If you are entering your final years at school and you are reaching that crucial stage in which you try to decide what kind of profession you would like to go into when you leave, you will undoubtedly be experiencing some confusion and anxiety.

If you feel that your skills base could be useful in a sector like the built environment, you will need to begin streamlining your life choices and preparing for your chosen career at a fairly young age.

In order to be accepted into a course of study focussing on engineering or architecture, for example, you will need to study a very specific range of subjects for your final exams. Unlike students who are keen to be a Web Designer or marketers, you need to start planning your future from about mid adolescence.

In addition, this kind of career path involves enormous responsibility: civil engineers build structures like bridges and tunnels, for example, on which thousands of people depend every day. Because it is crucial that you get everything right, in this sort of profession, you can expect your years of training and studying to be fairly trying.

Ultimately, however, if the built environment really is your passion in life, you will find that all of this planning, preparation and work will have been worth it.