College Board Reflective Essay
The College Board document encourages college counseling and career counseling to be integrated in a program of instruction that starts in elementary school. College and career counseling at elementary school! At first thought this seems too early. However, the skills needed to be effective in the workforce require a solid foundation in reading, writing and basic math. These basic skills are all learned in elementary school and are essential in a modern economy. In the 21st Century the journey into a career can be far more complicated and starting college and career counseling early is becoming essential. My career search would have greatly benefited from having received career counseling earlier. When I graduated from college, I had
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not received any career counseling and this caused difficulties in my search for enjoyable and productive employment. Good grades in college, and successfully completing school in four years, were not enough to prepare me for the confusion of what to do with my BA in history. I chose a major based on my interests, but I didn’t know how this major would be useful in a career. Now that I am a teacher, I use what I learned as an undergrad on a daily basis. However, at the time I graduated I had never considered being a teacher. Good career counseling starting in elementary school may have helped me discover teaching as a career in my 20’s instead of the age of 36.
The College Board’s Big Future website has been very useful for me in helping students to search for colleges.
However, I have not used this website to help students in their career search. As I compared the College Board’s website with the ACT site, I noticed a lack of interest inventories on the College Board site. This is in contrast to the ACT site that has two inventories that can be completed online and provide instant feedback on what careers most fit the information the student provided. My goal for this coming school year is to provide career counseling in conjunction with college counseling. The ACT website provides a more effective platform for career counseling because students can quickly complete the interest surveys and use the results to help narrow their career search. The California Colleges website also provides an interest survey similar to the ACT that can be taken without registering for an account. The results of ACT inventory can be compared to the California College survey to see if the results seem consistent. The California College interest inventory can be more easily used with students in middle school and elementary because it does not require registration and uses very simple
questions.
not received any career counseling and this caused difficulties in my search for enjoyable and productive employment. Good grades in college, and successfully completing school in four years, were not enough to prepare me for the confusion of what to do with my BA in history. I chose a major based on my interests, but I didn’t know how this major would be useful in a career. Now that I am a teacher, I use what I learned as an undergrad on a daily basis. However, at the time I graduated I had never considered being a teacher. Good career counseling starting in elementary school may have helped me discover teaching as a career in my 20’s instead of the age of 36.
The College Board’s Big Future website has been very useful for me in helping students to search for colleges.
However, I have not used this website to help students in their career search. As I compared the College Board’s website with the ACT site, I noticed a lack of interest inventories on the College Board site. This is in contrast to the ACT site that has two inventories that can be completed online and provide instant feedback on what careers most fit the information the student provided. My goal for this coming school year is to provide career counseling in conjunction with college counseling. The ACT website provides a more effective platform for career counseling because students can quickly complete the interest surveys and use the results to help narrow their career search. The California Colleges website also provides an interest survey similar to the ACT that can be taken without registering for an account. The results of ACT inventory can be compared to the California College survey to see if the results seem consistent. The California College interest inventory can be more easily used with students in middle school and elementary because it does not require registration and uses very simple
questions.