Here are some suggestions for how to get started exploring your options for life after SHS. Get started early: ideally, you should begin this process in the tenth grade or even earlier. If ASPIRE mentors are not yet available to work with you, you can still complete some of the following assessments and explore options for life after high school.
1. Make an appointment to meet with an ASPIRE mentor. To do this, stop by the ASPIRE office on campus or check with Steve Moser or Joe Cullivan in the counseling and student services office.
2. You and your ASPIRE mentor will begin to complete a "High School Student Tracker" so that your mentor may gather information about you that will help him or her to assist you.
3. Take the ASPIRE Intake Survey: Intake Survey
4. Create a username and password in Oregon Career Information System (CIS): Oregon CIS
Write down your username and password and keep them handy for future use.
5. Create a personal portfolio in CIS starting on the CIS Home page
a) Click on the "+" sign next to "How Do I Get Started?"
a) Read "Create a Portfolio"
c) Read "Education Plan/Career Plan"
6. Click on "My Portfolio" underneath your name in the blue box on the Home page
Fill out as much information as you can, working at this as you have time
Be sure to write the information just as you want it to appear on paper
7. Click on "Exploration" and then on "Interest Profiler." Take the assessment (180 questions) to help determine your interests and best-fitting careers
8. Explore the other assessments in the "Exploration" category and follow any that interest you.
9. Click on "Occupations" and explore any of the links you find there
10. Click on "Education" and explore the links
11. Click on "My Portfolio" and explore all the activities available to you as you complete and use your portfolio
12. Go the "Counseling and Student Services" page at the Siuslaw High School website: SHS Counseling and Student Services Here you will find a number of useful links, including links to ASPIRE, Oregon Student Aid, FAFSA (FInancial Aid), SAT registration, Oregon colleges, and many scholarships.
13. If you want further help with your college and/or career path, explore College Navigator.
13. Once you have become familiar with the CIS and SHS websites, start exploring this site. There many links here that you will find useful. Pay particular attention to the following pages of this site:
Enrichment and Summer Programs
Summer Jobs
Many colleges and universities look for experiences that students have had, as well as work that they have done outside of school. A part-time or summer job, an enrichment program, or community service will strengthen your application.
14. Please click on the link below to Student Questionnaire, print the questionnaire, and complete as much of it as you can. Then return it to your ASPIRE mentor.
15. You may wish to click on the link below to Student Checklist to print out a list of actions, scores, names, and other items that need to be tracked. You may want to have your mentor keep this checklist in the ASPIRE office for reference each time you meet.