Although we’re only a few months into the school year, it’s certainly not too early to be thinking about your options for the future. If you’re in Year 13, you’ll be fully aware that this is your last year in the secondary system. You won’t automatically be going into another year of school; what you do next will be determined by what you choose to do.

If you’re in Year 12, looking into this question might seem less pressing right now. Isn’t contending with this year and the next one enough? While you’d be right in the sense that the day to day of the next academic year will be quite similar to the last one–if a little more stressful due to it being your final year at the secondary level–this doesn’t mean by any stretch that it’s not worth looking towards the future. Because while your next move may be more than a year away, you’ll be a whole lot more ready for it if you start putting in the planning for it now.

If you look into your future now you’ll be prepared to make good, informed decisions; if you just leave things until the last minute you’ll probably discover that the place on your dream course is already full, or that you should have applied for that great training scheme three months ago.

So, whether you’re in Year 12 or 13, you should definitely be looking beyond what’s immediately ahead of you and further into your professional/educational future, and in particular asking yourself these questions:

University, training or work?

This is the basic question you should be addressing now, rather than heading into the next year without a clear idea. This is not just because you’ll feel all at sea while your friends are talking about getting UCAS statements ready when you’d not even thought about university until that point, but also because if you don’t have an answer to this question months before you leave college or school the chances are you’ll miss the pick of the opportunities from any of these options and just end up with the scraps.

Where should I be doing this?

This is the next logical question to ask yourself. And by ‘where’ we’re not just speaking geographically. If you’ve decided on university, you’ll need to think about both what course to study and at which universities; if you’re thinking about work or training, it’s likely you’ll be staying closer to home, but you’ll still need to decide exactly what industry or field you want to be in, and in turn what options there are for it in your area.

How can I prepare for it?

This is the question that many people forget to answer. It’s all very well and good having a set idea about what you want to do, but if you don’t have a clear idea of how to turn that idea into reality–whether that’ll be through getting accepted onto a course by virtue of having the right work experience, or getting your CV and cover letter ready in time for application deadlines–then ultimately you’ll still end up in the same place as those who’d made no plans at all, only it’ll be even more frustrating for you–at least those who didn’t make any plans didn’t have any expectations! So once you’ve decided what you want to do, get researching the practicalities of how to get yourself on the right track to do it.