Lesson six — For the student whose family has already decided

You may be reading this having already been told what you will study.

This book will not tell you to defy your parents. They are not your opponents in this — they are frightened for you, and fear tends to come out as certainty.

But you can do something more useful than argue. Show them the roads. Take the part for parents, which is written to them, and read the pathways together. Ask them to look at three pathways they have never heard of before they finalise anything.

Most parents in this situation are not attached to one profession. They are attached to their child being safe, employed and respected — and they know only three or four roads that deliver it. When they see that there are fifty, and that many of them are safe, employed and respected, the conversation changes.

And if it does not change, remember this: the first choice is not the last one. This book is full of routes that reopen — lateral entry, later degrees, government exams that take any graduate. A road taken to keep peace at home is not a life sentence. Walk it well, keep looking, and change when you are able to.