For Old Schoolhouse Crew we received both printed material and access to online functions of the the Discover program from ACT Advantage. Their site describes it as, “.... (a)career planning process (that) begins with a research-based assessment system that allows students to assess their interests, abilities and values—a critical step to building a career plan based on personal strengths. Students can then explore multiple career paths using DISCOVER's up-to-date databases of occupations (including military), majors and colleges.”
My daughter who is middle school helped me take a look at these materials though we plugged in some information for our high school boys too.
We first received a lot of printed pdf material which actually looks like it’s free for download from their site here. This appears to be how to use this in a classroom setting. As typical for us at home it seems to me anyway that things for the “classroom” take much less time at home so we condensed and did some of the information from these pages orally. We did some T/F type sheets about preconceived ideas about particular careers and used questions on worksheets to talk about ideas you’ve heard from your family and society about working. These are obviously geared toward the typical classroom, secular environment but I just adapted as I went.
As we worked through the information (typically condensing and doing 5 or so of the “prepared” lesson in one setting) we’d come to a point where there would be a worksheet I would print like a sheet to write out what job/chores she liked best least and why or thoughts about 1st job she ever wanted to do and what she wants to do now. Then it directs you to go online and check out a particular section related to what you just looked at.
Honestly, it was a bit confusing but I think we did get some good discussion and information from it. We spent a lot of time on the paper information and I’d probably in hind site skip sooner to the information online. Once she went online it was again a bit confusing at first but the career information was very good. The paper parts would be a good place to spend some time if your child still needs some thinking about work, careers, values etc… If they have some solid ideas you might benefit more from exploring specific careers online.
They use a “World-of-Work” map which confuses me a little. It’s supposed to be a pie wedge graph that breaks up careers into segments and places the results of your interest inventory within the proper “pie”. Maybe I’m not visual enough to appreciate this but we did better just using the selections in wording that they tell you were the highest areas.
The biggest plus to this program in my opinion is the career information. When a particular field is recommended you then explore many choices within that area. What I really liked is they give you extensive information about that particular career. Often we’ve done career things that give you a list but then if you don’t know or just have vague ideas of what particular careers are you have to do further investigations. With Discover all your choices and lengthy definitions of what those choices entail and require are just clicks away.
There was only one inventory to complete but the focus here I would say is more on investigating choices. Once you chose a field/career it gives you majors, classes and even lengthy lists of schools that have what you want. As you start investigating you can save your favorites to come back to later.
My boys have better ideas of what they want so we played a bit with this feature. While they do have extensive information on Computer programming (one of my oldest son’s interests) we could not locate specifically computer “game” programming which is what he wants to specialize in. So if you have a “specialty” it may not give everything you need but it does give a lot on the general major of computer programming. It lists high school classes recommended for that particular field which pretty much correspond to other lists we have found.
There are also a lot of screens and help on resume building, interviewing and job seeking as well.
Would I go ahead and do it if I wasn’t reviewing? Yes, I think I would if we needed some direction in that area. Right now we seem to have been checking into a lot of career’s/majors and the kids are pretty confident of what their doing and the plan they have so at this time I wouldn’t but if you’ve got a Jr. High or High Schooler who needs some direction this may be worth checking out. The cost is $19.95 for a three month access. They also have a demo to view on their site.
*Free materials and trial of the site were provided me in exchange for my opinions. | 
