YIU FOREWORD 



There are a good many reasons why it is more difficult 

 for young people to choose their vocations than it was fifty 

 years ago. Society is infinitely more complex, and part of 

 its complexity is reflected in a host of new professions and 

 occupations and specialties, unknown and even undreamed 

 of before the First World War. One has only to think of 

 the airline traffic manager, the specialist in space medicine, 

 the television repairman, the nuclear engineer, the computer 

 programmer, the X-ray technician, the public-opinion ana- 

 lyst, to realize that the list of new calUngs could be extended 

 almost indefinitely. To make matters worse, both the old 

 professions and the new ones require more education and 

 more specialized training than formerly. Not too long ago 

 a young man with or without a high school diploma could 

 become a lawyer after working a few years in a law office 

 and taking the required examinations. Now admission to 

 the bar is usually preceded by four years of college and 

 three years of law school. 



StiU another factor making for an increase in the diffi- 

 culty of vocational choice is the growing tendency to self- 

 analysis among students. Today's students are heirs to some 

 decades of spreading information and misinformation about 

 psychiatry; victims of hundreds of mental tests, projective 

 tests, and aptitude tests; beneficiaries of a deepening con- 

 cern in school and at home about the problems of adjust- 

 ment; and it is no wonder if they hesitate long and painfully 

 before reaching conclusions as to their own abilities, mo- 

 tives, and goals. 



Considering the problems in connection with career 

 choices that all young men and women are facing, and 

 realizing that what they needed most to help them was 

 truly authentic information about the various professions 

 and vocations, I came to believe that a series like this one 

 would be most useful. Discussion with a number of edu- 



