Episode 1: Whose decision is it anyway?

More than half of school leavers choose a pathway to please someone else. That stat alone is worth a conversation. In this episode, Marian and Liv dig into one of the most loaded moments in a student's school life — subject selection — and ask the question that might make us a bit uncomfortable: whose decision is the career decision, really? They unpack what the research says about how schools are (often unintentionally) shaping student choices, why more information nights and expo brochures aren't as helpful as we think, and what it actually looks like when students arrive at that conversation already in the driver's seat. If you're heading into subject selection season — or just starting to think about how your school designs that process — you'll leave practical takeaways to take back to your team. Plus: the F1 job that sounds amazing until Liv and Marian actually thought about it, and it turns out there's a growing list of 'career heck no's'. Research referenced in this episode: Gleeson, J., Walsh, L., Gallo Cordoba, B., Mikola, M., Waite, C., & Cutler, B. (2022) — Young Women Choosing Careers: Who Decides?, Monash University https://www.monash.edu/education/cypep/research/young-women-choosing-careers-who-decides Black, B. (2025) — Chances or Choices? The Influences on Subject Choices, University of Glasgowhttps://theses.gla.ac.uk/85338/1/2025BlackPhD.pdf Behavioural Insights Team — Moments of Choice: How Young People Make Career Decisionshttps://www.bi.team/blogs/moments-of-choice-how-young-people-make-career-decisions/ OECD — The State of Global Teenage Career Preparation (PISA 2022 data) https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/the-state-of-global-teenage-career-preparation_d5f8e3f2-en/full-report/component-6.html Anders, J., Henderson, M., Moulton, V., & Sullivan, A. (2017) — The Role of Schools in Explaining Individuals' Subject Choices at Age 14, UCL Centre for Longitudinal Studies https://cls.ucl.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/CLS-WP-20179-The-role-of-schools-in-explaining-individuals27-subject-choices-at-age-14.pdf Exploring Career Decision-Making Anxiety Among High School Students (2024), Multidisciplinary Science Journalhttps://malque.pub/ojs/index.php/msj/article/view/3157 Feel free to send us your thoughts, questions, and your own answer to the question we started with today: Whose decision is it anyway? via [email protected]. Get in touch Find us on Instagram @thegreatcareersprogram and on Substack at thegreatcareersprogram.substack.com for episode recaps, research links, and the conversation between episodes. Got a question, a story, or something you want us to talk about? Email us at [email protected]. Credits The Great Careers Program is a collaboration between BECOME Education and Coherence Co-Lab, and is hosted and produced by Liv Pennie and Marian Wright, with production support from Bev Laing. Music by Chad Crouch.