Professional self-determination is the initial stage of professional development and personality formation, a link between general and professional education, an important condition for adequate life self-determination and a successful professional career. The main tasks of professional self-determination are: the formation of a professional orientation and the development of professional self-awareness.

The formation of professional self-determination takes place in unity with a person's life plans, a conscious search for one's place in society, the desire for self-realization and the formation of oneself as a subject of one's own life.

Professional self-determination begins with the choice of a profession, but it does not end there, because a person faces a continuous series of professional choices throughout his life (during vocational training, during specialization, when determining ways to improve skills and creativity, in case of disability or work, etc.). When interpreting the concept of "self-determination", some researchers proceed from the content of the verb "self-determination", which means to realize oneself, one's public interests, to determine one's own existence, one's place in life, in society, to begin to exist independently. According to another interpretation, self-determination is a central factor in the formation of a mature personality, understanding oneself, one's capabilities and aspirations, understanding one's place in human society and one's purpose in life.

In experimental work, using methods, we identified the professional orientation of 1^st year students, studied the state of readiness for pedagogical self-determination, determined the level of interest in the types of pedagogical professions of 1^st year students and identified their areas of interest.

Based on the results of the application of the methods, we have made the following conclusions. Half of the students surveyed have decided on the choice of profession, but there is also a percentage of undecided students. According to the level of interest in the types of professions, students showed a high level of interest in the type of professions "man is an artistic image". The type of profession "man-sign system" aroused the least interest.

According to the choice of areas of interest, most students are interested in entrepreneurship and home economics. The respondents showed the least interest in the field of physics and mathematics. To increase the level of professional self-determination of students, we have developed a course program "Pedagogical self-determination of students", the purpose of which is to form the readiness of future teachers for conscious professional self-determination.