Tip #1-- Simplfy!

Starting a college search? Keep your strengths and interests in mind.

This advice sounds rather basic, but surprisingly many students don't think about their college search this way. If you don't think about what you're good at, it's easy to become confused and feel completely overwhelmed when thinking about what to do with your life. In today's tough economy, it's just downright scary!

As a high school Career Guidance Specialist I suggest to almost every student, before you start pouring through mounds of college websites and countless glossy brochures, start first with a quick career assessment. It's alright to not know exactly what you want to do as a career, but by now, most high school students already know what they like and don't like to do; if you're a parent, I bet you've been getting this input for a while now from your teenager. The internet has countless of free career assessments that can be easily taken. The initially revealed options may not set one's heart on fire, yet anyway, but it might give some insight as to what would be a natural fit. There's a chance a young adult's future career hasn't even been invented yet, but a student can at least develop an idea of what area or "industry" might be a good fit. From there, cultivating some idea of what type of education or training would complement a career goal is now a small step in the right direction, versus a blind leap into the unknown.

So students, even if you think you know what you want to study or have a preconceived career goal in mind, just do an assesment to verify your ideas. You might be surprised at what turns up on an a simple test. Parents, go over your son or daughter's results. It's fascinating to see how much they might resemble their mom or dad in their strengths and interests. So go ahead, get started, then lauch the college search from there. I've chosen a local Community College in Orange County, CA (Saddleback Community College www.saddleback.edu) that has posted on their website their login information to the following career exploration site.www.careercruising.com type in Saddleback for username and 92692 for your password. Happy cruising!