If you are in Year 13, it can feel like everyone is asking what you plan to do next. Where does your future lie? It feels like the pressure is on and you have to know what you want to do for the rest of your life. Don’t worry. You have time to explore your options and there’s plenty of help and information out there.
Finding the right career
There’s lots of ways to find ideas and explore whether they might suit your skills and aspirations. Try a career quiz. Think about subjects you enjoy at school or college and also what you like to do in your spare time. What kind of challenges do you find exciting? What do you dislike? Do you want to work in one location, or get out and about?
Explore beyond the topic – even within a sector such as eyecare, there are jobs that are much more focused on creativity, or dealing with people, or those that are more scientific or technical. If you enjoy art, how about spectacle frame design? If keeping up with the latest trend is your thing, or you have great communication skills, working in an eyecare practice and helping customers choose frames could be great. You might go to trade shows and see the latest designs. If you are more technical or scientifically-minded, working in a lab making optical lenses, or designing lenses could be right for you.
Apprenticeships
If you want to go straight into work, an apprenticeship can be a great choice. You can earn while you learn, developing skills and qualifications without building up debt. An apprenticeship is a great way to get experience. You can read more articles about apprenticeships here.
Degree-level courses are now available for careers such as dispensing opticians – they make sure people get the right spectacles for their needs. There are also degree apprenticeships for orthoptists – professionals who identify and treat visual problems in children or help adults with neurological conditions such as multiple sclerosis that affect their sight.
University
If you are looking at higher education, how do you focus your choices to find the right course and place to study? Using a website like the Complete University Guide’s Uniselect can make things easier. You can enter the subjects you are studying and the grades you might achieve to get a list of courses.
This smart guide works if you know what you’d like to study – and even if you don’t. It allows you to narrow down where you’d like to live. You can select certain areas of the UK and town, city, countryside or coastal sites too. You can add in your budget for accommodation and it will come up with your matched unis. A little like some online dating sites, it will rank them for you too.
If you want to know what results universities get and what students say about their experience, the Guardian’s 2025 good university guide might be interesting.
More information
- Find a great career with our guides to different roles in eyecare.
- Stories from the frontline – read about a day in the life of people working in different fields, from dispensing opticians to eye surgeons, eyewear stylists to eye clinic liaison officers and more.