Career Exploration
Your ideal career is where your values, personality, skills, and interests meet. Take career suggestions from friends, counselors, academic advisors, professors, and personality tests and measure them against those four criteria. Meet with a career counselor, mentor, or parent to plan a career trajectory. Take advantage of skills and certifications you can gain while at school. Plan out internship opportunities and decide whether or not further schooling is necessary.
Begin networking to ensure future prospects, especially at school and events like the annual APCC. Once you have decided on a few potential careers, test them out! Seek opportunities to shadow someone on their job, volunteer, or complete an internship. You may not know what you like or dislike until you jump in and try it out.
Consider these questions when choosing a career that is right for you:
SKILLS - What skills do you have? What types of assignments do you do well?
ACCOMPLISHMENTS - What projects are you proud of? How do you stand out?
PERSONALITY - Do you enjoy working with people? Do you prefer situations that favor creativity or structure?
INTERESTS - What could you spend all day doing? What makes you happy? What are your hobbies and interests?
VALUES - Do you need to believe in what you are doing? What careers are compatible with your faith and beliefs?
PRACTICALITY - Is your career of choice compatible with a family? Would you be able to make a living?
If you love what you do for a living...
- Your self-esteem improves
- You will be motivated
- You will become a valued employee
- You earn more money
- Your overall health is better
- You garner more respect
- You have a better home life
- You are more productive
- You have improved mental health
- You can serve others better
People change their majors, work in fields that don’t have anything to do with their major, and make career changes over the course of their lives. Don’t overwhelm yourself by insisting that whatever choice you make now is what you’ll do for the rest of your life.
“The grace of Christ, that same power that helps us do things we otherwise couldn’t, is what will guide us to our callings and enable us to excel in them. You can call upon the grace of Christ to help you with your professional calling. In fact, He pleads with us to do so.” — Jeffrey Thompson