Fairview High School

Post-Grad and Counseling Centers

Search for Self

Introduction – Beginning the Search for Self

Instructions for CollegeInColorado.org

Recommended for exploring interests, college majors, and careers. A personal account and portfolio can be set up.

Instructions for Fairview Family Connection by Naviance

Recommended for personality and learning style assessments. Results are stored with your personal Fairview account.

Books to browse in the Post-Grad Center

List of websites with Personality, Interest, Career Inventories

Extensive list of website resources for personality tests, interest, and career inventories, some free, some fee.

Beginning the Search for Self – Rounded Shoulders or Sitting Tall?

In the next four years students will be graduating from high school and making decisions about what their next steps will be. In order to consider college, technical training, or any kind of higher education students need to know what choices they have and how their own interests, values, and personality can help to choose the education and careers that will eventually be the most meaningful for them. What’s the difference between an unfocused student and a student with a growing vision of where he or she wants to go? Sometimes the difference is just one to two hours in the Post-Grad Center, in the Fairview library. The time is used for an exploration of that student’s uniqueness – his or her gifts, talents and interests.

What makes a student unique and how does it apply to college and career selection?

By the end of sophomore year or early in the junior year each student should plan to complete a college majors survey, an interest survey and a personality test. The three tools create invaluable insight for students to help them in their search for appropriate colleges or appropriate alternatives to college. For most students, projects are built into the Fairview curriculum, which introduce them to the Post-Grad center and related activities. During the freshman year at Fairview, most students, most students are introduced to the Post-Grad center and the many reference materials related to college and career planning. During the sophomore year, interest and personality surveys are built into students’ Language Arts classes. The confidential results are shared only with the students, their parents, their counselors, and the Post-Grad center.

Many students are unaware of the wide variety of college majors and the careers that can result from their study. To complete the college majors survey the student leafs through the book of college major descriptions, trying them on for size and jotting down notes as they go. When they spot a major that interests them as a career possibility, they write it in the first column, “Possible Subject Areas for Careers.” When they come across a major or subject which does not appeal as a career but which holds their interest otherwise, they write it in the second column, “Things I Just Want to Keep in My Life.” Within a mere 20 to 30 minutes, they have built a self-profile. As one student attested, “I thought it might be boring, but I found it interesting and useful.”

Step two is to take a Choices survey, based on John Holland’s research. This helps the student define his or her interests and possible career categories, by asking questions about what the student likes to do. Step three is the Do What You Are personality test, based on the work of Jung, Myers and Briggs, which is a personality survey that profiles human traits. Is the student introverted or extroverted, thinking or feeling, intuitive or sensing, judging or perceiving? The personality test categorizes people into one of 16 combinations of the four variables and provides the student with insight into his or her natural behavior and attitudes.

Combine the results of the majors survey, interest survey and personality test, plus a small dose of positive feedback during a private interpretation appointment in the Post-Grad Center and, voilà, you have a justly proud, sitting-tall student with a much clearer idea of what makes him or her unique. The surveys can then serve as an effective filter when the student begins his or her college search. The goal is to find colleges that offer strong emphases in all of the topics that the student finds of interest (or as many as possible), to afford the greatest flexibility as the student attends college and refines their goals. Second, the boost in self-definition and validation sometimes leads to a heightened motivation to excel in key subjects in high school, in preparation for college.

For parents, please encourage your student to make an appointment at the Post-Grad Center and spend an hour or two getting to know himself or herself well before engaging in an intense college search. They will be glad they did. Two main websites are available to students where a personal account can be set up, personality, interest, and career inventories taken and saved for future reference and for discussion with Fairview counselors. For students who were not exposed to the majors, interest, and personality survey activities in a class, instructions for pursuing these activities are included in the sections on College in Colorado and Fairview Family Connection.

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Instructions for CollegeInColorado.org

College in Colorado is a website where you can set up a personal account, explore interests, majors, and occupations, and store your findings in a personal portfolio for later access and updating.

Create an Account and a Portfolio

· Go to www.collegeincolorado.org.

· Click on “Create an Account” (home page, upper right).

· Fill in all sections of the “Create an Account” form. Make a record of the username and password you choose. Be sure to complete the last section, “Associate a Choices Portfolio.”

· Connect a Choices Portfolio to your account by clicking on “Create a Choices Portfolio now.”

· Click on “Plan,” Click on “Explore Career Options.”

There are three branches for assessment tools: Choices Explorer, Choices Planner, and Career Self-Assesments.

· Choices Explorer offers a first pass at exploring college majors and careers based on short quizzes and connections between school subjects, college majors, and careers. This branch is usually explored during the Geography college project during freshman year. Explore career clusters under both "Work" and "Learn." Try the "Career Finder" under "Work" based on a Holland personality assessment. Avoid the "Major Finder" under "Learn."

· Choices Planner offers a detailed "interest profiler" designed to help identify occupations that match your interests. Other assessments on this branch include a tool to identify occupations that match your work values and various personal attributes.

· Career Self-Assessment offers a Holland personality assessment, "career key," and other tools to help you determine your interests and work values.

Specific Investigations at College in Colorado

What Subject Areas or College Majors Seem Interesting?

· Click on “Plan,” Click on “Explore Career Options

· Click on “Choices Explorer,” Click on “Access Choices Explorer”

· Under “Learn,” look under “Programs and Majors” and look at the majors under each career cluster. You can also browse through majors by using “Your School Subjects”.

· Read about the suggested majors. If a major interests you, click on “Add to Portfolio” (upper right). Now, return to read about other majors by clicking on the “Choices Explorer” link and reenter the list of majors for further exploration.

What kinds of job tasks are interesting to you?

Do you like fixing or making things? Do you like research and investigation? Do you like being very creative and expressive? Do you like helping other people? Do you like business ventures? Do you like organizing and handling details?

· Click on the “Work” tab.

· Click on “Career Finder” and take the survey.

· Circle your three top “Interests” as shown in the first bar graph.

Realistic Investigative Artistic Social Enterprising Conventional

· Circle your four top “Skills” as shown in the second bar graph

Creativity Interpersonal Organizational Leadership

Mathematical Physical Literary Technical

· Read about suggested careers.

· Go back to Choices Explorer by clicking on the “Work” tab.

· Look under “Choose a Career Cluster” and browse by career cluster. Try “Cluster Finder” and “Your School Subjects.” Add interesting career clusters to your portfolio at any time.

Later you can keep investigating this list of careers, conference with your counselor, or come to the Post-Grad Center to find out more about how this interest survey can help you choose a course of study or a career.

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Instructions for Fairview Family Connection Personality and Learning Style Assessments

Overview of Family Connection

· Go to the Fairview website: www.bvsd.org/schools/FairviewHS

· Pull down “Academics” click on “Post Graduate Center.”

· Click on “Fairview Family Connection” in the left column of links.

· Click on the blue title “Fairview Family Connection.”

· In the “Sign In for Returning Users,” enter your bvsd email and a password obtained from counseling.

· Once logged in, there are two links on the left side of the screen: "my personality type" and "my learning style."

· The personality test, based on the work of Jung, Myers and Briggs, profiles human traits. Is the student introverted or extroverted, thinking or feeling, intuitive or sensing, judging or perceiving? The test categorizes people into one of 16 combinations of the four variables and provides the student with insight into his or her natural behavior and aptitudes. A list of potential careers corresponding to the personality type is also provided.

· The learning style survey asks many questions about a student's preferred learning environment and produces a report for the student.

Specific Investigations at Fairview Family Connection

How does your personality influence your choice of major, career, and work environment?

Do you like being with lots of people most of the time? How do you make decisions? Do you like to think through ideas or talk through ideas? Do you like multi-tasking or do you like to do things one at a time? Are you logical? Are you sensitive? Do you like making plans or responding to things as they happen? The answers to these questions about your personality can be indicators of the types of work environment you would enjoy. Try this personality survey and see what you learn about yourself.

· Click on “Personality Type” on the left side of the page

· Read the introduction to the personality survey “Do What You Are.” Answer the questions.

· Read your “PERSONALITY PROFILE” and continue to answer questions about career categories until you come to the “CONFIDENTIAL REPORT.”

· Record your four-letter “PERSONALITY TYPE” here: ____________________

· Read the suggested characteristics and careers.

Later, you can keep investigating this list of suggestions, conference with your counselor, or come to the Post-Grad Center to find out more about how this survey can help you choose a course of study or a career.

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Books to browse in the Post-Grad center

Do What You Are helps students discover career possibilities through the lens of personality types.
Book of Majors, 2nd edition by the College Board lists major areas of study, what careers are associated with the major, what kinds of courses are required, and which colleges have those majors.
Encyclopedia of Careers and Vocational Guidance, 12th edition describes careers in terms of the work involved as well as training required.
Great Jobs series of books for history, english, communications, engineering and other majors, offers self-assessment inventories, descriptions of career possibilities and more.

List of Personality, Career, & Learning Styles Inventories

You can read more about assessment tests at the following two sites: careerchoices.com and Riley Guide. These sites list fee as well as free assessment tests. In the following list, many of these sites will administer free on-line inventories. For some there is a charge for getting more detailed information.

Keirsey Temperament Sorter-II personality instrument: unsure whether or not this is free – needed to develop an account.

http://www.advisorteam.com/temperament_sorter/register.asp?partid=1

Personality100.com

http://similarminds.com/global-adv.html

Myers Briggs Compendium

http://www.teamtechnology.co.uk/myersbriggs.html

Fun education

http://www.funeducation.com/Products/IQTest/

Live career

http://www.livecareer.com/?cobrand=CLEAR

Quintcareers-

http://www.quintcareers.com/career_assessment.html

Librarysupportstaff.com has a variety of websites to choose from

http://www.librarysupportstaff.com/4personaltest.html

Casey Family Programs – This website is devoted to youth and family – it at least advertises free assessments.

http://www.caseylifeskills.org/index.htm

University of Missouri Career Center – This site does not advertise free tests-but it has a great/simple analysis of the Briggs/Myers Interest test

http://career.missouri.edu/students/explore/thecareerinterestsgame.php

Learning Styles on-line – This site advertised learning styles inventories. Some seemed to be free – there is a price to become a member.

http://www.learning-styles-online.com/inventory/

This learning styles test assessment is free and easy to use – It is very basic, but gives some information about your learning style based upon the answers.

http://www.berghuis.co.nz/abiator/lsi/lsiframe.html

This learning style inventory is a print out version – It has scoring and descriptions too.

http://www.rrcc-online.com/~psych/LSInventory.html

This inventory seems to be free – may need to be downloaded and printed out.

http://www.oswego.edu/plsi/taketest.htm

There is a free career test on this website – unsure how broad it is

http://www.projectcareer.com/?code=G71-CPC50701-InterestTest&gclid=CNTlt5Hk35ECFREcagodygNMfQ

This career quiz is very basic – one has to know a little about specific careers first – For example the first question is: I would rather be a wildlife expert OR I would rather be a public relations expert.

http://www.princetonreviw.com/cte/quiz/career_quiz1.asp

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