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“Miss, I don’t think I want to study medicine any more.”

This is a conversation I’ve found myself having more and more over the past year. Sometimes it’s medicine, sometimes engineering, sometimes architecture – different students have different aspirations, but often the same concern: “Will I still have a job once I’ve qualified?”

For many of today’s students, artificial intelligence has become the catalyst for questioning careers they once felt completely certain about. They tell me they’ve watched videos predicting that AI will replace doctors, engineers, architects and so on. They ask whether careers in technology might not be more lucrative, whether learning how to use AI will give them an advantage and whether they should abandon the professions they’ve always dreamed about because the future is in AI.

Why the change of mind?

As counsellors, we’ve always helped students navigate uncertainty. What’s changed is the nature of that uncertainty. Increasingly, students are questioning careers they genuinely love because they’re afraid those careers won’t exist in the future.

This has changed my own practice. When a student tells me they no longer want to study medicine, for example, my first question is not “What would you like to do instead?”

Instead, it’s much simpler: “What sparked the change of mind?” More often than not, the answer is AI.

That question matters because it shifts the conversation away from the decision itself and towards what is driving it. I’ve realised that not every change of mind is a change of passion – sometimes it’s fear disguised as a career decision.

Unpacking the headlines

Before we start exploring alternative pathways, I first want to understand why students suddenly feel the need to leave a profession they’ve often imagined themselves pursuing for years. My next question is usually: “What makes you think that AI will make this role redundant?”

Sometimes the answer is a YouTube or TikTok video, a headline or something they’ve heard from friends or family.

The good news is that robots aren’t taking over on Monday morning. So I tell my students there is time before they need to abandon what they genuinely love. Then we explore together. We unpack the headlines, discuss the videos and ask better questions.

Instead of asking whether AI will replace doctors, we examine how AI is changing medicine. We discuss what healthcare might look like in five or 10 years’ time, and where human judgement, empathy and decision-making will continue to matter.

Sometimes I ask another question: “If AI didn’t exist, would you still want to change careers?”

It’s a powerful question because it helps students separate genuine interests from fear. Quite often, they realise they aren’t actually falling out of love with medicine – they’re simply anxious about what medicine might become.

I often tell students they don’t need to be afraid of AI but they do need to learn how to embrace it. AI may not take their job – but the person who understands how to work alongside AI will almost certainly have an advantage over the person who doesn’t. That’s a very different conversation.

Rediscovering their purpose

Once we’ve explored their concerns, I ask what is probably my favourite question: “What made you fall in love with medicine in the first place?”

Students often respond by talking about helping people, science, solving problems and wanting to make a difference. Before long, we are no longer talking about AI – we are talking about purpose.

I often think careers nowadays are like little houses – students sometimes imagine AI arriving like a wrecking ball, ready to demolish everything. I see it more as a renovation: the technology changes, new rooms are added, old spaces are redesigned – but it’s still the same house.

Professions are evolving in much the same way. The pathway may change but the passion doesn’t have to. This is where we reinforce adaptability: learning to be comfortable with change, learning how to function through change and learning to adapt to a new norm. This is an incredibly important skill, which students will use for life.

Careers in an evolving world

Once we’ve reconnected with that original passion, we can start exploring what that passion might look like in an evolving world. This is where I find myself talking more about emerging and interdisciplinary pathways – for example, a student who loves medicine and engineering might discover biomedical engineering. Another who enjoys biology and technology may become fascinated by bioinformatics or biotechnology. Others might begin exploring surgical robotics or digital health.

By introducing these pathways, I believe we can help students see that they might not have to choose between medicine and technology or computer science and psychology any more – increasingly, the future is asking them to understand both.

The conversation then changes from “What should I change to?” to “What are my degree and career options within the field?”

To me, that’s a much more hopeful place to be.

Our role is changing, too

These conversations remind me that the counselling profession is evolving alongside the world our students are entering. Keeping up with university prospectuses is no longer enough. I’ve found myself increasingly spending more time learning about AI, robotics, labour market trends, emerging industries and new university degrees, because I want my guidance to reflect today’s landscape, not yesterday’s.

I’ve also realised that being supportive doesn’t always mean agreeing with the first decision a student makes. Sometimes it means slowing the conversation down, exploring, questioning, putting agency back into the students’ hands and helping them understand why they loved a career in the first place before they walk away from it.

Our goal is not to convince every student to remain committed to their original choice – sometimes, after researching, reflecting and exploring, they might feel that another pathway genuinely is the right one for them. That’s a success, too.

What matters is that the decision belongs to the student, not to fear.

In a world where careers will continue to change, perhaps our greatest responsibility is helping students hold on to the passion and goal that inspired them, while having the confidence to adapt the path that gets them there.