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In this chapter you learned about the building blocks of academic and career planning, including the importance of refining your plans as you continue to gain experience and insights about yourself. Review the following key ideas and consider how you might use them to develop sound but adaptable plans for success as you go through college and take steps along a career path.
Understanding yourself — your interests, values, and skills — helps you identify areas of study as well as lines of work that you may find rewarding.
Taking an interest inventory can help you clarify your interests. Gaining experience in different jobs and work environments can help you define your work values, which can change over time. In assessing your skills, it’s helpful to distinguish between specialized skills and transferable skills.
An academic plan is a roadmap showing the steps you’ll take to complete a degree or certificate. Most academic plans involve declaring a major and completing both college major and general-education requirements. An academic adviser (and others on campus) can review your plan and help you refine it as needed and ensure that you meet critical deadlines, such as the deadline for declaring a major.
To investigate potential careers, you gather information about the available options and how they match up with your interests, work values, skills, and academic goals. You can gather information using the O*NET; talk with experts such as career counselors and people currently working in jobs that interest you; gain experience through service learning, co-op, and internship programs; and find employment.
Career planning doesn’t end when you graduate and start working. As your interests, values, skills, and goals change, you may change your plans several times to continue building a rewarding professional and personal life.