Step-by-Step Guide For Choosing a Major and Exploring Careers

Step 1: Find out about yourself. Get in touch with your strengths and consider taking a career assessment to learn more about your interests, personality, values and skills. Call 908-835-2300 or stop by Student Services for the code. A word of caution about assessments – they will not tell you exactly what you should do with your life. They will, however, suggest careers for you to explore based on your responses.

Step 2: Generate options. Develop a list of careers to explore based on what you learn about yourself. FOCUS will suggest many possibilities for you to choose from. Your job will be to narrow your choices to a few that you want to research more thoroughly.

Step 3: Gather information. Read about each career and talk to people working in the field. Consider seeking a volunteer or work experience to further explore your choices. The O’Net provides extensive information on hundreds of careers.

Step 4: Select a potential career and meet with an advisor to discuss which major at WCCC will put you on the right path to achieve your goal. You may also view information sheets online for each major to see how careers match with them and where our students transfer to along with related internet resources.

Final Words of Advice

Remember that career choice is an ongoing process and not a one-time decision. Many students change their career goal as they learn more about themselves and about careers. You do not need to know what you want to do for the remainder of your working life! Choosing a college major is not the same as choosing a career. Most majors prepare you for a range of careers that you can be trained to handle; whereas, majors such as nursing, business and education are more specialized and require specific training.