Why do we act like some things in life, such as career planning for our teens, is such a mystery? That we just have to blindly hope that our teen will somehow figure it out on their own. With the cost of college continuing to rise, every year, we can’t afford to allow career planning to remain obscured. Yes, your teen may magically discover what they are called to do with their life while at college. Or they may just spend thousands of dollars to end up with a oh so useful history degree (gulp). Thankfully, there is support and help, for your teen, with career planning! Major Choice is cutting through the misconceptions and carving a clear path to helping teenagers choose a career path.
Helping Teenagers Choose a Career Path
Note: Thank you to Major Choice for sponsoring this post. While Major Choice was generous enough to support this post and allow us to try their product, all the opinions are from my own personal experience. This post may contain affiliate links. If you purchase through a link The Reluctant Cowgirl will receive a small commission, at no additional cost to you, used toward keeping this blog going. Read all my disclosure here.
What is Major Choice Career Exploration Course
Major Choice is the world’s most comprehensive career path exploration course for teens and college students, designed and developed by Brad Duquette and Ed Goyette.
After realizing that so many teens and young adults were struggling to find their best career match, Major Choice was created. With its unique design, Major Choice takes 16-24 year olds through a journey of self awareness, career knowledge, and industry demands through a framework called PathFinding™.
Instead of a simple one time career assessment or a personality test, teens are guided through 3 stages to discover their best MAJOR CHOICE!
Experience the Major Choice Career Planning Difference
Imagine…
- Your teen knowing several career options that are perfectly suited to their personality.
- Quickly assessing whether college or a trade is best for your student’s personality and core values.
- Saving thousands of dollars as your teen will complete college early or on time since they know what major to choose.
- Skipping the after college struggle years, as your young adult will be trained and ready to jump into their chosen profession.
- Relishing the satisfaction of seeing your child in a career field they LOVE!
How Major Choice is Helping Teenagers Choose A Career Path
Major Choice is split into three separate components: Self-Discovery, Career Discovery and Outreach. Teens, with the support of a mentor, work their way through each mission. They will learn more about themselves and the career options to which they are best suited!
Let’s look at the missions and learn how Major Choice is helping teenagers choose a career path!
Mission 1: Self-Discovery Career Path
The first stage that Major Choice takes students through is called: Self-Discovery! The Self-Discovery mission is way more than a simple personality test.
Major Choice knows that there are great limits to personality tests. While personality tests can be useful and even fun, they are very limited on the information they can give, especially when taken by a teen. As teens, we often don’t know ourselves all that well. Teens struggle to know the realities of life, even what things they will or will not love. Which is why, as a teen, working in a museum archive sounded interesting to me on paper. But the reality of working in a windowless room with no people interaction was a dream killer for me.
Personality tests can easily be swayed by a young test taker, leaving one with skewed results.
But Major Choice has your teen covered.
On Major Choice’s Self-Discovery Path, there are, of course, personality tests. But there are also soul searching questions about what values are most important to your teenager. There are thought provoking questions about life events that shifted their mindset. And the Self-Discovery portion even includes sections on influencers. And in this day and age, a teen’s favorite influencers is something every career planning program should be looking at, as our teens are ALWAYS on YouTube, Instagram and TikTok!
Career DNA
By the end of the Self-Discovery section students have what Duquette and Goyette refer to as a Career DNA! Career DNA is a blend of a student’s core values, personality, preferences, what type of environment they love to be in, and driving passions. In order for a student to “fall in love” with a chosen profession, their chosen career has to align with their 25 point Career DNA!
Mission 2: Career Discovery
Next, students will dig into various career fields to find more career options.
While hating life at my second real job, I stumbled across my dream job, in a book. Nothing like anxiety and dread to help motivate you to keep looking for your dream career. Before I saw my dream job on the pages of a library book, I had never even heard of such a position as a victim advocate.
By sheer desperation, I discovered what Major Choice has carefully mapped into its course: Career Discovery!
As students go through Major Choice, they will complete the second stage, called Career Discovery. As teens go through Career Discovery, they will learn of never before heard of jobs. Life is full of fascinating positions that you and your student have never even dreamed existed! Teenagers will deep dive into what different jobs entail, salaries and current job trends! This really helps teenagers choose a career path.
Mission 3: Career Outreach
Lastly, students will complete their career finding mission through Outreach!
Outreach may sound a little scary, but it is really a simple concept! Teenagers will be reaching out and connecting with professionals that are currently doing what your student believes they would enjoy doing. First hand information is the best when you want to discover what a career profession is truly like! And Major Choice even has a network of 300 volunteers that are willing to chat with your student!!
By talking with professionals, job shadowing, or getting together for a casual lunch date, your student will advance from head knowledge to a true understanding of the realities of a job.
For my local homeschool group, I created and hosted numerous college and career fairs. I would invite professionals to come and talk to the students about their jobs. The students’ understanding began to grow when they saw the huge variety within a single career field. Teenagers realized the variety in the form of a job’s schedule, types of people (or no people interaction), physical work environment, and more.
Outreach truly helps to take your student to the next level of understanding and career planning decision making. And by the time your teenager gets to Outreach, they are going to be so excited to learn more about their possible career field! Taking the initiative to reach out to professionals will come naturally for them!
Getting Started with Major Choice Career Planning!
It is simple to get started. And Major Choice has two purchase options, JUST for MY readers!
- Sign Up with the Best Option for your Family.
- OPTION A: Self-Paced Course with Professional Calls. For students and parents that wish to have a budget friendly option that still offers structure and accountability. You receive the complete online program with videos and worksheets. Parents may take on the mentor role to guide the teen through the program. PLUS Major Choice includes 5 professional calls with one of their trained education advisors to keep you and your teen on track.
- OPTION B: Guided Course with One on One Professional Major Choice Mentor. Your student will work one on one with a trained Major Choice mentor, meeting weekly so that students stay make steady progress. PLUS, students will have access to experienced career experts. And all at a price that is ONLY being offered to The Reluctant Cowgirl readers!! NOTE: You will be see the offer for the Self-Paced Course with Professional Calls. Once you click, you’ll see a SPECIAL OFFER (only for my readers) for the Course with the Professional Major Choice Mentor. OFFER ENDS SUNDAY, MARCH 19th, 2023!
- Log In. Your student will be prompted to visit the Major Choice website and log in. All you need is a gmail account to get started.
- Watch Videos. With Major Choice, there are videos and written instructions that introduce each new step, so it is easy to follow along for both parents, students and mentors.
- Choose a Mentor. One of the first steps that your student will be asked to do is to choose a mentor. If you chose the self-paced, a parent can act as the mentor or your student may choose a relative, family friend, teacher or coach. PLUS, you’ll receive 5 professional calls to help you and your teen stay on track. Or if you choose the Guided Course option, Major Choice to provide a mentor, they include their contact information.
- Work through the Missions. It takes around 6-10 weeks.
Head over here to discover more and pick your best option!
Review of Major Choice Career Path Exploration Course
Thanks to Major Choice, my daughter and I were allowed access to the career path exploration course! I was so EXCITED! My teen was slightly more reserved;)
What I Loved about Major Choice Career Planning Course
- Easy Set-Up. The course was simple to get started and access the Major Choice Dashboard.
- Lots of Videos. Each step of the way, the new topic is introduced on video by a bubbly twenty-something year old that your teen will relate to!
- Affordable Price. For less than HALF the cost of just ONE college credit hour, your teen can be led through a complete, comprehensive career planning course, with coaching calls. That really puts things into perspective. We spend months and months researching different colleges. We go to visit colleges and spend weeks applying. And we spend thousands and thousands on college. Why then do we spend almost no time and money exploring what career path our teen should major in?
- Focus on Passion Plus Job Realities. I appreciate that Major Choice delves deep into career research, looking at the realities of a job such as the salary. But Major Choice is also all about helping a young person discover what makes them tick and brings them personal satisfaction. As a parent, I am all about wanting my teen to find a sustainable way to make a living, that also makes them happy!!
- Mentor Program. Major Choice allows your student to pick someone to be their mentor as they walk through the course, PLUS gives you 5 professional calls with a Major Choice mentor. This creates feedback to your student and accountability. And Major Choice has emails that are sent right to the chosen mentor to keep them connected and informed each step of the way. OR if you choose the second course option, with the professional Major Choice Mentor, parents can relax as their teen will have tons of coaching help as they work through the course!
- In Depth Career Course Just for Teenagers. As I mentioned, often career planning with teens can be challenging. If you ask teens questions too directly about what they want to do in life, you get a deer in the headlight look. And if you just use personality tests, then the results may end up very skewed. Major Choice walks your teen through such a wide variety of missions, uncovering little bits of information about themselves as they go. This method makes the career planning course more fun. And the answers from your teen will be way more authentic.
- College AND Trade Career Course Track. I love that Major Choice is open to the fact that not ALL students want to go to college. My daughter has been exploring other options for after high school, other than college. And it has been a little unnerving. But she is super hard-working, serious minded and an out-of-the-box thinker. So I know she’ll do great whatever she puts her mind to. And I love that at Major Choice, my daughter is taken seriously as a student who may choose a different career path other than college.
- Learned More About My Teen! My favorite part has been learning more about my teen. I love career planning, but even I was shocked to learn some new things about my teen as we went through the course. Thankful for the fresh insight into my teen as the new information will help us in mapping out her future!
My Only Cons to Major Choice Career Course
- Major Choice is set up on its own course platform. If you are used to Teachable or some other course platform it does look a little different. So while it was fairly easy to set up, I did keep circling back around to make sure I was truly on the main dashboard.
- We encountered a little trouble when we were taking one of the personality tests. Major Choice personality test is hosted on a separate site. When we had trouble, we had to reach out for help. And it was not super easy to find the support email. But once we emailed them, we heard back in just a few hours, and they explained what we needed to do. NOTE: Since our feedback they have made the support help email easier to find!
Smart Investment to Helping Teenagers Choose Career Path
Major Choice is an amazing career planning course! And I love that Major Choice is making their course available to my readers at TWO affordable price options. There really isn’t any other career exploration course out there like it!
Are you ready to help your teen discover the BEST answer to their Major Choice?
If you are pinning your hopes that your teen’s school will help your student with career planning, then it’s time for a reality check. I went to a college-prep private school. EVERY single student went on to college. Every. Single. One. And yet, even at that school career planning was pretty broad and limited. Imagine a school with thousands of students and a few swamped counselors that have the modern day pressures of too much work and paperwork. Do you really want to pin your teen’s life plans on that?
No Way!
So if you are unsure on how to guide your teen in discovering their best career field, then Major Choice is the BEST choice for your family. Experienced help, affordable price, and teen geared course!
Head over here to get started today and find your teen’s PERFECT Major Choice! OFFER ENDS SUNDAY, MARCH 19th, 2023.
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