June 2001
The nextSTEP Magazine
"Be In Charge"
Learn how to come out ahead as you make plans for your future

By Dr. Jim Malone
Director of Career Counseling ReadyMinds

High school students facing the college and career decision-making experience can find themselves with feelings ranging from excitement and curiosity to dread and paralysis. Are you looking forward to exploring these possibilities, or do you feel like you are staring down the barrel of the process?

Everybody has expectations. Parents are concerned about where you will study, what careers your major will lead to and how much it will cost. Counselors and teachers ask you questions to which you may not yet have answers. Your friends may appear to be a little ahead of the game or at times as confused as you are. Every day there is more mail from colleges inviting you to consider why their school is the perfect place. Magazines and newspapers feed the frenzy about competition for college admission.

There are various degrees of student readiness with regard to career and educational planning. Some common comments about the process include feeling overwhelmed by the decisions you'll have to make. Some students suffer from information overload. They've read so much and researched so many schools that they don't know how to narrow down the possibilities. Some people are insecure about getting into school. Some are concerned about money. And others wish they'd focused more on grades in high school. Chances are that you can relate to at least a few of these concerns. Don't worry. It's expected that you will experience a degree of confusion and indecision with respect to some of these questions. After all, college and career planning are by nature inexact and uncertain activities. At the same time, you don't have to operate in panic mode!

Understanding these feelings

If you look to the core of what is influencing your reactions to colleges and careers, the issue of being "in control" might come to the top. When we feel overwhelmed or anxious or confused, it is often an appropriate reaction to not being able to orchestrate events the way we would like. Let's face it-there are factors in the college and career-selection process that are partially or substantially out of our control.

For example, you can't influence how many of your peers apply to your top-choice colleges. Nor can you reconstruct admissions policies determined by college administrators. And wouldn't it be great if you could somehow unravel in a few quick steps the mystery of making a decision about a college major and career path?

The good news is that you can do something to gain an advantage over these variables. Substantial research in the counseling field provides evidence that insightful self assessment linked to thorough exploration and research leads to solid career decisions and effective self marketing for college and career placement. That is quite a mouthful! Let's break this into bite-size pieces.

Engage in honest and insightful self assessment …

Self assessment means asking yourself about your interests. What do you really like to do? What about your skills, the things you do well? Sure, academics count, but also think in terms of being a good listener, a creative problem-solver, someone who can take a risk at the right time or communicate effectively. Values are important as well. What really matters and motivates you? When looking at a college, consider the strength of its programs, the overall atmosphere of campus, the school's size, location, costs, credentials, diversity and special-learning programs available.

The challenge is in accessing answers to these questions. Three sources come to mind. The first is what we call expressed. When someone asks, "What are you looking for," see what comes immediately to mind. What do you say in response? A thought-out answer usually represents that you are aware of the issue and can take your response seriously.

Another way of getting at this information is to observe and analyze how you use your time and the activities to which you devote yourself. This approach is referred to as manifest, because your actions show what you like to do. Leadership positions and volunteer service are activities that can be good indications of your future directions. Feedback from family, friends or faculty also invites us to consider talents we might nurture.

The third way to determine your values is through measured evaluations, such as interest surveys or skill analyses. These are usually most effective if assisted by a trained counselor who can help you interpret your results.

Try to integrate the mosaic of results from these three approaches, expressed, manifest and measured, into conclusions. What do you do with these conclusions? Read on.

Conduct research and explore your options to help make decisions …

This step is probably the most challenging and most useful of the process. If you link your assessment findings to guided exploration and research activities, you will find your decisions begin to emerge naturally. What kinds of research sources can you access for college and career planning?

Strategies fall into three categories: print, media and in-person research. Go to your local library and be amazed by the number of publications that inform you about every aspect of choosing, getting into or financing college. Lots of books provide narrative and inside information about professors, lifestyle and academic majors at various schools. You will also uncover numerous resources that give you solid information about career fields and specific jobs within the fields.

Even more convenient and current is the electronic treasure trove of information available on the Internet. School guidance offices have lists of the most popular or useful Web sites from which you can access almost limitless sources. Up-to-date information, applications, chat opportunities and student newspapers are all available on each college's Web site.

To complete the exploratory resource list, consult the scores of people willing to help you figure out what you want in your college and career search. This list includes school counselors, employers and internship supervisors, family, friends and current college students. Forming a trusting relationship with your school counselor and any of these interested individuals will provide you with meaningful support. Campus visits, career days, job-shadowing experiences and information interviews can complement and clarify the print- and Internet-supported information you have already gathered. In today's electronic world, it's hard to find an excuse for not being informed.

This information will help your decision-making process. You may find your style puts emphasis on being analytical and objective. Or perhaps you prefer to decide more intuitively, trusting a gut-level feeling that this college is going to work. Whatever your choice style, ensure a more accurate and satisfying outcome by doing thorough exploratory research.

Designing and implementing your action plan…

You might have heard the phrase, "doing the work of the decision." That may sound a bit strange, because we sometimes think of decision-making as an intellectual activity. The real work of having made a decision, however, is in its implementation, taking the steps to make it happen. This is where research and your own experience tells us that better results are more likely if you have an explicit action plan.

Write down your potential majors, along with the resources you intend to consult. Pick a target a date to finish recording your findings. Make a route map of the schools you want to visit with specific, rank-ordered criteria by which you will judge the schools. Plan the trip with appropriate evaluation lists. If you are in the midst of filling out college applications, get an overview of the essay questions required. See if any questions are similar. Chances are that you can reduce your number of essays by doing some creative editing. Action plans give you control over the process, as well as a comfort level. It makes you less stressed, and this is good for you and everyone involved.

Seeking helpful support…

One of the least helpful strategies in working through a challenging and complicated life-decision is to "go at it alone." That can intensify your uncertainty and frustration. But there's lots of assistance available for students on several levels. First, there's informational help. Let a trained counselor help you understand the advantages of managing your college admissions test scores (SATs and the ACT) to your best advantage. Determine which test is right for you, what scores to release and when. At the same time, be patient with the ambiguity about admission decisions. Informed and experienced counselors will tell you that at the most competitive level, college-admission decisions are at best difficult to predict. But keep in mind, that there are hundreds and hundreds of wonderful colleges out there.

The college-admission process runs the risk of reinforcing the dangerous message that your success is measured in standardized-test results and designer-education labels. Sure, academic success matters and your parents and teachers have every right to expect you to work hard. But the power of learning exists within you. Your ability to question, think critically, challenge appropriately and make things happen is what your education is all about. Take charge of your future as you prepare to make your transition to the next step!

Dr. Jim Malone has been a career and educational placement counselor in high schools and in private practice for 30 years. He has also been a counselor educator and trainer on the graduate level at several universities. He has been involved with ReadyMinds for over four years now. E-mail him at jim@readyminds.com.