When you are trying to get your child into college, getting a place seems like the be-all and end-all. However, the bigger picture is that college, while a formative time in a young person’s life, is a stepping stone to securing a role in their desired career field. Indeed, your child will still need support with this as they navigate their way through college. Read on to find out how you can help.
Continue reading Creating a Career PlanTag Archives: career
Preparing for a Future Career by Choosing the Right Courses in College
Some students find that choosing a career can be a complicated process. If your student is about to graduate from high school and heading off to college, they should be armed with the best college courses to take to prepare for a future career. Let’s take a look at some of the options:
1. Biology
Biology degree programs expose students to the plants, animals, people, and thus the ecosystems in which they thrive. For anyone with a general interest in science, a biology program offers many opportunities. This will help you get into more specific areas of study that you might not have considered before. Biology classes also tend to be very hands-on and attract people with natural problem-solving skills.
Continue reading Preparing for a Future Career by Choosing the Right Courses in CollegeThe Pros and Cons of a Digital Career
With the Millennials and Generation Z becoming more and more tech-savvy, there’s no doubt that a digital career is something most young people could consider. After all, in a world where people buy, talk, and organize their appointments through the simple principle of clicking their way through the web from their smartphone, now is the best possible time to embrace a digital career – or to study towards one. However, before encouraging your kids down to the path of digital technology, it’s probably a good idea to consider the advantages and inconveniences of studying for a digital career. Given the current costs of studies – including tuition fees and the cost of living – it’s important that you know whether this is the right decision for your child.
#1. Digital careers are trendy
With most things living in the digital sphere nowadays, you don’t need to think for long to understand how trendy digital careers are. While some digital careers seem to have fallen into oblivion, there are still career paths that continue to thrive despite the constant changes in the digital technology. For instance, careers that relate to security, and especially the analysis of potential risks and identification of targets for hackers, are a staple of the digital industry. As long as the information exists online, there will be cybercriminals. Additionally, careers in data management continue to attract newcomers, because it’s a never-ending path. Indeed. With the growth of the Internet of Things, companies collect more and more data, which needs to be interpreted and organized in a meaningful way for business intelligence processes. Data is only valuable if it can be read and understood for future decisions. Additionally, careers that specialize in the design of technology, either from a product’s perspective or in the nano branch will impact on the evolution of our economy and health system in future years.
#2. High-end skills are expensive
However high the demand is for specific digital skills, it seems that the study costs are following the same pattern. In fact, it’s not uncommon for students to struggle with credit debts as they try to manage their tuition fees, the cost of living and the cost of studies equipment. As repair.credit notes, the most effective way to tackle your finances is to accept the debt and consider debt consolidation to manage repayments. So debt is unavoidable unless you come from a wealthy family. But, according to springboard.com a digital career such as digital analyst can be extremely lucrative so that it can help to repay your student debts faster. With an average entry-level salary of $50,000 to $75,000, data analysts are paid well above the median household salary in the U.S. The same argument applies to a variety of technical digital careers, excluding digital marketing.
#3. Digital technology moves faster than studies
Unfortunately, digital technology moves extremely fast, so that it’s likely that your digital degree may be outdated by the time you come out of university. In 28% of graduates feel that their digital study courses were outdated and didn’t prepare them adequately to the expectations of the modern world. Across the world, similar complaints can be heard in the USA, in Europe and Asia. In fact, while studying digital technology opens the path to an exciting career, it is pointless without proper work experience.
In a word, a digital career offers the promise of high-paid jobs, but it comes at the risk of encountering debts and coming across outdated knowledge. Tread carefully on the digital path!
Is Your Student Interested in a Digital Career?
Let’s face it; the world is changing at a rapid rate. One of the things this has a big impact on is jobs and the labour market. If you choose the wrong career, it could all go horribly wrong if new technologies make your redundant in a decade or so. That’s clearly not something anyone wants to go through. So, you should start looking for a digital career that has legs. That way, you won’t be left behind by the tides of change.
Security Analysts
These days, every company out there is in need of people who understand security matters. It’s a huge issue, and it’s one that is not going to go away anytime soon. When companies have money and information, they are immediately targets for hackers and cybercriminals. This is something that all companies are worried about and thinking about. As a result, security companies are more successful than ever, and security analysts are the one that are most in demand. So, this career path definitely has legs.
Data Management Specialists
Data is a big deal right now, and that’s only going to increase in the years ahead. People who can read and interpret data and make it useful to companies and organisations are increasingly in demand. And that makes data management and data analysis great things to get into if you’re looking for a career path that offers something that is a little different. Access training for Microsoft might be a good place to start if you want to understand more about data and databases. See if it’s something that interests you at all.
Product Designers
This is one career that is not going anywhere. It requires very strong digital skills, and it’s something that companies require as they look for ways to get their products notice in a competitive market. And the great thing about creative careers like this one is that they are not going to be taken away by computers or robots in the future. That’s something that is simply not going to happen, so you won’t need to worry about it at all. Product design might be the ideal future-proof job for you.
Nanotechnology Specialists
The name might sound cool, but this career path has much more going for it than that. Many people believe it to be the future of everything from engineering to medicine. It’s a very complex field with lots of different strands. It’s thought that nanotechnology will make our lives safer, and could even be used to detect early signs of serious illnesses in the future. So, it’s a great time to start learning more about this and making it your career path of choice. Read more about it and learn what it all means before you decide whether or not it’s something you should consider getting involved with.
As you can see, there are plenty of options out there if you want a modern and digital job that is going to be in demand for a long time to come.
How to Choose a Career Path Before College
Many college students would like to get a job as soon as they graduate from college. However, this is not always the case for many of them mainly because they had not decided on which career path to take before college. Unfortunately, this situation is replayed in the lives of many graduates making it clear that the decision on which career path to take should be made before applications to colleges are sent out. Here are some tips to ensure that you do not fall in the same trap of selecting a college before deciding on the best career for you.
- Work backwards
After high school many students typically start looking for colleges that they would want to attend, then select a major and finally decide on the career they would like to pursue. However, this is not right and things should actually be done the other way round, with the choice of a career path being decided on first and then the rest follow. You should picture yourself filling in application forms for a job that you are passionate about many years after college.
- Choose a career you love
Do you know what you enjoy doing? In most cases, the answer to this question will make it easier to choose a career that you are passionate about. Always look into career possibilities that match your personality and in the long run will satisfy your needs for years to come. If your interests seem to be all over the place consider narrowing them down to at least three areas and choose a career that will march them perfectly. Also you can try out online tests that help people find a career path that go with their personality.
- Take a career test
The goal of a good career test is to match you to a group of careers based on certain parameters. Career tests are typically multiple choice and take under 30 minutes to complete. They match you based on your personality. For example, they could match you to specific careers based on your skills, interests, abilities, etc. A good career test will not give you absolute confidence in choosing a specific career. However, they certainly can help you develop or narrow down a specific group of careers and that is half the battle in making your career plan. Here is a free career test that takes a few minutes to complete and custom matches you to over 1000 well paying careers.
- Select the right college
When you have settled on the career path you would like to pursue in the future, it is time to choose a major and a corresponding college. Although colleges to choose from are many, research on the best ones in the field that want to pursue so that you get the best education possible in the area. These colleges are also likely to offer several options in terms of majors that you can selecting according to your interests.
Overall, having an idea of the career you want to have in the future as you select colleges will keep you focused and motivated to work towards your dream profession.
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Today’s guest post is from Aaron Ramsey, the owner and writer for Eapplicants.com, an online resource for job seekers to find all the information they need on today’s largest companies.