Career Exploration

Career Exploration is simply learning about various occupations and their "fit" with your unique career preferences, e.g. the skills, interests and values you want satisfied by your career. Ideally, you engage in career exploration during or after identifying your career preferences through self-assessment. 

Career assessments, or interest inventories,  are tools that are designed to help individuals understand how a variety of personal attributes, impact their potential success and satisfaction with different career options and work environments. Examples of interest inventories: ONET Profiler, YOUSCIENCE,  and CareerOne Stop.

Career Exploration Resources- Univ of Berkeley

O*NET Interest Profile

CareerOneStop Interest Inventory

Photo Career Quiz

Pictorial Interest Inventory

YouScience

TRANSITION PLANNING 

Transition planning is a process to help students with an Individualized Education Plan (IEP) decide what they want to do after high school. It also helps them figure out how to get there. The purpose is to help teens prepare to be independent young adults. IEP transition planning is more than just a hopeful exercise or brainstorming session. During planning, teens work on specific goals. They get services and do activities to help achieve these goals. At the heart of the transition process is the transition plan. This is a required part of a student’s IEP. To develop it, the IEP team works with a student to identify strengths and interests. These, in turn, guide planning. The IEP transition plan has two important pieces: postsecondary goals and transition services (plus activities). See examples of IEP transition plans for career- and college-bound students:

Example Career Planning Transition Plan

Example College Bound Transition Plan

Transition Service Examples

Vocational Rehabilitation Supports

Students are encouraged to take a leading role in IEP transition. In fact, the IEP team must invite a student to meetings where transition planning is discussed. If the student can’t attend, the team must make sure the student’s interests and desires are considered. Watch an expert give an overview of a successful transition plan.