Nurse, Teacher, Miss America, Sales Clerk, and Occupational Therapist.  Throughout my childhood, these were my careers of interest.  As I worked my way through high school and college at our local Christian bookstore, sales was a definite possibility.   However, since both parents were teachers and I seemed to always gravitate to educational activities by teaching in the children’s division of our local church by the age of 12 and grading for my high school math teacher, teaching became my choice.  Taking an online career planning program was unnecessary for me, however, some young people would do well to spend some time strategizing  their future.  So many youth think more about money, rather than what job they will actually enjoy.  Others enter college still not having a clue what to take.  DISCOVER, ACT’s (Yes, the ACT that some take for a college entrance exam.) online career planning program will help them start planning NOW, long before college tuition needs to be paid.  DISCOVER should

*Identify strengths and needs with various assessments.

*Build a plan based on their personal profile.

*Explore occupations, majors, and schools.

*Build an education plan that relates to career plans.

*Improve job-seeking skills and develop a resume.

Sounds intense, right?  Fairly simple to navigate, DISCOVER begins with assessment inventories.  The primary purpose of this early stage career planning is to give options.  The Interest Inventory asks them to choose whether they like, dislike, or are indifferent to activities like “Studying biology”,  “Composing or arranging music”, or “Build a picture frame”.  Another asks them to rate themselves on their competency compared to others their age in  “Your ability to help people feel at ease; to be courteous, pleasant, or informative; to remember names and faces.”  No questioning “Do you want to be a nurse?” here.  After the inventories are completed DISCOVER then shows the student interest areas of occupation in a “world of work map”.  My son’s plan seemed to be very accurate, except for winemaking.  LOL    My math-hating daughter’s was somewhat accurate except for when it encouraged her to try out fields of engineering.  Then the student looks into their career fields and if this interesting to them, he puts it into a “My Favorites” section.  He can click on the occupations in each field and “favorite” them, also.  As each section is explored, the printable career portfolio begins to be built for the student. 

Exploring the occupations, majors, and schools was fascinating.  Many search options are given in each area.  Colleges from all over the United States are listed with addresses, phone numbers, costs, offered majors, extracurricular activities, etc.  I found out that the college they probably will attend requires a GPA of 3.41 and which high school classes are required.  General information is given on many, many majors.  General characteristics a person should have for success in the chosen major is listed.  Studying the occupation section helps the student to see:

Work Tasks and Settings

Abilities Needed

Training Necessary

Salary, Size & Growth Possibilities

Other Characteristics Wanted

Hot Occupations show what jobs are the fastest growing, have the most openings, and give the highest salary.  This was interesting to me because I knew many students who took English or History and then did not know which career to follow.  Being able to see the fastest growing and most open careers seems like a great place to begin.  I plan to have them print out any of their favorite occupations just as a reference point for their high school study.  Starting to build the education plan NOW will help the student take high school classes in his interest areas.  I have seen that my daughter needs to take all the creative classes that she can-Writing, Art, Web Design, but also many science classes and not just the required two of her chosen college.  My son needs to read all he can on computers and take Accounting.

All this information is great, but what about the real purpose-finding a job?  DISCOVER discusses job applications, interview skills, cover letters, resume building, internships or apprenticeships, and much more.  Samples of resumes and cover letters are shown. 

Another plus in this subscription is that a complete career planning curriculum guide of 260 pages can be downloaded for use in a co-op, classroom, or home situation.  This is very much geared to a classroom, but could be adapted most easily to a co-op class for 8^th grade and higher.  I am not planning to go through the entire curriculum with my 8^th graders, but there are some activities that I could use.