OY Session 6

Achieving goals for your personal and professional life is all about action planning and taking intentional steps to move closer to your destination. It’s a little like forging a path through the woods - it's not always clear, you’ll hit some stumbling blocks along the way, but if you follow the trail, you will get to where you want to go.

Building from the work you’ve completed in the Hats and Ladders app, today you will explore college and career tracks that can help build the path toward your future career goals.

Don’t forget, landing your dream job starts with exploration, so don’t be afraid to DREAM BIG and be open to re-imagining your pathways to success! Check out this video for a little inspiration.

Today you will:

• Understand various post-secondary options

• Identify the skills and credentials for your dream job!

• Reimagine pathways to success

To get started, check out the Peterson's guide, which is a one stop shop for looking for schools. You may not be interested in a college track, and that's totally fine. Some careers have specific educational tracks, skills or credentialing requirements. This is an opportunity to discover, learn more about what types of tracks are out there and the careers they can lead to!

While you’re doing this, remember: you are exploring options. You are not making commitments and you can change your mind later. This is an opportunity to explore your values, the pathways in front of you and the things that interest you the most. Take a look at Portfolio Step 2 before you get started since you will capture important information there.

As you explore the college landscape, use your Workbook to identify three schools or programs you discovered and complete the reflection questions.

You have had the opportunity to explore career paths using the Hats and Ladders App. Let’s put that discovery to use! Identify your dream career. What sector are you in? Do you need to crunch numbers, handle money, write or perform? Building from the work you did in Step 1, what are the skills or credentials you might need to make your dream career a reality?

While you're doing this consider: does my dream job require 4 years of college? What are the core technical skills I will need? Are there programs I can explore now?

Complete the graphic organizer in your Workbook to action plan for the future!