STUDENT ENGAGEMENT:

Every student’s career goals are different. Even if some students share the same destination, the paths they choose to pursue their goals will differ, and their reasons for choosing a specific career will likely not be the same. This is how things are supposed to be. Everyone brings different interests, skills, values and passion to the table. If a person wants to be successful in their career, they must take all of these into consideration when exploring career paths.

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The students in this class have already done some work exploring career paths. Take a moment to engage the class in discussion of their career interest areas and reason for choosing these.

Based on your exploration of different career options, do you have ideas about future careers that
interest you? Who is willing to share? (Encourage students to share based on time available.)
 

DIGGING IN:

Distribute the What You Want to Be/What You Wanted to Be sheet to the students. Ask the students to find the line at the top that says, “NOW” and write a career that they are interested in pursuing right at this moment. If a student is undecided, have them list one career that they may be interested in. If a student insists that they don’t know, ask them to list any career that they have explored. 

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Then, have students think back to when they were young children (maybe 5 years old), and list on the bottom line labeled “5 YEARS OLD” a career that they were interested in when they were younger. If students say that the career that they were interested in at 5 is the same, ask them to consider another career that they may have thought about. If a student says that they don’t remember or that they didn’t think about careers at 5, ask them to consider a career that interested them when they were younger (at any age, not just age 5). The most important thing here is that students are able to list two careers that they have been interested in at different points in their lives.

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Explain to the students that all career paths are different, but that there are similarities between them as well. Even though you might be interested in a career path that is very different than the careers that interested you at 5 years old, there are likely SOME similarities as well. These similarities can help us understand a little more about the interests, passions, skills and values that direct us along our career pathways.

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Explain that they will be starting with looking at the differences between these two careers. In the larger areas of the circles, they will list the things about the careers that are different. These might be related to the tasks that you do in these careers, skills or knowledge that is important, abilities or the environment you work in. For example, if I wanted to be a firefighter at age 5,  but now I want to be a nurse, the difference might be the physical activity. As a firefighter I would be engaged in high levels of physical activity. As a nurse I would engage in a medium amount of physical activity. Allow the students 3-5 minutes to list their differences.

 

Next, explain that they will be listing similarities between the two careers in the area where the two circles meet. These similarities might be related to the tasks that you do in these careers, skills or knowledge that is important, abilities or the environment you work in. Coming back to the previous example, my interest in being a firefighter at 5 years old is similar to my interest in being a nurse today, because both of these careers require people to work well under pressure. Allow students 3-5 minutes to list similarities.

Once students have had a chance to list 3-4 differences and 3-4 similarities, ask for a few (3-4 students) to share with the class. Explain that even though it has been some years since they were young children, there were certainly reasons that they were interested in specific careers when they were 5-year-olds. It could be related to their personal values, their interests, or skills, but many of these qualities do not necessarily change (or change significantly) as we grow. Many of these similarities can still be useful in driving students’ career exploration efforts over the next year and well beyond.

 

INTO ACTION:

Students’ areas of career interest may change over time. That is not just okay, it actually shows growth and development.

Having a good idea of what your interests and skills are is essential in this work of finding the right career fit. Today, students will be backtracking just a bit to do a very quick and easy career inventory, but this time we’ll be framing this exploration in the context of our Portfolio project. We will be exploring what students’ dreams for their future career will be.

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To begin with, we want to put in the work to truly explore what careers will be the best fit. Students will be logging onto the Indiana Career Explorer website and completing the quick assessment. The process is simple and one that students should be familar with. The assessment will ask the students about a number of different types of work activities. Students choose how they feel about doing the work described. Students can access this assessment at: intoolkit.com/inventory.

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Students should focus on answering each of the questions carefully to reflect their likes and dislikes. Special care should be taken to explain that the “don’t care” button is NOT a negative choice. Instead, this option means that students would be fine with doing the work, even though it may not be their favorite choice.

After students have completed the assessment, results will show their top three career clusters based on their answers. Students will record these three on the top lines of the Career Interest Reflection sheet. After they have recorded their top three career clusters, ask the students to log onto onetonline.net. In the blue box on the left hand side, they should click on “Career Cluster.” Then, they can begin exploring their top three career clusters from the dropdown menu. Choosing a cluster and clicking “browse” will allow students to see a long list of careers within their clusters. Each career is a link with much more information about each career. Students should be encouraged to explore careers that interest them within each of their top clusters.

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These may be skills that students listed on the What You Want to Be/What You Wanted to Be sheet previously, but can also be skills that students are identifying for the first time. Students should list one of their personal skills that they think would help them be successful in each of the three career clusters identified in the assessment. Finally, students will think about each of their three career clusters and, for each one, list a career that they think would fit within that cluster and that they think would be a good fit.

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After students complete their Career Interest Reflection sheet, they should take time to watch the short overview videos for each of their top three career clusters. Links to these videos can be found at the top of their Career Interest Reflection sheet. Students can make changes to the answers they’ve already recorded based upon what they learn in the videos, but are not required to.