Career Orientation for Youth in the Context of Their Vision of the Future

The aim of the article is to substantiate the applicability of the subject-­existential approach in assumptions about the future as the methodological basis of the research, as well as to empirically investigate the career orientations of young people in the context of future visions. The subject-­existential approach is the continuation and development of the subject approach. The ability to design the future in this approach is an important determinant of personal resilience; the problem of career guidance in the context of attitudes to the future is seen as the expansion of the personality; the image of the future is the living space of the individual in which it continues to exist. Research procedure and methods. The authors have empirically revealed the types of young people’s ideas about the future and studied the characteristics of youth career orientations paying special attention to career orientations of young engineers-­specialists and to those who study to be an engineer. The study involved 97 young engineers and 92 engineering students. Based on the results of the study, the authors have identified four types of personality attitudes to the future: ”optimistic”, “conservative”, “uncertain”, and “dangerous”. In accordance with this typology of ideas for the future, the peculiarities of the career orientations of young people have been revealed. The study of career orientations among engineers-­specialists and engineering students has revealed the same trends as in the General sample; yet, the future seemed mainly optimistic for the former and uncertain for the latter. Accordingly, the dynamics of professionalization is linked to the change towards greater certainty and positivity in the future. The results of the study could be used for social and economic forecasting of the development of the region for it is necessary to know how young people view their future and how their life plans are related to the future of the region and the country at large.