College Orientation and Life Career Planning at Bemidji State University

This text is designed to give students an opportunity to use critical thinking skills, group interaction, assignments, and presentations to explore and analyze their values, skills, interests, and career goals. This course enables students to explore areas of interest and/or to focus on an already established area of interest by providing time to research national and regional employment trends, salaries, and employment outlooks. Key elements of the course include values clarification exercises, ethics on the job, job shadowing, a service learning component, and interest and personality inventories. Several career assessments are administered and analyzed, including StrengthsQuest, FOCUS, Self-Directed Search (SDS), Do What You Are or Myers–Briggs Type Indicator, and Fundamental Interpersonal Response Orientation-Behavior (FIRO-B). Upon completion of the course, students can describe the process of career development, discuss the role that their values, interests, and abilities play in their career decision making, and focus their academic career toward an area of interest worthy of continued exploration.