At what age should people start thinking seriously about their future career?

I was pressured by my guidance counselor to think about my future career plans starting in 6th grade. By 8th grade I was supposed to know what I wanted to be as an adult and start thinking about where I wanted to go to college. Her favorite phrase was “if you don’t have your future planned out by the time you walk across the stage at graduation you will fail in life”. She doesn’t believe in jobs that don’t require a college degree. She told my class we would need at least a masters to succeed. Due to all of this, I rushed into a college choice and my career plans. I ended up dropping out of the university after a few weeks to go to community college closer to home. From there I dropped out of my program after the first semester because it was not what I wanted to do at all. Now I have absolutely no clue what to do with my life. I want to go back to school but I don’t want to waste money taking classes blindly until I choose a path! There were 40 kids in my class, including me. Over half of them have already dropped out of college or changed their major multiple times.

I don’t necessarily think that there is anything wrong with thinking about your future early, but I believe the pressure is what caused the problems. However, a friend that went to a different school told me that they didn’t start looking at colleges or talk seriously about their career plans in school until they were sophomores.

When should schools start discussing these topics with students? When should people have their future planned out?