Add a Trip to the College Bookstore

Recently, I went with my sister-in-law to help her pick up books for her college classes this fall. Not wanting to hover, I started to ramble around the aisles and pick up books that look interesting (and some that didn’t). Somewhere between Computer Science and Horticulture it struck me – there really are a lot of cool careers out there…something for everyone. I never considered mechanical engineering as a field of study, but after spending three minutes flipping through books and seeing the kinds of projects they work on, I kind of wish I had.

How many of your students have never had three minutes to consider a career field?

Schools and parents are great today about having students visit colleges to find out where they might like to go to school. Here’s a suggestion: next time, encourage them to stop by the college bookstore to spend a half hour browsing books of the fields of current interest and those that might inspire interest. The activity can be applied to any type of college and can be accomplished individually or with groups. And…it’s free! No fee to use this “career interest inventory.”

Yes, books are “old school” – you can send them to a college’s online book store to do a similar activity, but it’s not the same. We all have a emotional connection to books from childhood; there’s something about feeling the pages and seeing the words and pictures on paper that speaks to us in ways that screens cannot. And what decision is more emotional than choosing a career field and college?

Career Development tip for the week of August 21, 2008