The question often comes up around the age of fourteen, sometimes earlier, and it returns at every stage: which path should my child take? Parents now ask it with a new kind of worry. They keep hearing that AI will transform careers, and they no longer know what to steer their child towards.
I have taught mathematics and physics for fourteen years, and I guide families through choices of school, subjects and track. Most of the mistakes I see do not come from choosing the wrong career. They come from a decision made without knowing where the child really stood.
Do not start with the career
At fourteen, very few children know what they will do, and that is normal. Asking them for a career pushes them to answer with what they know: their parents' jobs, the ones in TV series, the ones discussed at dinner. The jobs of 2040 do not have a name yet.
A path is better decided from three firmer elements: what they truly do well, what makes them work without being pushed, and the doors each choice keeps open. The career will come later, often by an unexpected route.
What they really do well, beyond their grades
School reports are a poor compass when read on their own. An average of 15 out of 20 in an undemanding school is not worth a 12 in a highly selective one, and a good test grade can hide fragile foundations that will give way at the next step up. It happens often in mathematics between the last two years of French high school: the student finds that what they managed by habit is no longer enough.
Before deciding, you need to know where they stand: in mathematics, in written French, in English, and in how they reason when facing a problem they have never seen. A serious level test measures this in a few hours. It is the first thing I do with a family.
What makes them work
The second element is rarely visible in class. What do they do when nobody asks anything of them? They take things apart, write, organise, argue, draw, build small games, read for hours on one precise subject. These tastes say more about what will suit them than an online personality quiz.
You also need to listen to them, without an interrogation. When I see a student on their own, I ask what they enjoyed doing this year, at school or elsewhere, and what they would refuse to do. Their answers often surprise their parents.
The doors each choice closes
In the French system, guidance happens in stages, summarised in the box below. The heaviest comes at the end of the first year of high school, with the choice of specialist subjects. Dropping mathematics then closes most science and economics prépas, many engineering and business schools, and many programmes abroad. Keeping it closes almost nothing.
The same goes for languages, for an international section, for the choice between the French baccalaureate and the IB. Each of these decisions opens or closes doors years before anyone notices. I cover one of them in IB or French baccalaureate.
And where does AI fit in?
With AI, it is mostly repetitive, well-defined tasks that are being automated. Reasoning, writing precisely, checking a result, deciding, persuading: all of this keeps its value, and gains more. A child who is strong in mathematics and in writing, and at ease in two languages, keeps almost every door open, whatever career they end up choosing.
So I advise against choosing a track because it looks "safe from AI". Lists of protected jobs change from one year to the next. I would rather a child built foundations that will serve them whatever the career. I have detailed what this changes for three common plans: medicine, law and learning to code.
Who can help
In French schools, the national education psychologists see students and their families free of charge, and the head teacher knows the file well. These meetings help in understanding the tracks.
What they rarely have time for is measuring your child's actual level, subject by subject. That is the purpose of the level and guidance assessment I offer: tests suited to their class, which I mark myself, a video call with you, and a written report on where they stand and what matters now.
The stages of guidance in French high schools. End of the last year of collège: general and technological track or vocational track. End of seconde: three specialist subjects for première. End of première: two specialist subjects kept for terminale, and a mathematics option for students who drop the specialist subject. Terminale: applications on Parcoursup, during the winter.