"What do you want to be when you grow up?"
Back in elementary school, the answer might've come easily to you — maybe a vet or a pilot, a teacher or chef, a firefighter or nurse. The closer we get to growing up, though, the more there is to consider when it comes to creating a career plan, and we need to ask ourselves...
"What are my interests and skills?"
"What type of work environment will align well with my personality?"
"Do I even know what kinds of jobs are out there?"
"How much education am I wanting or willing to get after high school?"
"Will that career support the kind of lifestyle I hope to lead?"
Rather than simply sit and wonder about these things, I'm here to offer a tool that will guide you through the career planning process: Oregon CIS!
Baker students have access to this website's awesome resources. Simply use the following login information —
username: Baker Web Academy
password: BWA12345
Once logged in, go ahead and create a portfolio. This will allow you to save your career plan as you work on it. When you click on the "Career Plan" tab, you'll see there are three different phases of career planning to explore. I encourage you to work through all the steps, but here are my favorite tools in each section:
1. Interest profiler: this assessment will prompt you to think about whether specific tasks in different career areas are interesting to you; it will help you determine your Holland (or RIASEC) code, which is widely used as a way to find careers that are a good match for you.
2. Occupation sort: want to work inside or out? with people or alone? through this sort, you select the factors that are most important to you in a career in order to narrow down potential jobs that will align with what you want.
3. Reality check: as an adult, you need to pay for housing, food, clothes, transportation, and other items; find out how much money you need to earn to cover your expenses, then find out which occupations support that lifestyle.
So, go! Start creating your plan with these helpful resources and more. The occupations, schools, and scholarships Oregon CIS can uncover might surprise you. Whether you use a few tools or all of them, they're bound to help you get a few steps closer to a career that feels like a great fit.
You've got plenty of time to turn that shoulder shrug into an exciting plan, Amelie, and Oregon CIS is a perfect place to start getting ideas. We would love to help guide you through the career exploration process, too — just reach out to your college & career counselor to set up an appointment!
I am only in 10th grade but this becoming more and more of a soon to be reality, I can't tell you how many people ask me what my plan is and I just shrug my shoulders not knowing or having a plan yet. This article was a bit of an eye opener, I only have 2 years till I need to have a solid plan.