i dont know what to do...

[joshwalker094]

as above i dont have a clue what to do for my future now, i failed my AS's and so didnt bother looking round properly for a new college placement, but i had secured an apprenticeship in bricklaying ( not something i want to do) plan is to do this apprenticeship and emigrate over to australia, but i dont know if ill be happy bricklaying, and so i dont actually know what i want to do anymore....
so i gonna look at more apprenticeships say in engineering or you know something decent, so does anybodys works localish to me ( manchester) have any apprenticeships available?
its the skills and training/ certificates that will help me emigrate to aussie
and soi dont know what to do anymore

Josh I wouldnt say you want to get trained so you can bugger off to Australia to a potential employer

[joshwalker094]

of course i wouldnt say that to the employer, but if an future employer is on here, then ignore that part haha

My friend did a course at Coventry in mechanical engineering, then buggered off to Aussie to be a race engineer - this the sort of thing you want?

Depends what you like doing and how important job enjoyment is vs potential income earnings for you.

Would you rather lay bricks or fight fires and cut cars open to save people?!

Bricklaying is a good and honest job. I quite like the idea of seeing something built with my own hands. I found my engineering apprenticeship in the local freebie newspaper although you're probably a bit late for that now as most will recruit in the spring for the September school year.

May I ask, have you been to Oz? I'd love to emigrate there if it didn't get so hot in the summer. I know of a number of people who have returned the first summer in.

[Jayneflakes]

Take a year out and get your college application in for the next academic year.

In the mean time find something that pays and do lots of it, save up as much as you can and then concentrate on the new course when you start. With out sounding too much like a hippy tree hugger, failing your first lot of exams is not always a bad thing. While still at school, I was convinced that I wanted to do engineering which lasted right up until I tried it. I did one year of an engineering course and pretty much knew by the end of it that I was not to be an engineer. So it was back to college and I just started from scratch, taking an environmental science course that was going because it sounded interesting. Five years later I left University with a degree in said subject, combined it with education and became an Outdoor and Environmental Education specialist. Then did Post Grad stuff too. All because I failed in engineering. Not quite so gutting after all of that is it?

Go and get a college prospectus, find a good job and get training. You can never get too old for this stuff, I had friends at my second uni who were about to retire, did not stop them wanting to learn and study though.

[_Stretchie_]

As Baz Luhrmann once said

"Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life.
The most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives.
Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don't."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTJ7AzBIJoI

: )

I think you are with the vast majority of your age group who "don't know what to do". So you've failed a few exams, it's not the end of the world, perhaps they weren't the right subjects for you (what did you choose out of interest?).

Maybe look up some different companies and see if you can shadow people in their real life jobs, to give you a taste of what could be in store. It would be a great way to make contacts too.

As Jayneflakes says, you can take a year out anytime to gather your head together, get some money in your pocket and look at things differently. Maybe aim to work for 6 months at whatever you can get then go and explore this Oz you are so keen to get to.

Oh and don't give up on yourself too easily

[timwilky]

Many a professional engineer would say do not bother.

Engineers are underrated in the UK, the title is used for the monkeys who fix bust washing machines/boilers etc. I got out of mechanical engineering 30+ years ago and never looked back.

However, if you do want to do "Engineering", take a year and resit and then find the right degree course. Once you graduate, then do the hard work such as finding an employer.