From Exam Tips to Career Choices: What Young People Search on TikTok

For young people today, the questions about life choices arrive earlier and with far less certainty. What should I study? Which path is worth the time, the cost, the effort? Answers that once passed smoothly from one generation to the next now feel incomplete, shaped for a world that no longer exists. Education routes shift, careers evolve midstream, and long-term security is harder to predict. Faced with this reality, young people are not avoiding decisions—they are approaching them differently.

Contrary to the assumption that social media is used mainly for entertainment or distraction, the way young people search tells another story. Increasingly, platforms are being used to think through life choices, not escape them. Through Search on TikTok, young people look up how others prepare for exams, what different degrees actually demand, what a job involves day to day, and which skills matter beyond certificates. These searches signal a shift in behaviour: social media has evolved into a space for observation and comparison, where lived experience helps young people weigh options and make sense of choices in a world where the old maps no longer apply.

Exam preparation, redefined through search

Exam preparation has become less about mastering content alone and more about managing uncertainty. For many students, the difficulty is no longer just what to study, but how to study effectively in a compressed, competitive environment. Traditional support systems—schools, tuition classes, printed notes—provide instruction, but they rarely show process. Increasingly, students turn to TikTok to fill that gap, not for answers to exam questions, but for visibility into how preparation actually unfolds in real conditions.

What search surfaces is a form of peer benchmarking. Students encounter short videos documenting daily study schedules, subject-specific revision strategies, exam-week routines, and time-allocation decisions. Crucially, these videos are not uniform. Some show intensive, highly structured preparation; others show fragmented study around school, tuition, and family obligations. Some focus on efficiency and prioritisation, others on recovery after falling behind. Taken together, this content allows students to compare approaches, identify trade-offs, and calibrate expectations—something formal instruction rarely enables.

The significance of this shift lies in how it reframes exam preparation. Search on TikTok does not offer a single “best” method, nor does it replace academic teaching. Instead, it exposes the variability of preparation itself. By seeing how different students adapt under different constraints, search becomes a tool for decision-making rather than imitation. It helps students answer a more nuanced question: not what is the right way to study, but what is a workable way to study given my time, pressure, and capacity. 

Education pathways and subject choices in a changing global landscape

Education choices today are being shaped by well-documented shifts in the global economy. New industries in technology, digital services, data, sustainability, and remote work are expanding alongside more traditional sectors, while automation and artificial intelligence continue to alter established professions. As a result, the relationship between formal qualifications and long-term career outcomes has become less linear. Young people are increasingly aware of this, and they are approaching subject and degree choices with a greater emphasis on relevance, flexibility, and future adaptability rather than reputation alone.

This awareness is reflected in how young people use the search option on TikTok. Rather than relying only on prospectuses or rankings, they search for content that shows how different education paths play out in practice. Under broad queries about fields of study, degree types, or post-school options, search surfaces short-form videos from current students and early-career professionals discussing workload, skill application, employability, and transitions into work. Some content compares academic streams or degree routes, while other videos document changes in direction—switching subjects, combining formal education with certifications, or reassessing choices after exposure to industry realities. In this way, search on TikTok functions as a way for young people to observe outcomes and compare trajectories in real time, against a backdrop of labour markets that are evolving faster than formal education systems.

Career curiosity and the rise of “day-in-the-life” content

For decades, insight into professional life was filtered through a narrow set of sources. “Day-in-the-life” features were typically found in magazines, industry reports, or large career websites, offering curated glimpses into select professions. Access to such perspectives was limited, both in scope and frequency. Today, that form of career exploration has become far more widespread and immediate.

Through #LearnonTikTok, young people now encounter first-hand accounts from individuals across a broad range of fields—structural engineers, laboratory researchers, astronomy students, early-career professionals in creative and technical disciplines, and those still in training. These short-form videos document ordinary workdays, learning processes, setbacks, and progression over time. Viewers see not only outcomes, but routine, trial and error, and adjustment. Search surfaces both subject-matter expertise and lived experience, allowing young people to observe the realities of different careers at scale. What was once confined to a limited editorial format is now accessible through search, offering a wider and more representative view of professional life than traditional career guidance ever allowed.

Skill-building as experimentation, not enrolment

Young people today build skills in a fundamentally different sequence than previous generations. Learning no longer begins with commitment; it begins with experimentation. Where earlier generations enrolled in courses first and discovered fit later, young people now use search to test relevance, difficulty, and applicability before investing time or money. This shift reflects a more cautious, strategic approach to learning—one shaped by rapidly changing industries and the rising cost of formal education.

In this context, TikTok plays a distinct role. Young people are not searching only for tutorials, but for context. A student preparing for final exams might look up project management and encounter short-form videos showing how the skill is used in real roles, alongside references to free courses or structured learning resources hosted elsewhere. Others searching for industry-relevant skills are exposed to discussions about what employers actually value—communication, analytical thinking, tool proficiency—often with clear pathways to deeper knowledge beyond TikTok itself. Search therefore acts as a connector rather than a destination, helping young people map learning pathways, assess return on effort, and integrate skill-building alongside exams, degrees, or early work experience in a deliberate, informed way.

More than a search bar…

What this behaviour reveals is not a change in how much attention young people give to social platforms, but a change in how those platforms are used. Search on TikTok has evolved from a way to find content into a tool for evaluating real-life choices. Young people use it to see how exams are managed under pressure, how education pathways translate into work, how careers unfold beyond titles, and which skills carry weight in actual industries. The power of this lies in exposure: search surfaces lived reality at scale, allowing users to compare outcomes, recognise trade-offs, and assess risk before committing time, money, or effort—an advantage once limited to those with privileged access to mentors or professional networks.

This is why Search on TikTok can no longer be viewed as a secondary feature of a social platform. It has become a practical decision-making tool shaping how young people prepare for exams, choose education paths, explore careers, and build skills. In a world where traditional routes no longer guarantee stability, search is less about finding quick answers and more about making informed, better decisions.