Career Exploration

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Career Exploration

• A Guidance Counselors Guide to the College
  Process Through the Use of Technology
• By Krista Shadle-Smith

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What Your Counselor Can Do For You

• Scholarship information
• College searches and requirements
• Identifying your skills and interests
• College visits
• Financial aid information
• SAT and ACT preparation
• Help in developing a career plan
• Application procedures

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Scholarships

• Scholarships give students FREE money
• Sign-up on many sites to browse through available
  scholarships, such as http//www.scholarship-page.
  com/
• Browse according to your individual
  characteristics on sites such as
  http//fastweb.monster.com/
• See your counselor for other scholarship web sites

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The College Search Process

• Your counselor can help you pinpoint college
  information.
• The sites http//www.princetonreview.com/?popupno
  and http//overview.com/colleges/ , allow you to
  perform a college search according to majors and
  interest areas.
• If you are looking for value for your buck,
  then the site http//www.usnews.com/usnews/rankgui
  de/rghome.htm will be helpful in your college
  search.

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Identify Your Skills and Interests

• Through the use of computer technology you can
  research and explore your skills and interests
  through the completion of interest and abilities
  inventories.
• The students in our school have access to the
  Discover program, which helps them explore and
  pinpoint careers and schools that appropriately
  fit their needs.
• Many other inventories are available for free.

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CAREER INVENTORIES

• Career inventories are
• useful for getting to know
• yourself better. Students
• can answer questions
• that will help them to find
• out what they enjoy and
• what they do well.

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College Visits

• Students can take off two days from school to
  visit colleges.
• Your counselor can be helpful in setting up an
  interview with a college admissions counselor.
• Guidance counselors are a great help in
  developing your interview skills prior to college
  visits.

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Financial Aid Informationhttp//www.fafsa.ed.gov/

• The FAFSA website is available for students to
  create and observe account information.
• It is necessary for students to apply for
  financial aid assistance before they start
  college and throughout their college stay.

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SAT and ACT Preparation

• Your counselor can provide you with test dates
  for the SAT or ACT tests.
• Booklets are available for test ideas and
  practice questions.
• SAT and ACT scores will be added to your
  transcripts.

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Developing A Career Plan

• It is important to develop a career plan to help
  guide you through your college process.
• The site http//www.mapping-your-future.org/ will
  help guide you through the steps needed to reach
  your career goal.

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Application Procedures

• On-line application sites are time savers during
  the application process.
• If you plan to apply to more than one college you
  can save your application information on sites
  such as http//www.applyweb.com/aw?passhe and
  http//www.commonapp.org/.

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Ease The Exploration Process

• You and your family should always feel like you
  can go to your counselor with any questions or
  frustrations.
• The college process requires many steps, but your
  counselor can help to make this period more
  manageable.
• Take life by the horns and go after what you
  want.
• For additional college information visit my
  website http//www.angelfire.com/journal2/kshadle
  14/