Careers: Assessments, Guidance and Choices

While browsing through a career fair the other day, it really struck me what a wealth of tools that kids (and educators!) have for making informed choices. Certainly, compared to whatever may have existed when I was growing up.

I think I talked to my high school guidance counselor once. My interests? Let's see, first I was going to be an astronomer, because I was really into the constellations...until I found out what astronmers really did. Then, OK, I would be an aerospace engineer - cuz weren't those the guys that could help take us to the stars (heeding my 17 year old's inner Asimov)? Until I found out what they did, and I decidedly did not like thermodynamics, materials and all those, well, "aerospace" classes... so I changed majors immediately to Electrical Engineering... after all, that would come in handy for understanding how my stereo worked! ... I even interned ("co-oped") as an instrumentation engineer, but had as much interest in that as I did in materials and thermo - so finally, I switched to Industrial Engineering, that intricate optimization of "manpower, money, materials and machines". That got me a paycheck and some experience chops at Corporation U, but of course that got old and on I went...

Today's students have a cornucopia of tools to guide them... personalized career plans, complete with talking avatars or multimedia interviews, such as CareerCruising's Complete Guidance System ...sure job descriptions could have come right out of the Burea of Labor Statistics, but well they're spiced up and more personalized for the average 16-year old 'edutainment' junkie. And then there's assessment tools for personality types, aptitudes, learning styles... how about a lifelong personalized online portfolio, such as Bridges' Choice Planner ? Some, like Kudor's Career Portfolio, allows students to explore and compare occupations, identify majors, research colleges, build resumes, prepare for interviews, and offer a pipeline/bridge between employers and students (via Connect2Business, provided to employers). Still others, like Paxton/Patterson provide integrated instructional units for different fields - the Gulliver in me was particularly drawn to their "Global Travel" unit with its emphasis on family vacation planning, map reading skills, direction giving, geography, etc.

No doubt, kids' eventual careers will unfold in ways they can't see at present... still, why not get a headstart that appeals to head, heart, and pocketbook? It could save a lot of bouncing around between ill-advised disciplines...not to mention wailing and gnashing of teeth...