Career Assessment Program

• Find direction on choosing/ confirming your major
• Identify your interests and personality style
• Identify resources for exploring your career and graduate school option

Choosing A Major

Your choice of a major will have a profound effect on you undergraduate years at CSUCI. However, in most cases it will not have a life-long impact. Most graduate schools are open to considering applicants from a wide range of majors, as longs as you have taken certain prerequisite courses. Most employers are also open to hiring from a wide range of majors. While college is organized by major, companies are not. Many students ask "What are my job options for X major?" While some jobs-engineering, accounting, and computer science, for instance– do require specific majors, most jobs– advertising, human resources, sales, media– have no major requirements for employment.

In choosing a major you need to consider just two factors: what are you interested in and what are you good at? To begin this determination use our computer application called:

Career Cruising

This program, installed in one of the computers at Career Services, will ask you a short series of questions and offer you a range of majors that seem to fit your interests. This is an excellent way to start identifying possible majors for your short list.

A major that holds your interest and enables you to maintain a good GPA is a good one. Here are the steps to finding a major that meets these criteria.

• Read the CSUCI Catalog. Research which majors demand more units that others, which have pre-major requirements, review course content, etc. For example you might learn that courses in psychology tend to focus more on cognition/ perception and less on counseling than you expected.
• Talk to everyone: students, undergraduate advisors in the departments you’re considering, parents, friends, faculty, and alumni. Collect opinions, ideas, input.
• Spend an hour in the CSUCI Bookstore. skimming textbooks required for upper division classes in majors you are considering. Do they seem interesting? Do you think you would enjoy and be challenged reading them?
• Audit one or two meetings of upper division courses. in majors you are considering during the first week of the semester. (Lower division courses are often a poor barometer of a major.) How are the professors? Is the syllabus interesting?
• Talk to a career advisor or to an academic advisor. Review what you have found in the work you did above and together you will be able to choose a major that will work for you.

Choosing A Career

People these days tend to have 5 to 7 careers during the course of their lives. Instead of staying with a career that has lost its challenge, you will probably move on to more interesting opportunities. So, in thinking of your first career out of college, don’t expect that it will last forever– maybe a few months to several years at most. You will certainly change and develop after you leave college and start in the work force and you should expect your career interests to change also.

1. Define your interests. The best predictor of career satisfaction is finding a career that matches your interests. To identify your interests, take the:

   Career Occupational Preference Survey (COPS)

   The COPS is designed to help you in planning your career. The first step in career planning is to define the kinds of work you are interested in doing

2. Match your job to your personality. Now that you know where your interests lie, identify those aspects of your personality that you would like supported and challenged in your work. For and overview of your personality style, take the:

   Myers Briggs Type Indicator

   The MBTI is one of the most popular assessments on the market to gain a quick understanding of personality variable to consider as you research your career options. Like the COPS you must sign up for an Assessment workshop or make and appointment with a career counselor in order take this assessment.

   Taking the COPS and MBTI make a good package: the COPS tells you in which fields to do your career research; the MBTI tells you what to look for. To gain access to this service come in and talk with someone at CDS.

3. On-line testing Options:
   • Eureka: A program in the CDS computers which offers skills & interests inventories. You can compare your results to various career alternatives. (come to the Career Center for password to access from home)
   • Career Cruising: Career Cruising has been designed with one goal in mind: to help your students plan their future. With exceptional assessment tools, detailed occupation profiles, and comprehensive post-secondary education information, students move seamlessly through the career exploration and planning process. At the same time, you have access to the real-time information and statistics you need to track your students' progress and achievement. (come to the Career Center for password to access from home)

Choosing A Graduate School

To get you started in the task of determining which graduate school is best for you, use the computer program:

Eureka

EUREKA enables you to select parameters such as degree program geographic location, public/private, etc., and will give you a list of schools that match your criteria. From there you can link directly to the school for direct information.