Self-Assessment and Career Exploration Tools

Students thinking about university often jump right to “Can I get in?” without spending sufficient time on "What do I want from a university experience?” and "Which kind of university is right for me?"   The first step in identifying which universities would be a good match must start with students themselves.  It is important that students invest some time and energy reflecting on their own interests, learning styles and aspirations as they embark on their university search and application process. Students with a higher degree of self-awareness are better able to determine what criteria would make a college or university a good match for them.  This week Grade 11 students will be meeting with University Advisors to learn about some resources to explore their own interests and potential future careers. Here are some of the online tools we will share.  These resources will be made available to younger high school students over the course of the school year.

FAMILY CONNECTION
Family Connection is the university and career website that is used to manage and track all university applications of UWCSEA students.  It provides a self-discovery assessment called Do What You Are an online questionnaire to help students match themselves to careers and majors or courses of study.   Students can take about 30 – 45 minutes to complete the questionnaire and get immediate feedback.  By clicking on the Explore Careers tab in Family Connection, students can search careers by name or keyword and read detailed profiles of specific careers.  Under Explore Interests, students can complete a Career Interest Profile and identify interests based on Holland Occupation Themes, a system of matching personalities to careers.

CAREERSCAPE
Careerscape is a UK-based careers exploration site where students can learn about many different careers and the courses of study recommended as preparation.  Careerscape includes information on all UCAS Higher Education courses (currently around 50,000). This information is organized by career or by a search facility for keyword, region and type of course.

UCAS
UCAS is the online site students will use when the time comes to apply to universities in the United Kingdom.  Under Course Search, students can see the different kinds of courses of study that are available in the United Kingdom and the increasing variety of joint degree combinations.  Students interested in particular careers can see where in the UK a variety of professional degrees are offered.


We recommend that parents start a conversation with their children about their own career paths and share how their thinking about careers and career preparation has evolved over time.  Many of us are not currently in the career that we initially studied for.  The path to a satisfying and fulfilling career is not usually a straight line, and students will be comforted to know that the decisions they make now about which subject to study or where to enroll in university are not final determinants of their potential for success.