Career Center
for High School Students

Finding a career that fits your interests, needs and values can be simpler if you follow these steps:

• Self-assessment. The Career Key will help you identify your interests, while the List of Careers provides information about careers that may interest you.
• Check out the education required. Some careers don't require any education past high school. Others may require four to eight years of college.
• If you need a college degree, pick a major. Some majors-like engineering-are related to specific careers, but other careers don't require specific majors. If you don't have a career in mind yet, pick a major that interests you. When you decide on a career, you may have to take more classes.
• Pick a school. You'll need to find a school that offers the major you need or want. You'll also want to look at costs. Check out Kentucky colleges on Campus Tours and find out about how to pay for college in the Financial Aid module.

Here are some other things you can do to learn about potential careers:

• Talk with people in those jobs
• Shadow people in jobs that interest you
• Get an internship
• Do volunteer work

If you talk with people in careers that interest you, ask them:

• Did you go to college?
• Did you go to graduate school?
• What was your major?
• What kind of jobs, internships or volunteer work did you take on?
• How did you get your first job in your chosen career?
• How long have you worked in this job?
• What are your main responsibilities?
• What do you like most about your job?
• What frustrates you the most about your job?
• What are your long-term career goals?
• If you could redo your training for this job, how would you better prepare?

Job shadowing is a good way to see what someone does in a career that interests you. Ask someone in a career in which you're interested if you can shadow him or her for a day.

Internships can let you do the jobs you're interested in finding out more about. You might even get a paid internship, which means you can earn while you learn. Check out these websites for more information about internships:

• www.internshipprograms.com
• www.rsinternships.com

Unlike paid internships, volunteer work is something you do for free. Volunteering lets you:

• Help people in need.
• Try out various professions.
• Show that you want to make a difference.
• Build a network of people who may be able to help you in your career.
• Add a huge plus to your résumé.

To find the volunteer work that is right for you, ask yourself:

• What do I care about?
• What problems cause me to say, "Somebody should do something"?
• What touches my heart?
• What skills do I have?
• What skills do I want to gain or improve?

It's not hard to find places to volunteer. You can probably come up with a dozen places right now. Many communities have a volunteer agency that can match you with a position where you can help others and yourself. Or you can check out these websites:

• www.americaspromise.org
• www.volunteermatch.org
• www.idealist.org