer one over the other.”

• Challenges and Barriers
• Death, loss and uncertainty

“Hopefully USC because I heard that is a good place from 2 dentists already. I hear that is good…Hopefully with scholarship. I don’t think I could if I didn’t get scholarships anywhere, but maybe. If not, I will just keep making up the money; hopefully I can get in there.”

• Education
• Perceptions of college and postsecondary

“I think it is nice to continue to challenge yourself throughout your whole life because sometimes it happens when you are doing [nothing] for a whole summer, a lot of time I get really antsy but then I am in school and I complain. But I still think it is important to continue to build your knowledge and keep doing that your whole life. I think it is really enriching. People when they retire a lot of the time they don’t know what to do with themselves and they get really depressed and I think that is why. Also it is credentials and getting more opportunities.”

• Pathways
• Steps and stages

“So for 18 to 22 I said college, four years, finish. I probably do like five years because I failed a class my freshmen semester. I’m upset about it…Then 23 to 30, I said founder of a nonprofit, working, kids, marriage, house. Thirty-one to 40, little traveling, like that’s when I wanted to start my traveling, so make that working, working, working. Like but this is when I’m really working my hardest. Because I feel, like they said, 30 is that golden time, so I just want to, I feel I should take that time and work, work, work, work, work. Forty-one, I want to work not so much because what I really want to do is basically a 9:00 to 5:00. It’s nothing like I can go to work, come home, and still have time. Begin to do things I enjoy, and I didn’t put like an end age on that because I feel I’m still going to be doing that for a long time. Grandkids and retire.”

• Attributes and characteristics
• Describing Identity

“I was working with Special Olympics…so my boss just told me like I was a hard worker. This one dude I was working with, he said he’d always be able to like write me a letter of recommendation if I needed it, just stuff like that.”

• Comparing and contrasting 'job' 'work' and 'career'
• Understanding Job/Work/Career

“…we were like putting job and work into categories of like how they make us feel and stuff, and career just sounds better.”

• Pathways
• Steps and stages

“Like two years ago, I took pre-calculus and realized engineering is hard…And then I was like, well, I’ll take computer science and see if I like that. And then I liked it. Now that’s where I am. Now I’m going to go to college, try to get into some, major in computer science, and then move to California where most of that community is, and start a company with a group of my college friends. Hopefully, get picked up by some pretty good investors.”

• Pathways
• Steps and stages

“I put finish high school, study languages, raise money for college, go to college, start family, take job offers and retire. [To raise money for college] I could start getting different part-time jobs now and put the money towards college.”