To kick off our Speaker Series, we heard from a valuable source this week. Kasey Witherington, M.Ed., LPC of Healthpoint Center spoke to our group on some ways to determine your plans for choosing a college major. Kasey has experience as a teacher, a school counselor and now is working as a mental health counselor. Her wide range of experience working with young people gives us an opportunity to hear her advice in not only what it takes to be in the fields of education and counseling, but also, the ways to choose your own career paths. Here are some of her tips.
- Pray! Your focus should be on asking God to help you. The first principle you should be looking at is to have an increasingly intimate relationship with Christ. No matter what career field we choose, we have to form a relationship with Him and listen to what He is telling us. Follow our hearts to the talents He has provided. Here is a link to an article about how to let God help with your decision. http://www.crosswalk.com/family/career/making-career-decisions-within-gods-will-for-your-life-1188613.html
- God has created you with an aptitude for specific skills and abilities. We each have skills that we are good at. Look at your talents. Are you good at math? Communicating with people? Are you a people person? Do you love being around children? Listen to the voice within you.
- Being a Christian does not exempt you from the responsibility to become wise decision makers. It is up to us to use our God-given minds to make good career decisions. You may go into one field and realize that you are being led down a different path. Tf you find yourself being led in a different directions or feel that what you chose is not for you, it is not a dead end, just a new path. God will lead you down many different paths in life. Don’t look at this as a failure. Where He closes one door, He opens another. Just be ready to listen for what He is leading you towards.
- You may have to step out of your comfort zone and take a few risks in your decision making. You don’t know what is out there until you try some new things. Realize that it is up to you to research careers through the many sources available. One terrific source is the Occupational Outlook Handbook. This book features salaries and projected job growth for different careers. It is available on Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/Occupational-Outlook-Handbook-2018-2019-Paper-Bernan/dp/1598889761/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1519308707&sr=8-1&keywords=occupational+outlook+handbook+2018-2019
- Go and job shadow. Follow and observe a person as they work their daily routines. It is an excellent way to get a taste of what the job is all about. Check out the environment while you are there. Is it indoors behind a desk all day, while you are an outdoorsy type? What are the people like? What do you have to wear to work there? Is it flexible or an 8-5 job? Do you envision yourself as being happy in this sort of environment?
- Participate in internships or cooperative education programs. One example is the AHEC of LA in our area over the summer months. Here is the application for that program. AOS 2017-2018 APPLICATION[214]
- Volunteer your time in your area of interest.
- Interview people in the line of work you are considering
- take a part-time job to get a good feel for that career
- explore the internet an check out these websites for more information: https://www.careerkey.org/choose-a-college-major/index.html https://www.onetcenter.org/tools.html (for a career test online) https://www.careerkey.org/choose-a-career/holland-personality-types.html#.Woc3vkxFxlY https://regents.la.gov (for La Board of Education information) https://www.osfa.la.gov (for TOPS and FAFSA info)
A FRUITFUL LEGACY 